Jean-Etienne du Nordovest

Jean-Etienne (“Etienne” to those close to him) is a Norman Frenchman, the son of an adventurer who had gone to crusade in his youth. From a young age, Etienne feasted on his father’s tales of brave journeys and faraway places and people. Etienne spent his youth around the monastery of Saint Adrian, eagerly absorbing all the good friars could teach him. From them he learned to read and write Latin, seeing that he had a gift for tongues, rapidly absorbing any language he heard. He learned the arts of weaving, farming, and carpentry, as well as being schooled in music of every kind. As soon as he came of age, he bade the brothers farewell and set off to seek his own adventures. Etienne began his journey eastward toward the Holy Lands, hearing tales and rumors as he passed through France and into Italy. After hearing the news of the fall of Constantinople, he turned his feet away from the Holy Land and resolved to join the armies of the daring warlords of eastern Europe, his imagination fired by the rumors from Hungary, Poland and the forested forbidding land of Wallachia.

As he made his way eastward, Etienne learned to speak several new tongues, heard and sang songs of distant lands, and also learned somewhat the craft of combat. As he came closer to his intended destination, he realized that he could also aid the cause of Christendom, not by fighting, but by building, by cooking, binding wounds, and by passing the hours with story and songs of home. In this, he lightened the soldiers’ burdens and made a name for himself in the caravans and camps.

Having had adventure in ten years to last him ten lives, he returned to his native Normandy, where he used the gold he found in foreign lands to build a tavern, and became a prosperous innkeeper, whose alehouse was always open to those who bore arms in defense of the land.

Jean-Etienne is a member of House Nordovest, the household of Baron Taliesin of Nordovest upon the Long Isle http://op.antirheralds.org/index.php?who=983

Arts:

• Cooking (Camp cooking with Iron)

• Music (vocal and instrumental, including Mountain Dulcimer, bowed psaltrey, and recorder)

• Bardic (story and song, both of others and his own compositions)

• Woodworking (carving, carpentry)

• Weaving (Table and Floor Loom)

Service:

• Flame Pursuivant (Middle)

• Thunderbird Commenting Herald (Atenveldt)

• Field and Court Heraldry (Middle, Atenveldt, Outlands)

• Bardic (Atenveldt, Trimaris)

• Kitchen Steward and scullery lad (Trimaris)

• Jack-of-all-trades (Middle, Atenveldt, Outlands, Trimaris)

Martial Arts:

• Archery (non-combat and combat (non-SCA))

• Light Weapons (non-SCA)

Contact: jrrtknight@yahoo.com