Name (PLUS Historical Note)

[KiheBard at aol.com]

In a message dated 97-04-28 00:14:03 EDT, you write:

> What is the complete proper name of the centourian (sp) order.  I think
>  it is Sable Centourian of Ansteorra.  But for some reason it does not
>  sound correct.
  
Order of the Centurions of the Sable Star

(Burke, you forgot the notion of plurality in your response...)

Note that Centurion is spelt with an "o", not an "a". (Galen of
Bristol, are you listening?)

Brief history lesson (the subject arose in personal research
a couple of weeks back indirectly, and earlier this evening
in a discusion of certain heraldic irregularities in the formation
of the name of the Order...):

Note that "in period", or actually pre-, centurion was not a title, 
it was a job description / rank of a military sub-officer.  Titles 
by which a  centurion might be referenced varied throughout 
the Roman span of ascendancy.  In the time of Emperor Hadrian, 
the first cohort of Legio III Augusta contained five centurions
in the first cohort, bearing titles of _primus pilus_ ("first/front
javelineer"?), _princeps_, _hastatus_("thrusting-spearman"),
 _princeps posterior_, and _hastatus posterior_. 
The typical Legion of this time (c. 200ce / 950 A.U.C.)
was organized into ten cohorts each containing six
centuries, with a total of sixty centurions.  (Centuries
were actually only about 60 to 80 men for a standard
Legion order of battle at some times; for the cohort whose
centurions are enumerated above, each century included
around 200 legionaries). 

As recently as 1928ce, a common example of equivalent
modern rank was to place the centurion alongside the
British sergeant-major, "except that they held commissioned
rank, which they held from the military tribunes".  (In the
armed forces of the USA, a senior warrant officer or CPO,
perhaps an Army platoon leader.)

(Sources: memory, for the strength of a century, and
_The Roman Legions_, H.M.D. Parker, esp. pp. 196-8,
ISBN 0-88029-854-5)

Amr ibn Majid al-Bakri al-Amra
	currently residing in Barony of the Steppes, Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mike C. Baker					KiheBard at aol.com
Any opinions expressed are obviously my own unless explicitly stated
otherwise!