My interests in the SCA, which, for many years, were also my academic interests, have led me to write a number of term papers and lectures. Some have been for purely scholastic purposes, for example, a term paper for a class. Some have been purely for SCAdian purposes, for example, a lecture given at a symposium of heralds and marshals. Some have had the happy fortune of being written to serve both SCAdian and scholastic ends.
My research in Iberian history has largely been for my own personal use. Now that I am a scholar in my spare time, and I no longer have to come up with compulsory papers and presentations, I can let my personal fancy dictate what I'll write. I have, for a long time, been trying to boost the number of people with personas with links to the Iberian Peninsula and Iberian culture. After finding that people were having a hard time figuring out where to start, I put together a basic guide to English-language resources for people with Iberian personae. One aspect of Renaissance Iberian culture that I find interesting is the sudden flowering of knightly literature that took place in sixteenth century and early seventeenth century Iberia. So I wrote a webpage about Iberian knightly literature. Currently, I am writing a Creative Anachronist about Renaissance Portugal. It's a very ambitious project!
Portions of my research in nautical history have appeared in Stefan's Florilegium, a collection of webpages of interest to SCAdians, and, perhaps, to professional mediaevalists as well. In addition to various archived postings, I have also written essays that are preserved in the Florilegium's Travel section on piracy, shipbuilding, and life at sea.
My research in heraldry and chivalrous literature and institutions has taken up most of my research and writing efforts since 1995. At that time, I graduated from Ohio University (Dernehealde), and went to the Catholic University of America, in Washington DC (Storvik). Storvik and the groups around it are or were the home branches for a number of very skilled heralds, who encouraged me to become a herald and to write about heraldry and chivalrous literature.
Part of my research centers around the herald as a member of a royal or noble household, and how the herald's job evolved through the centuries until the end of the sixteenth century. Heralds were, by the Renaissance, expected to be, among other things, military historians, folklorists, lawyers, and diplomats, as well as simply experts in armory. Unlike heralds in the SCA, heralds of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance filled the role of tournament judges, so a look at the tournament's development is useful to anyone in this field.
Heralds were originally bards who recited poems like The Poem of the Cid and The Song of Roland. They were also expected to recite poems about the heroic deeds of their patrons and their patron's family, about court scandals, and lead in cheering for their patrons while they fought in tournaments.
I am also interested not just in what mediaeval and Renaissance heralds did, but also what they knew. Every culture has myths and folklore, and heralds, in many ways, were among the keepers of mediaeval and Renaissance myths and folklore. Heralds were exhorted to take a person's horoscope into consideration when designing a coat of arms, for example, and the boundaries between biography, cantares de gesta, and romance, were hazy, which meant that heralds had to know a great deal about all three, and even compose their own songs and prose works.