Humanists

Humanists -- followers of Humanism.

See also: Renaissance.

Your SCA Persona Is A Humanist

• You almost certainly live in the Renaissance (although I'm going to go out on a huge limb here and call Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor an early humanist). If you are in Italy then you may live in the very late 14th century or more likely the 15th century, or anywhere else in Europe you would most probably live in the 16th century.
• You have a slightly superior attitude to life. You are well educated and probably profess to know a whole lot more about the meaning of life than you really do.
• You think that scholastics are very old-fashioned and out-dated. You have met the odd one (or, more likely, read a work or two) but are very unimpressed.
• You have a very material attitude to life. You are not a great spritualist but believe in living in the here and now, with a nod to the afterlife. You probably dress as well as you can afford, and it would not be uncommon for you to dress a little better than you can afford.
• You are moderately but not excessively religious. You believe in God but also believe that man can better himself on this earth without the guiding divine hand, mostly by the study of the classics and skills such as the trivium and quadrivium.
• You can quote several Greek texts and take delight in doing so. You know the works of a few ancient Greek writers and the names of a lot more of them, which you are happy to name-drop and wave in the faces of those around you.
• You aspire to having a university education, but you may or may not have one.
• If you have even a modest university qualification, you are want to be greeted with the title doctor, even if you have no understanding of medicine.
• You are well versed in the arts, possibly including poetry, painting (which you may know a bit about but not know how to do), music, dance, and perhaps drama.
• You have many more opinions relating to the martial arts than you have skills in that area. You can talk for some time about battle strategies, duelling, honorable combat, etc, but you may or may not be a great swordsman. In fact you may never have wielded a sword in anger.
• Oh, and in case it isn't obvious, you are literate. You can read and write, probably quite well, and you may even have seen a printed book or two (and you think they are a great idea and that that Gutenberg chap should be congratulated).
• Specific names to drop could be

- oratory (ie making speeches) ; Cicero ... 'Even Cicero could not have improved that speech'
- poetry ; refer to someone as 'a second Ovid', or 'our Dante'
- geometry ; emphasise how impressive modern, Italian style fortifications are, with their precise geometry, ravelins, counterscarps and so on
- philosophy ; emphasise you arent one of Aristotle's Monkeys (like a scholastic), but that Plato is far superior to him