Notes for AoA scroll for Conn Mac Sainrith mhic Bhranain, by His Lordship François Thibault

By the Royal Command of Balfar et Luna, Rex et Regina Orientales, Conn MacSainrith mhic Bhranain, in recognition of his service in organizing the Canton of Ynys y Gwaed, in the Barony of Ruantallan, is hereby awarded these Arms, to be borne without let or hindrance:


Done by Our Hands in the Barony of Ruantallan this XXVth day of November, Anno Societatis XXX.

I chose to pattern this scroll after a page from the Book of Kells, one which I have used twice before, in different ways (see Brianna Ariella Durand and Cadfael ap Madoc ap Dafydd). I took a layout class at Pennsic this year, where the instructor pointed out that, in Kells, most pages have either illumination or text; she suggested that one could do a scroll with illumination on the left and the text on the right. I considered this, but nearly all the illuminated pages in my abridged copy of Kells were far too complicated. One, though, grabbed my imagination, as it has before. It is page 124R, part of the crucifixion story from the Gospel of Matthew; some of the text forms an X (perhaps to represent the cross?), and the border is indented to form spaces with people looking on. As you can see, I adapted this layout. The text forming the X is "Balfar et Luna, Rex et Regina"; I'm pleased with the way it winds up emphasizing the Crown (and the parallelism between the upper and lower parts of the X), though I can't really take credit for it, as it just happened to turn out that way. I replaced the anonymous onlookers in the margins with Balfar and Luna (loosely copied from their picture in this year's Pennsic book).

Construction notes