SCAguests-msg - 10/7/95
Thoughts on handling visitors and visiting royalty from other medieval groups.
NOTE: See also the files: households-msg, demos-msg, SCA-PR-msg, travel-funds-msg, courtesy-msg, crown-cost-msg.
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Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous
Stefan at florilegium.org
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From: vader at emil.csd.uu.se (ke Eldberg)
Date: 2 Nov 91 23:07:11 GMT
Organization: The Internet
William de Corbie greets the people of the Net!
I remember seeing some non-SCA royalty (Acre? Markland?) at Pennsic,
and hearing various comments about how they should be treated. Opinions
ranged from "They're just a bunch of jerks who couldn't hack it in the
SCA, so they formed their own group -- mostly so they could give
themselves all the titles they wanted", to "They are nice people,
very authentic, very courteous, an interesting group..."
The SCA is "the known world". We do not claim to be the whole world,
and I have no problem with royalty from "unknown" parts of the world.
Their titles should be honored according to what we know about their
meaning. If we call someone "His majesty of the Kingdom of Acre", or
"Sir Beowulf Burger of/from the Kingdom of Acre", we are not giving
them SCA rank, while maintaining diplomatic courtesies. They are
simply foreigners from a little-known part of the world.
Some people at Pennsic seemed to think that we should not recognize
the non-SCA titles at all, and that the foreign royalty should not
have been received in court. I think we are so big that we can
afford to be generous to other groups with similar interests.
It's a test of our courtesy that we are able to admit that there *are*
other medieval groups who have the same right to exist as we do, and
with whom we might enjoy a fruitful exchange of knowledge. I see no
point in being annoyed at them for not joining our particular version
of the Middle Ages -- and that's the only real reason I can see for
wanting to refuse and ignore them.
Whether it's in good taste to march in at an SCA event and claim royal
rank, without having been invited as such by the SCA royalty, is a
different matter. I think it's presumptous and bad manners. (I'm
not sure whether this was really what happened at Pennsic.)
Of course, recognition of titles only applies when these people are
with us explicitly as foreign visitors, e.g. an embassy that comes to
a particular event. If they are also active on a regular basis in the
SCA, then I don't think that their ranks & titles should have any
weight here. If someone went around at an SCA event presenting himself
as "Prince so-and-so" of this or that other group, I would probably ask
him whether he had been invited by the ruling SCA monarchs, or if he was
an official ambassador from his group -- and if not, I would ask him to
stop using his foreign title.
William
From: whheydt at pbhya.PacBell.COM (Wilson Heydt)
Date: 1 Nov 91 22:56:46 GMT
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
With respect to the recent thread on how to treat visitors wh have
titles matching SCA titles, but from other organizations (including
countries . . .) . . .
I suggest that proper treatment is to treat such people as if their
titles were awarded in the SCA--so long as they are visitors to our
events. If they wish to become part of the SCA, then they would leave
behind such titles as they had from elsewhere and earn titles the same
way that every member of the SCA does.
That is to say--if Elizabeth, Queen of England visits the Kingdom of
the West, she should be accorded Sovreign Honors and be treated with
all the pomp, deference, and honor that the title brings, plus that
due to a visiting monarch. Should Elizabeth "Windsor" join an SCA
branch in her native land, she would be assumed to be an untitled
person of gentle birth--as are all in the Society--and if she wished
to become a Sovereign Queen, she would have to take up arms and fight
for that honor herself (if she were willing to 'settle' for Consort,
she'd have to find someone to fight for her. I wonder how good
Phillip is with a stick . . . ?).
--Hal
Hal Ravn, Province of the Mists, West Kingdom
Wilson H. Heydt, Jr., Albany, CA 94706, 415/524-8321 (home)
From: storm at hlafdig.stonemarche.ORG (Arastorm the Golden)
Date: 6 Nov 91 15:49:47 GMT
Organization: The Internet
From Arastorm to the Rialto: Greetings:
Time for another history lesson! (scip on a bit, brother Maynard...)
In the Reigns of Aelfwine and Arastorm of the East and
Nicholas can der Nort and Suny of the Kingdom of Acre a treaty
was made between the East and Acre (from MSR: Medieval Studies
and Recreation).
This treaty was written in three parts
(unfortunately, since we passed it on, I can't give you the
exact wording, but this is what I remember) each written as
a medieval statement, but with modern implications:
First, all soverign honors would be given to the Crown of
Acre, and the titles and estates of their peoples would be
recognised by the Crown of the East.
(this meant that the Knights of Acre would be allowed
to use that title in the SCA when there as knights of Acre*)
Second, there would be no taxes, tolls nor hinderance at our
mutual borders between our citizens traveling either way.
(this means that when there is a discount given to SCA members
for an event, proof of MSR membership would get the discount as well.)
Third, the citizens of each kingdom would be bounden by the
laws in the kingdom where they were visiting.
(this means that each person would have to keep the rules of
the group who sponsored the event- from armor standards, & rules of the
list, to flashbulb and coke can rules.)
This was a fairly historic document, since up to then, other
medieval groups had been looked on as "evil twins" of the SCA- both the
SCA "spin-offs" for example MSR, Far Isles, and Norseland, and those
which separatly, like Markland. Many of these groups did (and do) indeed
play with the SCA as well as at their own events (who has not heard of
the Tuchuks?), but, as has been noted in this discussion on the Rialto,
many people in the SCA had negative feelings about letting them come -
even if they did follow SCA rules while at SCA events (and which some
were not always cooperative about).
