HISTORY OF THE COMPANY OF ST ANNE
First of all, the Company of the St Anne is a mounted military company patterned after an original SCA military company: the Company of St. George .
The Company of St. George was founded by Earl Sir Brion Thornbird (Brian Price)in the early nineties in the Kingdoms of Caid and the West (he was in the process of moving to Westrealm). Some of you may be familiar with Sir Brion from his website : www.chronique.com where he originally spent a huge amount of time getting like-minded people to discuss the concepts of medieval chivalry and knighthood. He may be the first person to really explore the concept of authentic swordplay within the context of the SCA and brought that into fruition with perhaps the first Martial Arts Symposium held about 20 years ago in Livermore , California. I am sure that Prospere can give a better background on this aspect, but I believe that Symposium gave rise to the Western Martial Arts community and the yearly Symposia now held all over the world. Sir Brion now is best known as the publisher of translations of authentic martial treatises. My favorite (of course) being the one by Dom Duarte about 14th C Horsemanship, Hunting and Jousting. Of course, as usual I digress, but to go back to the Company of St. George, it was formed of non-mounted Knights and those up and coming Heavy Fighters who epitomized the look and ideals of what the original SCA was founded upon: true chivalry and courtesy. Sir Brion also added that folks must look the part as authentically as possible.
Fast forward a few years to mid-1990's and I had just stepped down as Society Equestrian Officer. Having nothing to do but still wishing to support the SCA Equestrian community as a whole, I consulted several of the Kingdom Equestrian Officers who had served with me during my tenure about an idea I had to make a Mounted version of St. George. At that time the most outstanding equestrians who had the Authentic look, acted the part of a chivalric knight, and rode the best of most riders in the SCA, were both Duke Sir Armand deSevigny (Caid KEO)and Baron Sir Manfred (Dean of the Meridies EQ College) . They were perhaps the most respected and well-known riders in the whole SCA at that time. They and several others agreed that there was a need for the SCA Equestrian Community to have a firmer ideal to follow--that the mounted knight was the epitome of our re-enactment. in essence to advance the idea that we were more than gymkhana riders, dressage riders, pleasure riders, wearing costumes but still riding within those disciplines. Many riders struggled with the concept that you truly can and do re-create the riding skills of a mounted warrior when riding in the SCA at our mounted military drills. Later this concept would be verbalized in Dom Duarte's treatise as well as by the great Kassai Lajos (a present day Hungarian mounted archery who appears to channel the Hun of the 13th C). To make a long story short, both Armand and Manfred declined to take the position of Captain of St Anne saying that they had followed my leadership for the past couple of years as Society Officer, and they wished to continue t0 do so as we took on this new goal as a group.
So, the Company of St. Anne was formed in 1996. You can see the roster at www.lanceofstanne.com
We were very much a mounted military company--primarily focused on the same ideals as St George, and very much about honing our mounted military skills to be the best of anyone.
By my hand this day, March 17, 2006 of the Common Era,
Donwenna La Mareschale, Captain of the Lance of St. Anne
