Ye Olde Booke O' Seadogs
For thirteen years I volunteered the bulk of my weekends to the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in both Southern and Northern California sponsered by the Living History Centre. I also found myself participating in various other faires produced by a multitude of organizations. This included the Long Beach Renaissance Art Festival and the San Louis Obispo Renaissance Festival. When I finally decided to end my participation I found myself with a pile of research material with no apparent application. When personal web pages began to explode (perhaps out of control), I knew what had to be done. Now here's a place where my research can be made available to the two or three persons in the world who might be interested.
The information contained on this web-site is spawned from a book I wrote for the group of Faire performers I spent most of my Faire years with, the Seadogs. I originally wrote Ye Olde Booke O' Seadogs because of the lack of historical facts available to the seafaring based actor. The first few years I played a seadog I was often ignorant of many of the references made by some of the more historically knowledgable actors. A reference to the Sargasso Sea or the Levant only left me confused. One summer I finally decided to do something about the gaping holes in my knowledge and started a long process of research. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
After about five years in libraries, used book stores, and typing into my computer I emerged with this book. I'm rather proud of the results. Though not every word is original, I feel I have put together nearly all the historical and technical information the 16th century English seafaring character needs to create and embellish a proper seadog. Acting ability, however, is a different matter and is not even considered herein.
Not all of the artwork has been implemented in this web page at this time. It's rather tedious to scan and touch up the large number of illustrations I plan on using. Currently, pictures of ship equipment and maps are missing. Most of the ships (but not all) are online, though some of them require additional touch-ups.
Acknowledgement
This manuscript was not created single-handedly. Many Seadogs from years past started the seeds of discovery. Most of them will remain anonymous, unfortunately, as the original multigeneration photocopy handouts I received did not include the reseachers' name.
One name, however, stands out. Cat Howell is responsible for nearly all of the research for the Terms and Phrases chapter and help with additional research in the Clothing chapter as well as some small amount in various other topics. She is also responsible for drawing the illustrations in the Clothing chapter. Most important, though, was her brutally honest critiques of my work. She had a (sometimes annoying) tendency to speak the truth, whether I cared to hear it or not. Thanks Cat.
Finally, a little bit of a legal notice:
This work is copyright ©1997-2007 by Ross Wentworth. No portion, in whole or in part, may be reproduced in any media without prior written consent. You hereby have permission to duplicate the material contained herein for personal, non-commericial purposes. Any and all rights to use this material granted to the group calling themselves "The Seadogs" and working under the direction of S. Morales is hereby revoked. Any person working under the direction of S. Morales may NOT make copies of this work for any purpose. Yes, you asshole. Threatening a bogus lawsuits against people for using the name "Seadogs" is not only petty and frivolous, it goes against everything the REAL Seadogs stand for. The name Seadogs is a historical name and can not be trademarked or copyrighted when used in association to historical reference.
