Unto the good gentles of Lochac do I send greetings. By now a lot of you will be aware that the Bod has voted down the 4th peerage. What a lot of folks may not have heard is why. From the comments coming out the Bod voted it down for 2 reasons - 1 they felt that a 4th peerage needed to be more inclusionary and 2 that we already have a peerage for martial activities and that maybe it should be opened up to include others. Personally I agree wholeheartedly with this reasoning. Im probably fortunate that the majority of the knights I have had any significant dealings with have been what I refer to as type 1 knights i.e people for whom the concepts of Chivalry and Honour are not just words, but ideals to measure themselves by and live up to. Even then it is hard to get some of them to look at issues relating to the Chiv from the other side of the fence. We have in the society created a sense of entitlement and prestige with the Chiv that is now entrenched by tradition. This is neither fair nor just. We already have a peerage exclusively for practitioners of armored tournament combat (and their consorts) - we call it the Crown. Why do we need two exclusionary peerages ? - as it stands it is the same as if the Laurels decided that only costumers could be Laurels and all the other arts were not allowed. If we opened up the chiv to other combat arts the world would not end, nor would the society collapse into anarchy. I suspect, and this is just a suspicion, that most fencers and combat archers would prefer to be masters of defence rather than knights, so to a degree many of the fears of the chiv are very hollow. So that is the problem as it stands - what is the solution - well I have thought long and hard for a few years on this and would humbly like to suggest one for discussion. We take a period approach and create kinghtly orders within the Chivalry. First we have the Knight Defenders - the traditional knights - 1st in the OP (to smooth any ruffled feathers) who retain all the traditional trappings of knighthood. Then we create 3 or more new orders - to put a fence around them I have put my own ideas here, but Im sure there are better ones out there. Fencers become Knights of the Rose - with belt, sword and chain omitting the spurs, but they adopt the rose of York as their symbol and it replaces the white belt as the border of their badge and adorns the tips of their belts Archers become the Knights Sagittarius - they have belt and chain (and either bow or sword) and adopt the period archery face of white, green and gold as the border of their badge and the adornment of the white belts . Equestrians become the Knights Equites with belt and spurs and chain and adopt the horseshoe in the same manner as the others orders above for their badge and order adornment. This way everyone who practices the martial arts in the SCA can strive to be a knight and in some rare cases the crown may decide to make a person a knight of 2 orders to recognise exceptional skills in more than one martial field. I feel that this is an elegant, simple and practical approach to the issue. The other way is to create an Order of defence with the sub orders above as a 4th peerage and leave open the possibility of rolling them into the chiv in time as the people come to accept them. So now I would ask you to think and discuss and feel free to cross post etc and lets see if we as a kingdom cannot come to a consensus that maybe we can then export to the wider SCA or at least to like minded realms as a new proposal. In closing - if your first reaction to this idea is Flame on or No, just No please stop and ask yourself why ? Do you have a reason other then the weight of tradition or the desire, deliberate or not, to protect a position of prestige and power ? If you do then please post away. But if not, ask yourself is attacking an idea simply because if does not fit your ideas or vision of what the society should look like the sort of behaviour you wish to be known for ? YIS Luan an Fael
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 10:27:55 +0000
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