Ostgardr Commons
January 16, 2015

Transcribed by Maria Dedvukaj and Angela Ferber

The meeting was called to order at around 8 P.M.

Officers' Reports

Knight Marshall:

Sunday afternoon fighter practice has been irregular. A Thursday evening fighter practice hosted by MSR in Wantagh will take place..

Exchequer:

There is money in the account.

Athena’s Thimble funds have been transferred to the East Kingdom.

Steps are in motion to give Whyt Whey their money for their own account.

Reports for Musician’s Day is almost complete. There are a few details that need to be clarified and report will be submitted.

Richard, our current exchequer, announced he will not be taking another term (ending end of 2015) and a new deputy exchequer needs to be recruited.

Whyt Whey:

Due to weather, no fighting has been taking place at Grant's Tomb.

A&S has begun again at Piglet’s: Evening in the Solar.

Website: In limbo but will start looking into upgrading.

Seneschal to check with Piglet on status of warrant as WW webminister

Will set up their own bank account within a week.

$300.00 check was received from the Cloisters for the Ft. Tryon event.

Actively seeking officers

Vicereine/BrokenBridge:

Things are happening:

Social and monthly meetings are taking place: 12^th Night took place at the Vicereine’s

Brunch with Cadfael and A&S Night are on the schedule.

Suuder and John/Thormunder have communicated and moving toward Suuder officially becoming Senechal of Brokenbridge.

Viceroy:

Regalia initiative is underway and led by Angela

"Court in a box" has been completed and waiting for banners to be created for Ostgardr and Cantons.

Requesting ideas for regalia for champions, etc.

Chatelaine:

Inventory of gold key has been completed and request for donations has been made, specifically tunics and fabric.

Sofya will work with Jackie to create a ‘gold key workshop day” to make tunics for the gold key.

Another fabric shopping day will be scheduled in March.

Enigma bookstore (formerly bricks & mortar, now without a storefront) has asked if Ostgardr would like us, for a fee, to participate in a local Sci-Fi / Fantasy event at the LaGuardia. Ostgardr officers declined the offer.

Archery:

Nothing is happening due to cold weather.

A&S/Lada:

Lots of A&S taking place in the Province and Cantons

"Court in a box" completed and working on banners.

8 foot long Ostgardr Silk Standard has been completed as well

Brekke will be teaching a cooking class

Artisans' Village is accepting applications,

Jackie:

Announced she is the Southern Region Accessibility Deputy

She has the autocrat accessibility checklist for anyone who has questions and is interested in more information. Asks that autocrats review the checklist when considering event locations. Jackie can send the internet link.

EVENTS/DEMOS:

Bear’s Tavern:

March 7-8^th

Lions in Winter:

February 21^st

Viking Day:

May 16^th

Riverdale Riverfest:

Approved for June 4^th

Beau Geste Tournament:

Sir Valgard will set dates for next 3 Beau Geste Tournaments and publicize.

Ostgardr Day of Champions Event:

April 18^th, 9 AM to 6 PM., Episcopal Church of St. Margaret, Plainview, NY (where An Dubh challenge was held). Sir Valgard will autocrat. A cook is needed (dayboard only) then a budget will be created. Also discussed including youth activities, possibly developing both a youth-centered A&S segment and a chivalry-based tourney.

Upcoming Meetings:

Next Ostgardr Commons Meeting February 20^th: Bish’s house.

March 20^th Ostgardr Commons: Johanne will host unless someone else wants to.

April 17^th: Ostgardr Commons? (night before Ostgardr Champions) location needed.

Ostgardr Officers' meeting, including canton Seneschals, scheduled for Sunday February 8^th at Johanne’s.

February Commons will be 7:30 p.m. Friday, February 20, 2015,  at the home of Gy Dioguardi, 16 Sandy Court, Port Washington, 11050

By Car

➦From the West:
Take best route to I-495/LIE-eastbound.  Take exit 33 toward Community Dr./Lakeville Rd.  Merge onto Horace Harding Expy.  Turn Left onto Community Dr.  Turn right onto Northern Blvd. 
*Turn left on Plandome Rd.  Continue onto Main St.  Turn left onto Shore Rd.  Turn right onto Soundview Dr.  Turn left onto Sandy Ct.  Destination will be on the left.

➦From the North:
Cross Island Pkwy to exit 31E for New York 25A E/Northern Blvd. E.  Then, see * above.

By Mass Transit

Take LIRR Port Washington train to Port Washington. Then, take N23 bus or call car service.

---

We maintain a Webbed database of upcoming early-music concerts in the Østgarðr area. Click here for the latest.

