Welcome to the

Shire of Flintheath

We are the local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism (S.C.A) The general geographical coverage expands most of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and a bit of Bedfordshire, get in touch for further information.

The shire is comprised of medieval enthusiasts with interests in armoured & rapier combat, archery, arts & sciences and much more, feel free to contact us for more.

The S.C.A is a non-profit, educational society dedicated to researching and recreating the Middle Ages in the present.

Saturday Crafts and Combat meetup!

Please check News & Updates, or our Facebook Page, regarding Saturday Craft and Combat Meetup!

You can also attend to know more about Flintheath and the SCA.

The location is Waterbeach Recreation Ground, CB25 9NJ
Link to Google Maps

Click on the image to view the entrance to the Rec (red arrow) as it can be hard to find.
The car park is to the left, mind the height barrier.

News & Updates

Shire of Flintheath - Cambridgeshire Medieval History Society - SCA

7 days ago

This week and next week we won't be at Waterbeach recreation ground as usual because we will instead be attending our main summer event at Manor Farm in Bourn (CB23 2SH) If you'd like to drop by and watch the site is publicly accessible!In the meantime, our Discord server is still available if you'd like to come and chat: discord.gg/AfucYV5Image: The Royal Pavilion at Bourn Summerfest 2021 CC BY-NC Becca Edney[Image description: a medieval pavilion in a field. A man stands in front of it to one side dressed in a brown medieval tunic and a hat and holding a decorated staff. A man and a woman sit under the pavilion on carved wooden chairs. The woman wears a yellow medieval dress with a black cloak and white veil. The man wears a beige and black jacket and breeches. The man and woman under the pavilion both wear crowns. /end id]#medievalhistory #medievalreenactment #livinghistory #middleages #reenactment #regrammysca ... See MoreSee Less

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Shire of Flintheath - Cambridgeshire Medieval History Society - SCA

2 weeks ago

Join us on Saturday from 1pm for an afternoon of medieval craft and combat on Waterbeach Recreation Ground (CB25 9NJ). If you want to have a go at fighting, please bring a drink and wear trainers/boots and long sleeves/trousers. You may wish to bring your own cup/box/groin protection if you do not wish to use the one in the group kit. We have loaner kit that will cover the rest of your needs. There is no charge for attending.We also have a Discord server which you're welcome to come and check out if you want to talk to us: discord.gg/AfucYV5The Synod of Whitby in 664 was a gathering of churchmen and -women from all over Britain to debate the proper calculation of the date of Easter. To modern ears this may seem petty, but at the time it was crucially important if only because it was a major point of difference between the indiginous Celtic Christianity, which had been practised in Britain since the conversion of the Roman province of Brittania, and Roman Christianity, which had been brought over by Augustine. Early in his mission he had offended local bishops by, among other things, telling them they were celebrating Easter on the wrong date, so this had become an issue of whether the British church would submit to Rome or insist on its individual customs.The Synod was held at Whitby Abbey in the middle of an outbreak of what may have been bubonic plague, which probably made the question of proper Christian practice feel even more urgent. Whitby was well-suited to this purpose since it is a sheltered port accessible from the whole east coast of Britain and northern France, especially since the North Sea was an active trade route at the time. It may also have been a royal manor belonging to Oswiu, the king of Northumbria at the time. The ruins visible today are those of a Benedictine abbey built in the 1200s, but it was probably on the same site as the double abbey - inhabited by monks and nuns and run by an abbess - built in the late 650s.Although the attendance was wide, the synod was held under the auspices of the king of Northumbria and its conclusions only applied to the Northumbrian church. He himself was closely allied with Iona, a major centre of Celtic Christianity, and therefore a conclusion in favour of Roman Christianity would potentially damage his standing. However, it would also allow him to avoid being sidelined by the rising power of the Roman church and carry out a number of reforms to distance himself from his close alliance with Iona.After significant and complex debate, the synod agreed to use the Roman method to calculate Easter, and Northumbria became part of the Roman church.Image:- Whitby Abbey - 2020 - Clementp.fr CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)[Image description: a ruined gothic building in a grassy field, against a blue sky. The building is made of stone, missing its roof but with three tiers of arches surviving, with a high gable on one end. The other end is broken down to a single tier of arches. /end id]Sources:- Bede, J Stevens (tr.), L C Jane (ed.), 'Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation' (1910) <https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ecclesiastical_History_of_the_English_Nation_(Jane)>- M Adams, 'The King in the North: The Life and Times of Oswald of Northumbria' (Head of Zeus, 2013)#medievalhistory #medievalreenactment #livinghistory #middleages #reenactment #regrammysca #whitby ... See MoreSee Less

