[8] In 1968, Bradley and her husband Walter Breen moved to Staten Island, New York where they co-founded the Kingdom of the East, holding a tournament that summer to determine the first Eastern King of the SCA.

Members are afforded opportunities to register a medieval personal name and coat of arms (often colloquially called a "device" in SCA parlance).

According to the newcomer's guide:[10] We request that all participants make "an attempt" at pre-17th-century clothing commonly referred to as "Garb"...As you pick items, always remember to try not to make them "obtrusively modern".The SCA holds its own events as a non-profit education organization for the benefit of SCA members and their guests.

Various SCA groups also sometimes host collegia or symposia, where members gather for classes on various medieval arts and sciences and other SCA-related topics.

The minimum standard for attendance at an SCA event is "an attempt at pre-17th century clothing",[16] and there is a general goal of maintaining a historical atmosphere.

However, SCA members will use modern elements when necessary for personal comfort, medical needs, or to promote safety (e.g. wearing prescription eye-wear, using rattan for swords or shear thickening substances for padding).

[17][18] The SCA produces two quarterly publications, The Compleat Anachronist and Tournaments Illuminated,[19] and each kingdom publishes a monthly newsletter.

The Compleat Anachronist is a quarterly monographic series, each issue focused on a specific topic related to the period of circa 600–1600 in history.

Smaller branches within those kingdoms include Principalities, Regions, Baronies, and Provinces; and local chapters are known as Cantons, Ridings, Shires, Colleges, Strongholds, and Ports.

There are also non-territorial groups, usually called "households", which are not part of the Society's formal organization, the largest of which is the Mongol Empire-themed Great Dark Horde.

[25] Members of the SCA study and take part in a variety of activities, including combat and chivalry, archery, heraldry, equestrian activities, costuming, cooking, metalworking, woodworking, leather crafting, music, dance, calligraphy, fiber arts, and others as practiced during the member's time period.

[42] In addition, claiming to be a specific historical individual, especially a familiar one such as Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, or Queen Elizabeth I, is not permitted.

Likewise, one is not allowed to claim the persona of a fellow SCA member, or of a familiar fictional character such as Robin Hood or Aladdin.

Some awards change the precedence and title of the recipient, giving him or her the privilege of being known as "Lord"/"Lady", "Baron", "Duchess", "Master", and so forth.

Each SCA kingdom is "ruled" by a king and queen chosen by winning a Crown Tournament in armored combat.

Fighters vied for the right to declare their ladies (only men fought at the first event) "fairest", later called the "Queen of Love and Beauty".

Former kings and queens become counts and countesses (dukes and duchesses if they have reigned more than once), and former princes and princesses of principalities become viscounts and viscountesses.

[25] In Number of the Beast (1980), Robert A. Heinlein portrayed an SCA tournament where live weapons were used and the battles actually fought to the "death".

[47] In Ariel (1983), a post-apocalyptic fantasy by Steven R. Boyett, technology suddenly stops working and sorcery and sword fight take over.

[48][49] The 1986 fantasy novel The Folk of the Air by Peter S. Beagle was written after the author attended a few early SCA events circa 1968; but he has repeatedly stated that he then studiously avoided any contact with the SCA itself for almost two decades, so that his description of a fictitious "League for Archaic Pleasures" would not be "contaminated" by contact with the actual real-life organization.

In David Weber's 1996 science fiction novel Honor Among Enemies, main character Honor Harrington mentions that her uncle is a member of the SCA[53] and that he taught her to shoot from the hip (the time the SCA covers having been moved up to the 19th century in the future era in which the novel is set, to include cowboy and Civil War reenactors).

In May 1999, The Onion ran a front-page article headlined "Society for Creative Anachronism Seizes Control of Russia" featuring photos of actual SCA participants from the Barony of Jaravellir (Madison, Wisconsin).

[citation needed] In Christopher Stasheff's "Warlock" series, the inhabitants of the planet Gramarye are revealed to be descended from SCA participants.

[57] In John Ringo's The Council Wars science fiction series, characters with SCA or SCA-like experience help their society recover from a catastrophic loss of technology.

[58] In 2012, the SCA agreed to pay $1.3 million to settle a lawsuit brought on behalf of 11 victims of child sexual abuse.