A broadsheet boast

[ursula]

On Saturday, glasseye and I went to Bardic Madness, a Northshield event which features a series of themed challenges.

One of the challenges asked entrants to memorialize another entry in the style of a sixteenth century broadsheet. I decided that this sounded fun, and went poking through English broadsheets at Early English Books Online (I have access through my university library). I found this fanciful "Callophisus" tourney challenge by Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel. Conveniently, another Bardic Madness challenge asked entrants to create a boast for a fighter.

Next, I needed a fighter. I talked to my friend Anpliça, and learned that Theodweard l'Archier planned to fight for her in Fall Crown; they gave me permission to boast extravagantly on their behalf. Theodweard's heraldry has an oak tree as the main charge. Elizabethan tournaments took themes from Greco-Roman mythology, as well as chivalric romance. I decided to reference the Oracle at Dodona, which was known for its rustling oaks.

With Dodona in mind, I wrote my text, and ordered some fake oak leaves from a milliner on Etsy to make a wreath. I don't own much in the way of sixteenth-century garb, but I remembered the pink dress that pandorasbox had given me.

I typeset my text the cheater way, in Word. I used the JSL Ancient and Blackletter fonts. This is a sixteenth-century style font which includes special characters such as the long 's' and a blackletter 'r' without the upright stroke. I tweaked some of my spellings to sixteenth-century spellings, using the "Callophisus" text and the Oxford English Dictionary. I didn't do a full OED check on my text, but I did change 'citizenry' to 'citizens' after learning the former word is out of period. My text as it looked before printing is here.

For the initial letter 'W', I made a two-inch by two-inch linoleum block print. I found some initial 'W's in the EEBO broadsheet collection for models; it turns out that "Whereas" is a common first word, so there were plenty to choose from. I tried to make the floral decoration look a little bit like the flower in Anpliça's arms. Unfortunately, when it came time to print my block print, I discovered that I'd discarded the thinner I had for oil-based ink in one of my recent moves. I had to use water-based ink instead, which is serviceable but doesn't print as cleanly.