r/sca

I went from simple “frying pan forge “ to gas forge, anvils other tools and safety. Will leave the link in comments if you are interested.

Bear of The North HEMA Club is recruiting new members. Learn the art of German Longsword as taught by medieval masters. Come and train with us regardless of skill level. Loaner equipment available. Trial period available for anyone wanting to just check things out, feel free to stop in!
For more info feel free to email:
bearofthenorthhema@gmail.com

Mondays 6:00pm-8:00pm
Tuesdays 6:00pm-8:00pm

The Grange
8085 Airport Rd.
Redding,CA 96002

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/06/30/roasting-whole-oxen/

There are few stereotypes about medieval food as persistent as the ‘roast beast’, and like most good stereotypes, it has a bit of truth to it. Being able to serve up an entire roast boar or ox displayed wealth and mastery of resources in a way not many other dishes could. That is why it was a traditional part of many public festivities, most notably the imperial coronations at Frankfurt. Franz de Rontzier’s 1598 Kunstbuch records instructions for going over the top, presenting an entire roast menagerie. This was, after all, Renaissance Germany where playing with food was mandatory and doing weird, outlandish things for status was Tuesday.

Of many roast dishes, and first of a roast ox

I. You scald (brend) an entire ox in water as you scald a pig and leave the head on. You tie the legs together with bast inwards (bent upwards at the knee joint?). Then you cut open the ox underneath the belly or halfway up and gut it, but so that the chest and the Ißbein (shins?) are not cut. Then you stick it in a spit and sew it shut again with bast or with a small rope (einer kleinen Linien). But the spit is made this way: You forge an iron rod that reaches four or five feet (Schuh) beyond the ox on either side. Then you add handles (Wellen) on both sides to turn the ox with. You also make holes through the spit so that the ox can be attached with other, smaller spits in order to roast it properly. Then you lay it on firedogs (Bratböck) that must also be made specifically for this purpose and fixed in the ground. Then you make two large fires on both sides, or you build a wall as high as a man is tall and make a fire (only) on one side. After it has roasted for an hour, three, or four, you are to slice (score?) the skin thinly and then stick it with the following animals and birds such as a lamb, suckling piglets, calves, geese, ducks, chickens or capons, hares, rabbits, and small birds. These latter birds are stuck altogether on small skewers and distributed all over the ox, stuck all around. When the ox is to be stuck (gespicket, ‘larded’) like this, you place it on a wooden table and the things you intend to stick it with is put into a wooden trough (Molden) and stick it between the ribs. You also break some of the ribs that way. But you must affix the large items you want to stick it with to the belly or on top of the back, and also on the hindquarter. But the small things are stuck on little skewers. In addition, you must have two large copper or iron frying pans and long-handled ladles that it is basted with. You also make a table with handles and wheels (Rullen) underneath on which you lay the roast ox and bring it to the table. You serve it on two tinned copper frying pans that must also be made specifically for this purpose, and when you take it off the table again, you you put it back on the aforementioned table and carry it away etc.

But if you do not want to bring it to the table, you serve it to everyone (gibt man ihn zum besten) and attach fools’ maces to it so the common servants can quarrel over it etc.

2 In the same way, you can also arrange and roast a deer or another piece of game.

Of an entire roast pig

I. You scald (brend) a pig in water, gut it, sprinkle the insides with ginger, pepper, and salt, and sew it shut again. But you leave on the trotters (Ißbein), chest and head and bend the feet upwards as you do with a suckling pig. Then you stick it on a spit, set it over half a fire, and after it has roasted for two hours, you stick it with the following birds such as geese, ducks, capons, chickens, pigeons, partridges, hazel grouse, pheasants, turkeys, and others as well as hares, suckling pigs, and other small animals. You also make sausages out of one pig and hang many of them off of it. You have an especially large pan made for this, have it tinned, and bring it to the table on that.

The beginning is not terribly surprising: you need a solid spit. Roasting an entire ox weighing several hundred kilos would have called for task-specific hardware. The ox itself is gutted and sewn up again, the legs fixed – I think pulled up against the torso to prevent them burning – and once it is affixed to the purpose-build spit and secured with skewers, it is roasted for a lengthy period. No doubt there was a specific skill to basting it that is not mentioned here.