TMs Nicholas and Suny agreed with us that this kind of divisiveness
was great foolishness. (Of course, the was not a universal opinion.) What
we are doing is not so very different, and whatever the feelings which started
the various spin offs (and we will admit that there were very bad feelings
when the the people who created MSR left the SCA to do so), since the
vast majority of the people who had joined since then knew nothing of
the original problems (or, at least, it was not personal with them), it
would be silly to promolgate old bad feelings, and not get on with it.
For example, in the MSR the requirements for knighthood are
somewhat easier to complete than they are in the East- but this puts
their knights in a more realistic social position. Each has it's advantages,
and obviously we prefer ours otherwize we would change it. Other differences
are similar. My observation is that most differences between the SCA
and most of the other recreation groups is that they have much smaller
time frames, and therefore the possibility of greater internal accuracy.
However, our size and loose framework make our events appealing to
their members- not always, but occationally. (Pennsic is a unique experience
which any historical combattant wants to share in- we are lucky we don't
get Rev War reinactors crashing it.)
*In fact, there are (in my observation) many people who have
memberships in both MSR and SCA and while they use the same names and
devices (good heraldry is good heraldry, and it's hard to get your
friends to call you Kirstin and Magdaline the next) they don't generally
ask to use their MSR ranks at SCA events. Problems can arise when, for
example, a person in MSR gets their arms passed and makes a lovely
heraldic banner, robe, etc. (as a Crusader era group, they have a lot of
lovely heraldic display), and comes to the SCA where our heralds notice
that the arms they are displaying were recently given to some other SCA
person. It was our intention that we could encourage the groups to work
together to avoid such problems- after all, the college of heralds of
the SCA is an incredible resource, but one can see how they wouldn't want
to invest time in checking on the arms of people who might not come to
SCA events more than once or twice.
Recently (I was told by some MSR folk- I think their Queen) the
SCA BoD made a ruling that the SCA won't acknowledge any other groups
of recreationists. I think this is to avoid the complications I was
talking about (can you imagine the amount of work involved in trying
to process all the heraldry for all the various medieval groups everywhere?
Wo!) On the other hand, this means that even when the East is running the
War, they can't honor the treaty by letting in MSR folk at the same
rate as SCA folk, and the East and Acre have been ratifying that same
treaty off and on for the last 10 years. (currently "on") This is
another case of the BoD claiming that they butt out of the medieval
aspect of the game, while actually intruding. I suppose they would say
that petty little kings and queens have no right to make decisions
which involve finance, but what we were trying to do was important,
and I think it went a long way to healing the breach between the East
and Acre. (What the BoD did to the Far Isles is another story, and
we couldn't heal that- let's just say that it ended with Baroness
Heloisa dropping a tea bag in Boston Harbor (England) and keeping a
good 50 people who were recruited for the SCA by Baron Patri from
becoming an SCA barony.)
To return to the current discussion, I will recount an incident
from our reign. In our understanding a Vice-Roy was the person who
stood in for the King when the King wasn't in the Capitol. He was kind
of a replacement Baron who did everything a Baron did for a barony,
but when the King was there, he was nothing. For many reigns(Angus,
Akbar, Murad, etc.) the King of the East had been from the Crown Province,
so this was fine. (To put this all into perspective, you must remember
that during this period, the East consisted of Murkwode, Bhakail, Coill
Ohrda (a shire in NJ), the Nameless Province, Barony Beyond the Mountain,
and Carolingia. Events did not overlap. Indeed, if Carolingia had a
fighting practice or dance practice, the King might well show up. Things
were different then. Kingdom events might pull in as many as 60 to 80
people.) But by the time we got on the throne, the Crown Province had
been functioning fairly independantly for some time, and even when
the Crown did live in 0stgard (Aidan and Setanta or Sigfried and Wanda)
Ian of Clan Mitchel and Katherine fulfilled all the duties that one would
expect of a baron, so we decided to make them Court Baron and Baroness
so that they would have rank of their own. Now at this same time we had
been talking to Nicholas and Suny about healing the breach between MSR
and the SCA, and so when they showed up at the Ostgardr event we were
thrilled and invited them up to sit with us. I think that this was the
first instance of an SCA Crown (at least an eastern one) <let's see,
this would have been March of `82> invited the Crown of a forign power
to sit with them. We thought that since the people who had started MSR
were mostly from 0stgardr, this would be seen as a fine gesture. Little
did we know that we were almost assasinated that night by people who
thought that we had pre-arranged this with the Crown of Acre to insult
the people of 0stgardr. (apparently the bad feelings between Acre and
the SCA were *focused* in 0stgardr, not milder there) This was made
worse because we did not invite the Vicroy and Vicereign to sit with
us (well why would we? they had no special rank until we gave it them
that night.)
Anyway, so you see how these things come about. If there is
one thing I would like everyone to know, it is that the King and Queen
are not omnicient. Sure they TRY to find out everything pertinent-
but often fail. Even I who have been there keep forgetting it. So I
keep reminding you.
At any rate- in the East, at least, there is a treaty which
requires the Crown to accord the soverign honors to the people of Acre
when they visit the East, and to allow those who choose to visit us
from Acre in their persona for Acre to use the rank and titles they
have earned there. Luckily the East does not have sumptuary laws
which would cause difficulty with these visitors. (I am still collecting
sumptuary laws, and still hope for reports on AnTir, Trimaris, Outlands,
Atenveldt, and Ansteorra) I do wonder if there are other medieval
recreation groups which have spun off from other kingdoms, or is the
East the only kingdom which breeds the type who becomes dissatisfied
with the level of authenticity in the SCA and goes off to start a tighter
group.
<the end>