Manesse Codex Tapestries for EK Royal

This is a work in progress (obviously). - Eleanor

Introduction

The East Kingdom Royal decoration project was originally conceived by Mistress Eleanor fitzPatrick with three goals - to make the business area of EK Royal at Pennsic be beautifully impressive instead of merely functionally utilitarian, to inspire lots of people to create the beauty and feel a sense of ownership and pride in EK Royal, and to show people that decorating a Pennsic camp is easier than they might think. Stage one was to create a set of faux-stained-glass lanterns for the courtyard to hang from the existing lantern hooks. Stage two was build a set of faux-candle chandeliers for the meeting tent.

Stage three of this project was to create a set of painted wall hangings, in the style of the Manesse Codex, depicting East Kingdom arms, awards and orders. Baroness Cassandra Boell agreed to do the hard work of converting Codex panels into flattened cartoon-like line drawings and modifying them to show EK heraldry instead of the originals. Mistress Eleanor took those converted line drawings, projected them onto canvas using a home theater projector and traced them in pencil. She hemmed them, then put them together into "paint-by-number" type kits and send them out to various teams to be painted.

Please note that the artist, Baroness Cassandra Boell has given permission for anyone to reuse her designs. Feel free to take and modify them to your own heraldry. Mix and match elements and borders and create something beautiful for your own kit. Clicking on any of the images on this page will bring you to the original, full resolution image that you can download.

Panels

Eight panels were chosen to modify to represent a broad cross-section of East Kingdom activities and orders.

The Boat Panel

The first panel, the Boat, was modified to include the Silver Crescent and Maunche order badges. It seemed appropriate to start with the orders for Service and for Arts & Sciences.

This panel went out to Mistress Ygraine of Kellswood for coloring.

The Tree Panel

The second panel, the Tree, was modified to display the arms of the King and the Queen of the East.

This panel went out to Count Brennan mac Fearghus for painting.

The Castle Panel

The third panel, the Castle, was modified to display the badge of the Order of the Saggitarius and to showcase the Artemis and the Golden Mantel.

This panel went out to Kellie

The Horse Panel

The fourth panel, the Horse, was modified to display the badge of the Order of the Tygers Combatant and to showcase Equestrian activities.

The Couple Panel

The fifth panel, the Couple, was modified to display the arms of the Prince of the East.

The Music Panel

The sixth panel, Music, was modified to display the badges of the Order of the Terpsichore and the Order of the Troubadour, as well as to feature musicians and dance.

The Children Panel

The seventh panel, the Children, was modified to display the badges of the Order of the Tyger's Cub and the Order of Gawain. The Manesse Codex featured no pictures of girl children, but this picture of two boys is fairly androgynous.

The Fencing Panel

The eighth panel, Fencing, was significantly modified in order to showcase the Order of the Golden Rapier. At the time the Manesse Codex was created, rapier didn't exist. Baroness Cassandra chose a panel featuring swords and modified the swords into rapiers.

How we did it

Cassandra write up details of the graphics work

Eleanor write up the tracing/projecting/hemming/instruction-writing/kit building

input from the artist teams?

Who did it

list the artist teams here by panel

Resources

insert the art files, color and black/white

insert all the instruction sheets