The second step is just weird, though. Once it is nearly done, the ox is ‘larded’ (the word spicken means exactly that though it can also be read more figuratively as sticking something with pointy objects). Numerous smaller animals are inserted under its skin or affixed to it with skewers. At this point, it is possible they were uncooked and would be roasted in position on the ox, preventing the outside from burning or drying out too much while the inner part cooked through. The visual effect must have been striking, a hydra-headed beast slowly roasting over a big fire, staring at you with its many eyes.

Serving these to respectable company must have called for some pomp and ceremony as well as, if we can trust our ever practical-minded writer, a wheeled platform, but in many cases, the roast ox was intended as a gift to the spectators. To that end, de Rontzier suggests providing toy weapons for them to fight over it. Making hungry people fight over food was a popular spectator sport in much of Early Modern Europe, most famously in Naples, where people travelled long distances to see the enormous food fights. But clearly, similar entertainment could be had in Wolfenbüttel.

Royal archer was an amazing time and I appreciate the missilier medallion along with the legacy medallion. It was a huge and amazing surprise, even if the king did steal my dog. Chris did a great job with the shoot. There were amazing contestants! Along with the amazing shoot I have to congratulate lady Maighread and master Grimm! Lady Maighread also received their missiliers and Master Grimm received his mark!

Two arming swords from Sigi Forge for Cut and Thrust. I’m excited!

Excuse the retail plug but I'm trying to get the word out.
I'm a old school Graphic Designer (degree and everything) and several years ago I worked up a few peerages and the Midrealm into high res vector files since none really existed. That at has since essentially become the defacto Midrealm art used. Then, very recently started fresh high res renderings of all the peerages and other kingdoms, because there wasn't any constancy artwise, then decided why not stickers?! So now out of the blue I think I've instantly become the largest SCA sticker vendor! Every kingdom, every peerage and even some double peerages. Some western principalties coming soon. (Wholesale inquiries welcome)

All art is original, non-ai, and by me. I'm selling on my own site as well as Etsy, (Etsy has everything pictured as it is faster to list, I'm still getting there on my site) all of which you can get to by going to shop.medievalbeads.com

Most stickers are around $3 and are high quality, glossy, heavy duty vinyl, waterproof, uv protected, scratch proof, even dishwashing safe - and price includes US Mail delivery. (International is $2 more for letter mail)

Parrying dagger based off of a scan of a 16th C rapier in the Milanese style. Original piece attributed to Antonio Picinino (1509 - 1589).

I chopped it up in CAD and turned it into a crab style parrying dagger. Printed in PLA for prototyping purposes. Details of ornamentation look a little soft in the print but it looks better in person.

I think I have to dull the original finials a bit as the OG ones are a little pokey. I will also beef up the fillets on the ring guard.

This will probably be printed in stainless so it will tend to bend vs snap.

Castile blade.

Matching rapier in the works.

Comments and suggestions welcome.

Link to scan:

https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/milanese-rapier-b6a87326689545728e1725c62693a9a2

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/06/28/watch-out-guard-feeding-the-revolution-xxviii/

Among the mercenary units that kings could hire in northwestern Europe, the ‘Black Guard’ was top tier. Landsknecht soldiers in their impressive finery, they had fearsome reputation for terrorising the countryside and their legendary battlecry was “Waar di, buur! De gard, de kumt!” (Watch yourself, peasant! The guard is coming!). They had fought successfully in many conflicts up and down the North Sea shore, and in 1500, the king of Denmark retained their services to enforce his rule from Sweden to the Elbe river. But on 17 February of that year, the vaunted guardsmen were floundering helplessly in icy salt water and gluey mud, desperate to escape their fleet-footed pursuers. Many drowned, dragged down by the weight of their armour, slipping into deep ditches invisible under the flooded fields, or died from exhaustion and cold. Mockingly, the shout rose behind them: “Waar di, gaard! De buur, de kumt!“

The destruction of the free peasantry in most of the Holy Roman Empire is one of the untold tragedies of its history. These communities had come about through colonisation ventures when rulers called on their expert knowledge to open up land for intensive agriculture. On the shores of the North Sea, it had been the Dutch that brought their expertise in dyke-building and drainage, their communal laws, and their tradition of self-government. This lies at the heart of the peasant republic of Dithmarschen.

Dithmarschen, today part of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, lies on the North Sea coast north of the Elbe estuary. Its land is flat and bare, with only isolated stands of trees breaking up the horizon, and the wind from the west is a constant reminder of the threat posed by the sea. The flat fields are barely above sea level – many below – and if any of the storm surges that come every autumn and winter should break through the dykes, it could reach miles inland. This was where Dutch settlers and local families combined their efforts to build and maintain a system of dykes and ditches and form a free republic to coordinate their efforts and defend their claim to the soil.

