ANST - Belts and their meanings

[Dennis and/or Dory Grace]

Salut Cozyns,

Alban of Standing Stones, Calontir says:

>[S]o, what should happen to someone who likes a particular 
>member of the Chivalry, but is clumsy? Or simply wants to honor that m-
>o-t-C with personal service without wanting to go through fighting 
>practice? Squiredom/association/protegeship should cover more bases 
>than just peer wannabes.

Several folks have made similar suggestions, and I think this suggestion
represents a problem.  I'm more than willing to take members into my
household  who are neither my squires/protege's nor my wife's
apprentices/protege's.  Said householders would then be entitled to bear my
badge or my lady's badge.  Why should such a householder want to call
him/herself a squire or apprentice?  These labels are--as Daniel de
Lincolia noted--job descriptions, not titles or honors.  Incidentally, I'm
one of the clumsiest folks you'll ever meet, so that particular trait is
not necessarily a bar to the Chivalry.

Alban further opines:
>As for 4: there's a good word for this. It's called a "favor". I don't
wear a 
>green belt from my Laurel (not that she'd give me one, and not that I 
>would if she did, since  both of us know that green looks hideous with 
>every piece of garb I own). What I do wear now is an amber necklace from 
>her; a number of people have come up to admire it, and asked where I got 
>it, so it serves as effectively as a symbol of my fealty to her as her
badge on 
>a belt would. (And when it arrives, I'll be wearing an embroidered favor as 
>well; she's an embroidery-plus-stuff Laurel, and some things just take more 
>time <grin>.)

Um, sorry to quibble, but no.  It's *not* a favor, not necessarily.  I
always put my badge on my squires and men-at-arms, usually on their belts.
(I've been accused by some of my brother knights of labeling them for
convenient return--if found, please return this squire to Sir Lyonel.)  If
I could afford to do so, I'd outfit them all in my livery, because that's
what 14th century knights did.  A favor is a trinket given by an admirer
(traditionally a lady) to a combatant to carry into a tournament as an
indication that said combatant is being "favored" with the admirer's
attention.  Typically, the giving of favors was a step in the amorous games
twentieth century scholars have labeled "courtly love."

So, no, I don't think I'll be giving any favors to my squires any time in
the near future.  I mean, hey, they're nice guys and all, but we're just
not *that* close.

lo vostre por vos servir
Sir Lyonel Oliver Grace
_____________________________
Dennis Grace
University of Texas at Austin
English Department
Recovering Medievalist
mailto:amazing at mail.utexas.edu

Micel yfel deth se unwritere.
                           AElfric of York
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