History – Creative Administration

An Early Edition of the Society’s Governing Documents

The Society for Creative Anachronism is governed by a collection of documents known as the Organizational Handbook, which includes both the bylaws of the modern-day not-for-profit corporation (SCA, Inc.) and the policies that govern the “in-game” historical re-creation activities and the volunteer bureaucracy that supports it (“Corpora”).

These documents emerged incrementally over the first decade of the Society, as the initial leadership established a structure for the organization. Bylaws were established in 1969 and supplemented over the following years by a body of decisions made by the Board referred to as Corpora. By 1979 the framework had taken on a recognizable form organized along similar lines to the rules we use today.

From the Archives: A Prejudiced History of the SCA’s Board, 1969–1981

The attached document, written in 1985, reflects the impressions and opinion of Duke Siegfried von Höflichskeit, an influential co-founder of the SCA. (Although labeled as covering the period from 1969 to 1985, the narrative in this draft ends in 1981, and the author has confirmed he never completed or revised it.)

It’s archived on the West’s history site, but in an awkward format, as a scanned stack of typewritten pages; I’ve converted it to plain text below for ease of reading.

From the Archives: Annexation of the Southern Marches

When the Middle Kingdom was created in 1969, the borders between kingdoms do not seem to have been precisely drawn, but it appears that all of the seaboard states continued to be part of the East.

I’m not sure exactly what folks at the time had in mind, but I think it was something like this:

The borders of the East remained this way through 1972, by which time branches had been founded in Florida and Georgia.

From the Archives: Women as Fighters, Knights, and Sovereigns

For those with an interest in SCA history, it can be intriguing to follow a thread of discussion as Society policy is defined and changed over time. Below is one such example, showing a sequence of entries from the minutes of the Board of Directors discussing women in armored combat over the years 1975–1977.