This was far from the only such instance in German history. We have already met the Stedinger, a closely related case, and the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland also go back to similar structures. Many towns, too, maintained republican governments, but they all had to do so against the constant encroachments of noble lords and an imperial government convinced that feudalism was divinely appointed. Up until 1500, Dithmarschen had managed to fend off all attempts, claiming a loose allegiance to the archbishop of Bremen, but largely left to its own devices.

The word ‘peasant republic’ used to translate Bauernrepublik probably creates a slightly misleading impression. The Dithmarscher did not work tiny plots of marginal soil or live in huts, tending little gardens. Theirs was a society dominated by substantial landowners whose holdings passed undivided to the eldest heir. Farmhouses were large, with space to shelter the cattle and harvest under one roof. Their owners commanded large fields, hired farmhands to work them, and exported their grain and vegetables, cheese and meat through nearby port cities. Farmers kept abreast of current events and modern agricultural technology. Younger sons, excluded from inheriting lands, often went abroad to seek a living, remaining in touch with their old homes. Dithmarschen’s ruling class was tied into a wider world and quite aware what was going on.

Wealth in Dithmarschen expressed itself differently than in neighbouring Holstein or the cities of the Hanseatic League. There were no castles or manor houses for the nobility. Towns were modest, without grand cathedrals or guildhalls. Instead, the families that divided up power in the republic between them lived mainly on their farms. Their wealth showed in the stores of food and cash they kept, the quality of their clothing, and the size of their households. Some enjoyed imported luxuries, but many lived much like their neighbours. What made them rich was not distinction, it was abundance.

This is also expressed in its culinary traditions. Local food is plain, but rich. Large farms produced grain, mainly rye and buckwheat, meat, and dairy, but there was no equivalent to the variety of vegetables available in the warm climate of the south. Fruit grew well in the long daylight hours of summer, but market gardening had not yet come into its own, as it would in the 1600s, so the selection was limited. Today, the region is famous mainly for its cabbages (which are excellent). Hunting was all but impossible given there were no forests, but the coast had rich fisheries and a seasonal bounty of seals, shellfish, seabird eggs, and migratory birds.

We have no recipes surviving from the region this early, and no culinary records that I know of, but there are some sources that were created nearby that can give us suggestions as to what went on the table. Northern German cuisine used fruit extensively, and to this day, one thing Dithmarschen is known for is its fruit soups. Today, the recorded recipes mostly use elderberry. Franz de Rontzier’s extensive Kunstbuch of 1598 uses cherries and redcurrants, as is still customary further north in Denmark:

Of cherry soups

1. Item you break the cherries off their stalks and set them by the fire with wine. Season them with sugar. White bread is fried in butter and the soup is poured over the same and sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.

(…)

Of redcurrant soups

1. Item you prepare redcurrants with wine, with mace, small raisins, and sugar. Fry bread in butter and pour them over it. Then sprinkle it with mace and sugar.

Of course, this is a refined version of what was probably originally a more basic dish. Wine, spices, and sugar all were imports that needed to be paid for. The Mittelniederdeutsches Kochbuch includes instructions for making as cherry puree that looks like a good candidate:

4 Make a good cherry puree thus: Break the cherries raw in a pot. Pour off the thin part (juice). Then set the thin part by the fire and let it boil. Pass the other thick cherries through a strainer (dorchslach). When the stones are clean, take them away and set the puree by the fire. And let it boil well. And add to it honey and pepper. Bread, toasted from semmelen (fine white bread), pound that in a mortar and searce it through a spice sieve (krudeseff – a fine sieve). Or add to it honey cake (a variety of lebkuchen), pounded and searced finely. Let it boil and season it with ginger, cloves, pepper. After that, break up the stones altogether and make them dry. Pound them small in a mortar. Put them into the puree. And keep this as long as you wish.

This, too, is refined cuisine, involving spices and fine bread, or even a version of lebkuchen. But it is in fact important to remind ourselves that does not make it improbable these dishes were eaten in Dithmarschen. Historians and propagandists have long perpetuated a stereotype of simple, salt-of-the-earth types defending their homes that obscures the role diplomacy and military leadership played in the events of 1500.

