And please educate me further - I've only ever encountered one cutoff date for SCA: 1650.
The SCA's governing docs (bylaws?) describe the organization as being about "pre-17th-century" history/culture/recreation/etc. That would mean through 1600. Early on, a convention arose for documentation (in competitions) to be lenient through 1650, on the grounds that they didn't have instantaneous publication the way we do and if it was written down by 1650 it was probably not unheard-of by 1600. (Obviously the amount of hand-waving this requires varies widely by field.) Over time this has caused many people to think that the target date is 1650.
I'm not one of the people who's hard-nosed (either way); there's a lot of stuff that we can't document pre-1601 that I enjoy (music and dance, primarily). But 1601-1650 is sort of a "gray zone" in my mind, and we should be mindful of the next stage of that argument -- "well, if it's written down in 1670 then it's probably good enough for 1650", which leads before too long into the 18th century.
I don't have 1670 Playford to hand. Years ago I went through both it and 1651 and found a lot of stylistic change, but it's been too long now for me to recall details. (And I have to run now, so my silence over the next couple days is not because I'm ignoring you.)
While playing for the opening gate dancing at Michigan Ren Faire, we discovered a stylistic difference. They were dancing "Hole In the Wall" in 4/4. Only problem is we learned it and recorded it, and it's in the 1651, in 3/4. Oops...
(no subject)
The SCA's governing docs (bylaws?) describe the organization as being about "pre-17th-century" history/culture/recreation/etc. That would mean through 1600. Early on, a convention arose for documentation (in competitions) to be lenient through 1650, on the grounds that they didn't have instantaneous publication the way we do and if it was written down by 1650 it was probably not unheard-of by 1600. (Obviously the amount of hand-waving this requires varies widely by field.) Over time this has caused many people to think that the target date is 1650.
I'm not one of the people who's hard-nosed (either way); there's a lot of stuff that we can't document pre-1601 that I enjoy (music and dance, primarily). But 1601-1650 is sort of a "gray zone" in my mind, and we should be mindful of the next stage of that argument -- "well, if it's written down in 1670 then it's probably good enough for 1650", which leads before too long into the 18th century.
I don't have 1670 Playford to hand. Years ago I went through both it and 1651 and found a lot of stylistic change, but it's been too long now for me to recall details. (And I have to run now, so my silence over the next couple days is not because I'm ignoring you.)
(no subject)