principalities...borders/Regional di

[Aodhan Ite an Fhithich]

Dia duit!

Mitchell, Paul wrote in a message to All:

 MP> Most of the arguments I've heard in favor of
 MP> principalities  won't fully kick in until those principalities
 MP> break off to become kingdoms  (c.f. Gunnora's comments about
 MP> polling orders).  The argument for putting  Bonwicke in the north
 MP> seems to be one of ensuring that the north has the  potential to
 MP> grow to kingom size.

 MP> We keep being told there's no real proposal; whence comes your
 MP> assertions  about what "this is supposed to be"?  And why should
 MP> as-yet-un-conceived  principalities be more important to me or the
 MP> Shire of Treloch than our  "current Alliances" or regions?  Or must
 MP> we also sacrifice those? 

 MP> Like you, Kief, I like to help people to do what they want to do. 
 MP> If  someone will tell me that he wants to go to the trouble of
 MP> arranging a  principality in his area, I will be happy to advise
 MP> him on how to go about  it.  I have not heard of any petitions
 MP> going around in support of this idea.   So why is this now a
 MP> kingdom-wide topic?  I doubt many of us could get Duke  Inman to
 MP> call all the Barons and have them start discussions about our 
 MP> favorite topic.  So where has this come from, and why is it a
 MP> secret?  Why  does this question only generate assertions that the
 MP> answer is irrelevant? 

It certainly seems to me that there's an excess of lutefisk in Copenhagen.

I can't see any reason for this to have popped up now *except* as a means to
induce "those bozo's over there" to move on to their own Kingdom and "leave
Ansteorra to real Ansteorrans."

 MP> And just to be mischevious, here's another can of worms:  fealty. 
 MP> Will  knights and Barons swear fealty to the Crown, or to their
 MP> Coronet, and  through the Coronet, to the Crown?  One leaves the
 MP> Crown with vastly  diminished influence, the other leaves the
 MP> Coronet largely powerless before  peers and nobles who have no oath
 MP> binding them to the Prince. 

Well, how did it work for you as Prince of Drachenwald?

Knights and Barons will still owe fealty to the Crown, as that is who their
rank and authority come from under the SCA structure.  In the *real* Middle
Ages, Knights would have sword fealty to the Lord or Baron who maintained them,
and that person to whomever their rank and authority descended from, on up to
the King. Fealty was also not necessarily a single linear relationship; one
could owe differing degrees of fealty to different overlords.  I suspect the
Knights and Barons will be encouraged to swear fealty to their Prince, and the
Princes will be required to swear fealty to the Crown, but those constitute a
*separate* line of fealty.

Stefan probably has a Rialto archive on fealty.  I seem to recall a thread on
the subject (which Tadhg contributed quite a bit to) in the not too distant
past.

Baron Aodhan Ite an Fhithich, ML
Dobharchu Herald