This is an Ildhafn award. It is granted for service to the Barony.

Traditionally an alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law.

Award of Arms. This is and SCA. award. It is often one of the first that someone receives in the SCA.

A steel helm from the 14th century.

The bascinet could be open faced, or visored.

When worn with an open face a Great Helm was sometimes worn over the top for additional protection. This could then be discarded for better visibility.

A common visored style was the Pig-Faced bascinet

This is an Ildhafn award. It is granted for exemplary courtesy

Burgess originally meant a freeman of a borough or burgh. It later came to mean an elected or unelected official of a municipality, or the representative of a borough in the English House of Commons

Charcloth is used to aid in the lighting of fires. It is made from cloth, such as linen, that has been charred or burnt. The method to make charcloth is fairly simple. You either place small pieces of cloth in a metal tin, or in a pot and then cover with sand. You add this to a fire so that the cloth heats up and start to smoulder. The aim is to pre-burn your cloth. Once the holder you have the cloth in has been added to a fire you wait for it to start smoking, this is the cloth inside burning, after a while remove the pot or tin from the fire and check the cloth. Ideally it should have turned black. It will be fairly fragile, if it hasn’t charred then add it back to the fire and wait a bit longer.

Cluain is a Canton in the SCA Kingdom of Lochac.

Geographically it is the Waikato region of New Zealand.

The Crescent Isles is the name for New Zealand within the SCA. It is a part of the kingdom of Lochac

This is an Ildhafn award. It is granted to those that do great service to the Barony but do not reside within its lands.

Traditionally the Freed of the City would be grated to notable citizens or visiting dignitaries and arising from the medieval practice of granting respected citizens freedom from serfdom.

A french seam is something my mother taught me, that she was taught to do to prevent fabric from fraying before the invention of the overlocker. I now use this method for medieval hand-sewn garments. I don’t actually have any evidence that it is “”period”” or historically accurate, but given that it’s a practical solution to fraying edges I see no reason to think that people in the past wouldn’t have used this technique. It’s elegantly simple. First, with wrong sides facing, pin and sew a running seam about 5mm from the edge of the fabric (approximately! Can vary depending on all sorts). I often sew this seam about 10mm in and then trim the rough edge back, if there is room to do so.