[Ansteorra] Re: Protocol Question (Warning: Can of Worms)

[Jay Rudin]

Snorri asked:

> The only reference I found for this form of address is from the Society
> Corpora, which gives the official title/address of a GoA as "Lord/Lady."
>
> So my question is: where did the Honorable Lord/Lady and His/Her Lordship
> come from, and under what authority save for tradition are we using it?

Well, first of all, what authority except for tradition makes us care about
Ansteorra at all?  Tradition is much stronger than mere law in Ansteorra.

A lot of this is memories from over twenty years ago, so the details may not
be exact.  But they're generally right.

When I first joined, the only title for an Award or Grant was "Lord / Lady".
(Of course, when I joined, we had just settled on the name "dirt" for this
stuff on the ground.)  We were the Principality of Ansteorra, in the kingdom
of Atenveldt, which has once spread from Florida to Idaho, and was founded
with very little knowledge of the SCA's traditions.  (The SCA's traditions
can be roughly broken down into Western Rite, Eastern Orthodox, and the
Atenveldt heresy.)

Atenveldt decided that Grants would have the right to be Lord / Lady
<surname>.  Thus, if Snorri would, at that time, be Snorri, Lord Hallsson.
All Atenveldters, including the Ansteorrans, knew that this was their right.

Not that it mattered much.  Grants were very rarely given out, except to
kingdom officiers who weren't peers or nobles.  Mostly it was used by peers,
such as Master Lloyd, Lord von Eaker, or Sir Ton Lord Traveller.

This was, of course, illegal, and eventually got noticed.  Why is it
illegal?  Well, Lord von Eaker and Lord Traveller are no problem, but if
Galen of Bristol was called Galen Lord Bristol, then that is a claim that he
rules the city of Bristol.

So the Laurel King of Arms, Master Wilhelm von Schlussel, ruled that it was
an unacceptable usage, in the very early 1980s, when Ansteorra was a baby
kingdom.  This didn't affect people most places, because there were very few
people whose precedence came from a Grant of Arms.

Except in Ansteorra.  In the second reign, King Lloyd (von Eaker) elevated
the Star and Iris to Grant-level awards, and re-wrote the principality Order
of the Cavaliers of the SCA into the grant-level White Scarf of Ansteorra.
These were the first grant-level Orders, and the growing number of members
meant a lot of Grant-level people.

No problem for the White Scarves.  They had been called "Don / Dona" since
the principality Order, and kept doing so even after the Laurel King of Arms
ruled that that title was reserved to knights.  The constitution said, not
that they had the right to the title "Don", but they it would be recognized
tradition in Ansteorra to call them so.

(What's the difference?  Well, if the king says that all Stars of Merit will
be called "Chuckles":, then we, being good and loyal Ansteorran subjects,
will call him Chuckles Snorri.  That doesn't make "Chuckles" a title.)

But that leaves us with the Irises and Stars.  Since no king told us to call
them "chuckles", what do we call them?  Aureliane (the first Star Principal
Herald) proposed the honorific "Honorable Lord / Lady", and the form of
address "Your Ladyship / Lordship".  These were deemed acceptable, though
neither one is a title.  Your refer to him as the Honorable Lord Snorri, and
call him "Your Lordship", but you never (properly) say "His Lordship Snorri"
and his title is "Lord".

(By the way, the objection to "Your Lordship / Ladyship" is that is was
almost universally used only in the upward direction.  The servant addresses
the manor lord that way; the manor lord addresses the local baron, etc.)

Since then, the title Don / Dona has been recognized as equivalent to Lord
or Lady,  Therefore, it is the proper title for White Scarves, and the
Ansteorran tradition is that Italian and Spanish AoAs and GoAs don't use it
unless they have White Scarves.  (Yes, they have the right to, just as
everybody has the right to wear a red belt.  But we tend to choose not to
annoy the Dons, just as we choose not to annoy the squires.)

So what about "Centurion"?  That's Latin for "chuckles".

His Lordship the Honorable Lord Don Centurion Chuckles Robin of Gilwell