New World Spanish History Reenactors

I found this link Calderon's Company, a group of New World Spanish history reenactors out of Florida.

From their website:

Calderon’s Company is a group of “living-history” volunteers based at De Soto National Memorial, in Bradenton, Florida. The organization is named after Captain Pedro Calderón, who was left in charge of the base camp and port with approximately 100 soldiers and sailors, when Hernando de Soto began his entrada into La Florida in June of 1539. Members of the company have since 1993 researched, constructed arms and armor, and portrayed the garrison life of these sixteenth-century conquistadors in the Tampa Bay area. Additionally, Calderon’s Company has done public demonstrations at the De Soto Winter Encampment site in Tallahassee and at various State Parks and museums throughout Florida. As well, the group also frequently participates at sixteenth century reenactments in St. Augustine.

They also have a newsletter/blog: Entrada.

Medieval Spain

Below are links to a couple of short articles about Medieval Spain that I found on the Suite101.com Medieval History blog

* Medieval Spain: Al-Andulus, From The Visigoths to al-Mansur (711-1000)

* Medieval Spain: Reconquista, From the Taifa Kingdoms to Isabella and Ferdinand versus Granada (1000-1492)

Both articles were written by Paula Stiles, a frequent contributor to the Suite101.com blog.

Urraca of Castile and Spain

I found an article about Urraca of Castile and Leon on the Suite101.com Medieval History Blog. Urraca was a 12th century queen in Spain. Enjoy the article.

1492

Queen Isabella
A number of events happened in 1492: Spain was united when Granada was conquered, the Inquisition expelled the Jews from Spain, and Columbus made his first voyage to te new world. All of these events would have impacted the lives of people who lived in Spain during that era. As such, if you are looking to do a late period persona you may wish to do a little research on the period. Below are some short biographies and articles about that time:

Biographies

Queen Isabella of Aragon

King Ferdinand of Castille

Tomas de Torquemada

Christopher Columbus

Articles

The Conquest of Granada

1492: An Ongoing Voyage

The Inquisition

... of course, there is so much more to learn about this period. This is just a small taste of what is out there, both on the internet and it print.

Happy hunting on your persona research! - Xptobal

The Spanish "lisp": because of the king?

The story is that certain Spanish speaking people "lisp" their "z"s because a Spanish king had a lisp. Not so, says Gerald Erichsen in this article on About.com.

El Cid's sword

Greetings:

Has El Cid's sword been found? Or has a collector be dupped? You decide: read this link for a story about this sword.

This link was posted on the Spaniard in the SCA discussion list.

Spanish Personae Research Class at Grand Outlandish XXXIII

Greetings:

I will be teaching a “Spanish Personae Research” class at Grand Outlandish on Friday, May 26, 2006 at 3 PM. Information on the class can be found here.

Grand Outlandish will be held in the Barony al-Barran during Memorial Day Weekend. The site is near Edgewood, New Mexico which is east of Albuquerque. If you wish to find out more about Grand Outlandish, click on here.

Although my class will only be one hour long, I’ll be happy to talk to anyone at the event about persona research. I’ll will bring my Spanish history, literature and art book collection to use as reference material.

On Saturday, May 27th, I will also be teaching a class on “Titles, Awards and Precedence in the (Kingdom of the) Outlands.” Newcomers will find this class helpful.

In Service,

THL Cristobal Vazquez de Narriahondo

Exploring 13th Century Sephardic Jewish personas: Nahmanides

You can create your SCA persona by studying period role models. Therefore, I will begin offering links to historical biographies. I suggest that you do further research if you are interested in the subject.

In the 13th century there was a remarkable Sephardic Jewish rabbi by the name of Nahmanides. As a rabbi he was a learned man. He studied the Torah and the Talmud extensively and wrote many books on these subjects. However, what made him remarkable was the fact that he was allowed to freely argue against a Christian scholar about the nature of the Messiah and Christianity.

His story gives us a look at Sephardic Judaism in Spanish Christian kingdoms. For more information, please click on the following sites:

1. Wikipedia
2. Bookrags.com

-Cristobal