Roman Scrolls in the SCA

 

This page is meant to be viewed side-by-side with the handout: .docx, .pdf.

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As a note, this is from like 2013, so some little things may be outdated. Also the handout that accompanies this was shamelessly consolidated from www.historyofinformation.com, Themes, "Manuscript Illumination" and "Manuscripts & Manuscript Copying"... because why reinvent the wheel?

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Challenges of Making Roman SCA-Style Scrolls

• Lack of surviving exemplars due to materials (degradation), natural disasters (like Vesuvius in 79CE), and the fall of the Roman Empire in 410CE

  • Early Roman is especially difficult as literature (which is what would have illumination, not court documents, deeds, etc.) did not get committed to papyrus rolls until about 300BCE. Even then, most rolls degraded over time, and those that did survive are too delicate to open (though new imaging techniques are making it easier).​

    • The Romance Papyrus (aka the Alexander papyrus) is one of the few surviving scraps of classical literary illustration on papyrus and it's from c. 100-200CE.​

  • Even once parchment starts being used, which is sturdier than papyrus, and we get the huge jump from rolled page to a flat codex, the problem of deterioration continues.

    • The first mention of literary works published in parchment codices at all is found in the works of the poet Martial in 84-86CE​

    • Our oldest surviving parchment was a fragment of De bellis Macedonicis from c. 100CE found in Egypt. This is also the earliest example of writing on both sides (which is the sort of codex Martial described)

  • While Rome fell in 410CE, the last surviving account we have is from c. 385CE -- but this is a historical account, not an illuminated piece of literature.

    • We also have a gap in exemplars from c. 400-600CE. At the beginning of the Dark Ages​, production of new manuscripts essentially ceases. As with many time periods with gaps in literature, stuff was destroyed, but what is unique about this period is that production of new manuscripts essentially ceased. The market for new books rapidly diminished and, once the market dried up, the means of production disappeared. This was not so much a s result of the physical destruction of either the readers or the bookshops, but rather because the traditional audience, namely the Roman senatorial class, within a couple of centuries dwindled in size and recycled itself as an ecclesiastical class with its own, albeit small, means of producing manuscripts.

• "Illumination" in papyrus rolls aren't what we think of as "illumination" in the SCA

• When you look up "Roman Illumination" on Google or what have you, many of the results are actually Medieval reproductions of Roman pieces, so you cannot assume the illumination is actually period Roman. (Good example: Vergilius Vaticanus -- most images you see of Virgil's work are actually codices from after Virgil's time, like Vergilius, from the late 4th c. CE --> Not that this means you can't use it for a Roman scroll. I've totally done this before to great effect.)

• The best estimations of what a Roman piece looked like would be the manuscripts that were produced as close to the era as possible, but even these are hard to come by due to the 400-600CE manuscript production gap, with rare exceptions like Vergilius.

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Note: These problems are not nearly as pronounced when talking strictly calligraphy versus illumination as all rolls and surviving scraps give a glimpse at the scripts over time. The hard part is then combining the proper calligraphy with the proper illumination style.

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Why This Doesn't Stop Us

• The most common solution (especially for newer folks, and I have only recently deviated from this in lieu of something more authentic) is to use an early period hand with a depiction of something Roman (I have done an image of a centurion that looked like a Roman centurion but looked nothing like the Roman depiction of a centurion with uncial as the script). People won't turn their noses at it -- most, in fact, with actually call it Roman. While I want to strive for more period accuracy, this isn't a bad solution.

• Even though many examples of Roman illumination are medieval reproductions, they are still a fantastic start. While we can't assume the illumination is directly copied from the original, we can hope that it's at least ballpark. If you look at most of these pieces of illumination and compare them to Roman murals/frescoes (of which there are MANY more survivors), or other exemplars, they are actually fairly close -- it just needs tweaks to complexity and shading techniques. So this may be a decent enough approximation of what a Roman manuscript may have looked like at the time.

  • The best of these to use are the few produced as close to Roman times as possible. There may not be many, but they are a great start!​

• Make a gloss-style scroll. There is no illumination for this, and we have plenty of period examples of earlier period scripts of Latin having a gloss (word for word translation between the lines) into Anglo Saxon or other languages in a later period script. You can also make it pop by doing big, bold Roman Rustic in black with space in between for the gloss in a bright red (this can be done in an uncial/Roman half-uncial to make it appear as a gloss made soon after the original production, or you can put insular minuscule or Carolingian as the gloss; great thing about gloss translations is that it really doesn't matter). These have no illuminations, but can be stunning all the same.

  • There is a slight difficulty with this as true glosses​ tend to be word for word, with word-over-word. This works fairly well in Latin to Anglo Saxon as they have similar grammatical structures, but not so much for Latin to English. As long as the English flows well enough though, it doesn't have to be word for word, and the English words don't have to match with the Latin below them. Just space them out and make it a gloss-style translation and no one will know the difference.

• Ignore manuscript-like media entirely. I do this for Norse scrolls too. I'll make scrolls to mimic carvings and that sort of thing all the time. And if you ever do a Greek scroll, look up boustrophedon; it's really freaking fun.

• In that same vein, use other forms of Roman art as inspiration pieces, like murals, mosaic, statues, etc. There have been a lot of scrolls I've seen go out that depict period statues or jewelry or mosaics, which are then combined with Roman Rustic or one of the Roman uncials. Again, not a "period practice", but not bad and DEFINITELY recognizable as Roman if done well enough to depict that non-manuscript art piece as close to life-like as possible.

  • Be careful when looking at statues though. There are a lot of "Roman" statues out there that people think are Roman but are actually post-period. There was a huge revival of Roman statuary, though that is a class for another time.​

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Above all, have fun with it. People will appreciate your effort -- even if you don't :)