This is another of my favorites, Katerina is a quite person that gets things done, but had been steadily increasing in prowess for several years until she got a chance to show it at Sovereign an Consorts rapier in 2022 doing very well and being named Consorts Champion. Later when she was inducted into the Order of the Golden Rapier, I was very happy to be given the chance to write words for her scroll.
For inspiration I looked some period fencing manuals which are a GREAT source of material as often the writers would have an introduction that details why their style is the one true style and everything else is crap.
I was also happy to work in references to a title she likes (scholar, and a fencing company she helped found, Scherma Nova Studiorum, This is what I came up with.
Even as from our swathing bands carried with us an unbridled desire of knowledge: So afterwards, having attained to the perfection thereof, there grows in us a certain laudable and fervent affection to teach others: The which, if it were not so, the world happily should not be seen so replenished with Arts and Sciences.
For if scholars of the Scherma Nova Studiorum generally were not apt in the contemplation and searching out of things: Or if curiosity had not bestowed them the grace, to be able to lift their mind from the earth, and by searching to find out the causes thereof. It would come to pass, that the one part of women, as Nobles, should bear rule, and the other part as vile slaves, wrapped in perpetually darkness, should suffer, and lead a life unworthy.
Whereupon being forced, through a certain honest desire to help others, Lady Katerina Falconer de Lanark gave herself wholly to the contemplation thereof: to find out the true principles and grounds of the Art of Defense, and reduce the confused and infinite number of blows into a compendious sum and certain order: The principles being but few, and therefore easier to be known and borne away, without doubt, in small time, and little travail, will open a large entrance to the understanding of all that which is contained in this honorable , Illustrious and venerable Art.
In our opinion it stands with great reason that a person teaches that unto others which she hath searched and found out by her great study & travails be honored.
Therefore, do We Brenhines Corotica and Sultan Mohammad see fit to induct the aforesaid Katerina into the Order of the Golden Rapier, with all rights, honors, and duties entailed within the august and venerable Order. Furthermore, so all may know the bearing, standing and worth of Scholar Katerina do we Grant her arms in the form: Per chevron inverted gules and azure, on a chevron inverted Or another sable, in chief a compass star Or
Done this day, A.S. Fifty-Seven in our frosty Shire of Rusted Woodlands.
Words by Matthias Grunwald
Scroll by Thyra Eiriksdottir
Based on Opera Nova by Anchille Marozzo and Degrassi his True art of defense