We have traced back our family tree and as it turns out we have a 15C knight in our family, Sir John Spencer of Althorp.

should he take on that persona or one of his own? If he takes on that persona should he keep his own cristian name?
Also would it be wise to take on the person of such a famous person? I wouldn't want peole to think we were being disrespectful.

how does all the taking on a persona work, we are very new to this.

Depending on the level of presentation he's planning to do, if your just interested in the jousting circuit, the whole "package" about level of personal isn't needed and he could represent his ancestor, people do it all the time. Most modern jousters prefer to create their own coat of arms as they are trying to revive the ancient sport and make it a modern one and are representing themselves.

What he needs:

• Soft kit: arming doublet, hosen, arming points, laces/points, arming boots, underwear, and a hat.
  
• 15th century white harness for the joust
  
• Armet with wrapper or frog mouth helm
  
• Caparison for the horse decorative or with his arms.
  
• Shaffron/chamfron (protective "helmet" for the horse) Optional,but I think there should be more of them
  

If he is thinking about going into living history and taking on a portrayal in other venues besides jousting, then that's a little trickier. It is very difficult to accurately portray a member of the nobility unless in real life you are extremely well off; richly attired entourage, equipment, fashionable clothing of a wealthy man, and other knick knacks such as belts purses, swords, rings daggers, etc...

I don't think most people would take issue as long as the official coat of arms weren't improperly claimed as ones own.

The first thing to taking on a persona is research. He'd need to do some fact finding to try to find out where his ancestor was from, when he was knighted and where, why (if you can find it), and if he participated in such events. (this is a really in depth thing), but having some basic tidbits help flesh out the persona.

For equipment: the armour and clothing would have to fit into the time period in which his ancestor was active. 1410 is very different from 1460 fashion wise.

Like I said, it all depends on what level you're going for.

(It's before I've had my coffee, so I'm not as articulate as I could be. )

If you have any more questions, there are a lot of jousters and an excellent knightly fashion designer on the board that can fill in more details.

[ 07-23-2008: Message edited by: Fire Stryker ]

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