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Shire of Flintheath - Cambridgeshire Medieval History Society - SCA

3 weeks ago

Join us on Saturday from 1pm for an afternoon of medieval craft and combat on Waterbeach Recreation Ground (CB25 9NJ). If you want to have a go at fighting, please bring a drink and wear trainers/boots and long sleeves/trousers. You may wish to bring your own cup/box/groin protection if you do not wish to use the one in the group kit. We have loaner kit that will cover the rest of your needs. There is no charge for attending.We also have a Discord server which you're welcome to come and check out if you want to talk to us: discord.gg/AfucYV5Earlier this year, a metal detectorist in Stavanger in western Sweden found a piece of the hilt of a sword which fitted together with a smaller piece found last year in the same area. Together, they make up the hilt of what would have been one of the most spectacularly decorated swords of the VIking era, with unique details in gold and silver.It appears to be a type of sword known as a D-sword, which as well as being richly decorated were also one of the heaviest types of sword used in Norway. So far only about twenty have been found and they were probably all imported, though some may have been copies of imported swords made by Norwegian smiths. The decoration on this example suggests it may have come from England or modern France and was probably made in the early 800s; the closest other example was found in Scotland.The sword is currently being conserved at the Museum of Archeology at the University of Stavanger. While the details are difficult to see, the decoration appears to consist of geometric shapes and human and animal figures in silver, made with the niello technique, in which a metallic mixture was used to make black marks. The gold ends of the crossguard are shaped into animal heads.The sword was found close to the richly-decorated grave of a woman known as the Gausel Queen, which was found in 1883 and also contained valuable imported goods. The two finds close together suggest that this area may have been a hub for trade with (or looting of) England across the north sea.Image:The sword hilt undergoing conservation - Museum of Archaeology/ University of Stavanger - 2022 - phys.org/news/2022-07-unique-sword-viking-voyages-north.html[Image description: a close-up of a metal object being cleaned by a person. The object is illuminated by a spotlight and a regular pattern of silver lozenge shapes are visible with darker corrosion in between. The person is wearing blue latex gloves and is holding the object in their left hand and scraping it with a scalpel held in their right. /id]Sources:- I I Bergstrom, 'Unique sword from the Viking Age found in Stavanger' (2nd June 2022, sciencenorway.no) <https://sciencenorway.no/archaeology-viking-age-vikings/unique-sword-from-the-viking-age-found-in-stavanger/2034775>- 'Unique finds of swords from the Viking Age!' (31st May 2022, edited 2nd June 2022, Universitetet i Stavanger) <https://www.uis.no/nb/arkeologisk-museum/enestaende-funn-av-sverd-fra-vikingtiden> (in Norwegian; machine translated for this post)- E Nyberg, 'Unique sword casts new light on Viking voyages across the North Sea' (18th July 2022, phys.org) <https://phys.org/news/2022-07-unique-sword-viking-voyages-north.html>#medievalhistory #medievalreenactment #livinghistory #middleages #reenactment #sword #regrammysca ... See MoreSee Less

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Shire of Flintheath - Cambridgeshire Medieval History Society - SCA

