ANST - White Scarves as Peers

[Raymond Catz]

>We certainly have a number of White Scarves worthy of Peerages - and most
>of them have Pelicans, others have proved that athleticism on the rapier
>field can be converted to athleticism on the field of chivalric combat and
>become knights.  And still others are Laurels.  Like it or no, right now
in
>order to recognize a rapier fighter as a Peer, you have to give them a
>Pelican or one of the other peerages.

It was once said to me by a peer that those of the WSA who are deserving of
peerages are have been or will be made peers.  These are the words of a
person not sympathetic to the idea of expanding the basic peerages, but in
the context of your statements, I can find some validity in it.

To explore philosophy for a moment, the gripe isn't that WS's can't become
peers, it is that they can't become peers for the same reasons that knights
become knights, at least not in the superficial sense.  I have to wonder if
the conceptual hurdle here lies in the "victorian ideal of medieval
knighthood" that seems to be the basis for the KSCA.  The knight of the SCA
stands in line of battle out of duty to the king and does so with
traditional accourtements.  The WSA arguably is grounded in an entirely
different historical and social context.  Perhaps the problem is that the
WSA is not an order of knighthood because they cannot be knights in the
in the accepted philosophical context.  Therefore, to create a fourth
peerage is to do violence to the SCA ideal of what it is to be a knight. 
Just an idle thought. 

					Jeremy


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