About oaths...

[Burke McCrory]

At 10:28 PM 6/8/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Reading all the recent posts about SCA oaths (i.e. Oaths of Fealty)
>possibly conflicting with mundane-life oaths made me think about
>something not yet mentioned, and I was curious what other thought of
>this...
>
>I have, as I've mentioned before, very strong beliefs about oaths. One
>thing I believe about oaths is that any previously made oath must always
>take precedence over an oath sworn afterwards. I think it is immoral to
>swear an oath with the INTENTION of claiming precedence to a previously
>made oath in order to avoid part of the second oath, but I also believe
>that in a an unforeseen situation (for example, the person in the
>military who wouldn't swear because he thought there might be a conflict
>with military secrets) were there are conflicts, it would be
>automatically (and honorably) understood that a previous oath would be
>the more binding of the two. For the example, this would negate the
>possiblitiy of a conflict, since the military oath was made first. Does
>this seem reasonable or unreasonable to everyone else?
>
>William FitzBane
>
>

One thought here.  William Marshell refused his King's order for him to go
to war with France because he had sworn fealty for his French lands to the
French King.  He did this with the complete permission of his King
(English) to whom he was in fealty.  This is a case where one oath took
precidence over another.


In Service to the Dream

Sir Burke Kyriell MacDonald
Kingdom of Ansteorra


mka. Burke McCrory
burkemc at ionet.net