4 weeks ago

*Please prepare for hot weather*Join us on Saturday from 1pm for an afternoon of medieval craft and combat on Waterbeach Recreation Ground (CB25 9NJ). If you want to have a go at fighting, please bring a drink and wear trainers/boots and long sleeves/trousers. You may wish to bring your own cup/box/groin protection if you do not wish to use the one in the group kit. We have loaner kit that will cover the rest of your needs. There is no charge for attending.We also have a Discord server which you're welcome to come and check out if you want to talk to us: discord.gg/AfucYV5Norwich Castle was originally founded by William the Conqueror in 1067. Initially, like many Norman castles, it was a wooden structure on a man-made hill - the motte - surrounded by an enclosure made of ditches and banks with a wooden palisade - the bailey. We can get an idea of the scale of the original castle from the fact that it required the demolition of 98 Anglo-Saxon houses; the resulting archeological remains are considered extremely rare and valuable and contributed to the mound (not including the keep) being designated a scheduled ancient monument. William may have chosen Norwich because it was the fourth-largest town in Anglo-Saxon England, in the middle of wealthy agricultural countryside with strong international connections. It was also an area that was vulnerable to attack from Scandinavia; a ship could cross the North Sea in three days and it was already a thriving trade route.The stone keep that still stands today was begun by William the Conqueror's son William Rufus using limestone specially imported from France. William died before the castle was finished and it was finally completed by his brother Henry I. Despite its formidable appearance, it was designed as a royal palace rather than a fortification, but Henry appears not to have used it much; there is only one reference in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to him spending Christmas there in 1121, soon after its completion. He may have been accompanied by his new wife, Adeliza (especially since he was badly in need of a son), and probably spent at least the full twelve days of Christmas.After that, the castle mostly served as a judicial and financial centre, including as a prison from the 1220s, until in 1345 it was fully repurposed as the city prison. It continued in this role through repeated remodellings until the late 1800s, when it was converted into a museum: a use it still enjoys today. Currently, it's undergoing more remodelling to restore the original Norman floor levels and give a better idea of how it would have been laid out in its heyday.Image:- Norwich Castle - 2009 - CC BY-SA Andrew Hurley[Image description: a square stone castle keep with crenellations and decorative arches on a sunny day, taken from the foot of a grass slope /end id]Sources:- C Jarmin (host) and T Pestell (guest), "Anglo-Saxon Treasures at Norwich Castle", 'Gone Medieval', History Hit, 21 June 2022, <https://open.spotify.com/episode/4SHntWfGN22bTRD6ag8FH1?si=Y2MYp-vbSe6U9hHqKt5d9Q>- 'Norwich Castle: 950 Years of History' (Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery) <https://www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk/norwich-castle/castle-keep-transformation/keep-exploring/timeline>- A Gomolka, 'The Royal Christmas, or what happened in Norwich 900 years ago' (Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, 9 December 2021) <https://norwichcastle.wordpress.com/2021/12/09/the-royal-christmas-or-what-happened-in-norwich-900-years-ago/>- 'Norwich Castle' (Historic England) <https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1004054>- 'Norwich Castle' (Historic England) <https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1372724>#medievalhistory #medievalreenactment #livinghistory #middleages #reenactment #norwich #castle #regrammysca ... See MoreSee Less

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Shire of Flintheath - Cambridgeshire Medieval History Society - SCA

1 month ago

Please prepare for the forecast hot weather!Join us on Saturday from 1pm for an afternoon of medieval craft and combat on Waterbeach Recreation Ground (CB25 9NJ). If you want to have a go at fighting, please bring a drink and wear trainers/boots and long sleeves/trousers. You may wish to bring your own cup/box/groin protection if you do not wish to use the one in the group kit. We have loaner kit that will cover the rest of your needs. There is no charge for attending.We also have a Discord server which you're welcome to come and check out if you want to talk to us: discord.gg/AfucYV5The modern office of prime minister is derived from the post of the monarch's chief minister, which is a role that has changed name and nature several times throughout our period. During the 1100s and 1200s, the closest equivalent was the chief justicar. "Justicar" originally referred to a judge in a royal court, including those at shire levels, but under Henry II the title "Chief Justicar" was exclusively applied to the king's most senior minister.The role quickly gained importance because when the king was out of England - as happened frequently if only because the kings of England during this period also ruled significant territory in France - the chief justicar was usually the man left to run England. By this definition, the first chief justicar was Bishop Odo of Bayeux, who ruled England while William the Conqueror returned to Normandy in 1067. At the time, he had the title Praefectus, derived from a Roman title for the ruler of a province. However, at this early stage it seems to have been a temporary appointment and different men were given the role during different royal absences. Something like a justicar became a permanent role during the reign of William the Conqueror's son William Rufus, with the appointment of Ranulf Flambard.By the time Richard de Lucy resigned from the post under Henry II in 1178, the role was well established; the chief justicar was the head of the exchequer, ran the law courts on a permanent basis, and could act on the king's behalf when required.Image:- Odo of Bayeux - Bayeux Tapestry[Image description: a photograph of a piece of embroidery showing a man in armour riding a horse and holding a club in one hand. Two other armoured riders are in the background. /end id]Sources:- 'Justicar', Encyclopedia Britannica (11th ed, 1911)- W Stubbs, 'The Constitutional History of England Vol. 1' (Clarendon Press, 1874) <https://archive.org/details/constitutionalh28stubgoog/mode/2up>- R Huscroft, 'Ruling England 1042-1217' (Pearson, 2005)#medievalhistory #medievalreenactment #livinghistory #middleages #reenactment #regrammysca ... See MoreSee Less

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Questions about how to get started?

Email our Chatelaine who is charged with assisting
newcomers in Flintheath: chatelaine@flintheath.org.uk

Discord

We also have a Discord server which you’re welcome to come and check out if you want to talk to us about living history:
https://discord.gg/AfucYV5