---

A Story of Tragic Love, Pre-Romeo and Juliet

by Maestra Ana de Guzman

Long before Shakespeare took the story of two Veronese star-crossed lovers and adapted it to the stage, an Aragonese town north and west of Valencia had a story of its own, and it may have really happened. The year was 1217, and Don Domingo Celada was the judge-magistrate of the city of Teruel. In his city were two noble families of influence, the Seguras and the Marcillas. The daughter of the first was the beautiful and pious Isabel. The son of the second was Diego, brave and tall.

The families had long known each other, and the two had played together as children, but by the time they had come of age and fallen in love, Diego de Marcilla's family had fallen on hard times, and was poor. Isabel de Segura's father forbade the union, setting his sights for Isabel on the very rich Don Pedro de Azagra of Albarracín, a nearby hill town to the west.

Not to be deterred, the brave Diego struck a hand-shake agreement with Isabel's father. Diego would go into the world to make his fortune. If he returned within five years with enough wealth to please Isabel's father, Diego and Isabel would marry. Three days later, Diego de Marcilla left Teruel through the Zaragoza gate, the fire of youth in his veins.

No one heard from him for the next five years, and at the end of the term, the Segura family forced Isabel to marry Don Pedro de Azagra.

The wedding was convened at the church of San Pedro. The couple were married, but even as the bells ceased to ring, there was a clatter of hooves at the Zaragoza gate. The watchmen ran ahead to inform the crowd gathered at the church door that Diego de Marcilla had returned, richly garbed, but exhausted from having ridden hard for many days. It was the fifth anniversary to the day of his departure from Teruel. Unfortunately, the Segura family had counted the deadline as the day the agreement had been made, only three days before.

Diego flung himself from his horse and ran to Isabel, pleading with her to marry him, but she pointed out that this was impossible, as she already had a husband. Diego then begged her to give him one kiss to carry him as he wandered the world alone. This, too, she refused, whereupon the archives report that Diego was not able to bear the anguish. Something broke inside him, and he collapsed, dead at her feet.

The next day, at the same church of San Pedro, his funeral services were held, to which Isabel came, dressed in her wedding gown. Silently she walked down the nave and advanced to the bier, where she knelt to give Diego the kiss which in life she had denied him, but as she did so, she, too, died, falling prostrate upon the corpse of her beloved.

The two deaths from love, something never before heard of, so impressed Teruel, that the citizens demanded that Isabel and Diego be buried side by side, and surprisingly, the church allowed it. The fame of the two lovers spread beyond the town's borders, and when repairs were made to the church in the year 1560, the graves of the two lovers were uncovered and the remains transferred to a more prominent spot. 

Giovanni Boccaccio told much the same story in 1353 under the name of "Girolamo e Salvestra," including some salacious and amusing material. Did Boccaccio hear reports in his travels of events that happened in 1217 and spice it up with his pen? Or did someone from Teruel happen upon the Boccaccio story in the 1400s and fit it to the local legend? I tend to think that anyone hearing a spicy story is not going to leave out the good parts when the tale is retold, that hearing a simple story and adding a little heat to it is far more likely. There was a judge by that name in Teruel in 1217; the coats of arms at the foot of the two sepulchers correspond to those two families, but that is all we know for certain.

It is sad that no contemporary work was written about them; it was not until 1837 that the Spanish playwright Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch brought this story to the Spanish stage. Closer to our time, a French film, Les Amants de Teruel, was made about them in 1962.

In the late 1950s, the town, realizing that it had one of the top attractions of Spain, commissioned the sculptor Juan de Ávalos to fashion new sepulchers for the lovers, in a chapel set aside just for them. The alabaster statues of two young people asleep lie atop their resting places. Their faces are turned slightly toward each other. Diego's right hand lies outstretched toward Isabel, her left hand hovers over his right, but they never touch, for they had not been married.

There are cynics, naturally. There is a couplet that schoolboys like to recite when they are forced to see these statues on a field trip:
Los amentes de Teruel. Tonta ella y tonto el.
"The lovers of Teruel. She was a fool and he as well."

Did they exist?

I, and most of Spain, would like to believe that they did.

---

Have at Thee! Special Forces Veteran Revives Medieval Combat Skills

Although folk in the historically-informed combat community may dispute the "revival" claim, it's nice to see Western Martial Arts in the mainstream press....

Magna Carta Worth £10m Found in English Municipal Archives 

A forgotten copy of the 1300 edition of the pivotal English legal document was discovered in the history department files of the Kent County Council in Maidstone (but it actually belongs to the town of Sandwich).

Possible Anne Boleyn portrait found using facial recognition software

Most artistic likenesses of Henry VII's second Queen were destroyed after her execution, but California researchers, using "state-of-the-art" face recognition, suggest that a privately-owned painting may be another Anne Boleyn portrait.