What happened, in very broad strokes, was that King Christian I of Denmark, who was also count of Holstein, managed to convince the emperor to grant him Dithmarschen as a fief in 1473. The Republic of Dithmarschen protested this at the papal court which resulted in a lengthy series of lawsuits that lasted into the reign of Christian’s son Hans. In the end, legal argument mattered less than hard power. When King Hans demanded that the Dithmarscher swear fealty, pay a vast sum, and build three fortified royal castles, he knew they would refuse. He declared them rebels and raised an army in Holstein to subdue them.

The ‘Black Guard’ served as its professional shock troops, but the bulk of the army was made up of the chivalry of Holstein and their retainers. These men were feudal landlords of old standing, ruling over large estates worked by serfs, and they relished the prospect of rich loot and, quite likely, more land for themselves or their families. In sheer numbers, the force was more than adequate to take care of an enemy with no professional military, no major fortifications, and no armoured cavalry. Initially, things looked like they were indeed coasting to an easy victory. The capital of Meldorf fell after token resistance and was subjected to a brutal sacking. All that remained was to march to the sea and take control of the territory.

It was on the road to the coast, near the village of Hemmingstedt, that King Hans met real resistance. The Dithmarscher had built a rampart across the road and set up their few cannon to defend it. It appeared a desperate measure, and under normal circumstances it would not have been much of an obstacle, but as they began their assault, the army of King Hans found they had walked into an ingenious trap. The Dithmarscher had opened the sluice gates of their dykes, flooding the fields to either side of the road and turning thawing soil into deep mud impassable for horses or guns. Their men, lightly armoured and familiar with the territory, could move freely on foot, using spears or halberds to vault over the many drainage ditches that criss-crossed the plain. This method of overland travel was a local tradition until the 20th century. Meanwhile, the enemy floundered over unfamiliar ground, dropping into ditches and pools invisible under the shallow water. As a result, their marching column was blocked in along the road, unable to bring their force to bear, being battered from all sides. It was not unlike what the Ukrainian defenders managed to do to Russian tank columns in 2022, and the Danish force fell apart under their sustained attack.

After what had happened at Meldorf, the Dithmarscher were not inclined to mercy. Every guardsman they could lay their hands on was killed on the spot. Local tradition also records the instruction to “spare the horse and slay the man”, an inversion of the chivalrous custom of trying to take enemies prisoner for ransom if possible. At the end of the day, King Hans’ host had lost thousands of men killed and fled the field, leaving behind the battle flag of the kingdom, the Dannebrog. Few noble families of Holstein did not mourn husbands or sons that day. The victorious peasants divided the spoils and buried the fallen footsoldiers of both sides, but made a specific exceptions for cavalrymen. The bodies of knights and squires were left to rot and be eaten by carrion birds. Nobody here had any illusions about who the real enemy was.

This, incidentally, is very similar to what the Swiss called mala guerra, ‘bad war’, and it stood in stark contrast to the custom of war in German-speaking lands. It made grim sense in both cases. Nobles, knights and mercenaries made a profession of arms and had an interest in surviving defeat even if it meant being taken prisoner. They rarely had personal grudges against their opponents. Peasant armies, on the other hand, did not want to fight. Nor were they ever covered by the niceties of professional warfighting. Their interest was to make sure nobody who attacked them would do so again, and giving no quarter was a good way of driving home that lesson. It did not make them popular, but no scion of a knightly family that had to negotiate the right to recover a brother’s body from the field at Hemmingstedt would soon forget.

Peace was negotiated with the help of the Hanseatic cities of Lübeck and Hamburg, both of which had supported Dithmarschen with money and weapons. King Hans was forced to acknowledge the independence of the republic. The fact that a peasant army had defeated a king was widely noticed and celebrated in popular songs printed in broadsheet form. The blow to his prestige was such that he began facing trouble in other parts of his realm. Sweden fought for and eventually achieved independence not least because of this. We owe a fascinating document to the employment of landsknecht soldiers by the Danish side to these wars: The diary of Paul Dolnstein. I contributed an article on food and provisioning to a forthcoming book on this source edited by Danielle Mead Skjelver and Casper van Dijk.

History, unfortunately, did not end on this note. The republics of Northwestern Germany were unable to create a structure similar to the Dutch or Swiss, and their independence and power were whittled down over time. Dithmarschen became part of Holstein, ruled by Danish kings, though it was able to retain its political institutions to a large degree. Hemmingstedt continues to be a foundational story in local history.