ARN - While we're talking about the new cards..."okey-dokey"

[Theron Bretz]

> The very concept of requiring documentation is mundane and inelegant.
> And challenging a professional's abilities or demanding to see his
> credentials  prior to 1800 might well have resulted in challenge of a
> different sort <G>
>
> David Gallowglass

I disagree.  Medieval knights were often times required to provide proof of
their lineage to enter tournaments.  If that's not proving your
qualifications (in this case, by birth), what is?  Trying to enter such a
tourney with false documentation would lead to a variety of (usually
violent) punishments.  Renaissance and medieval guilds documented their
membership in excruciating detail.  While the members didn't carry cards,
they had the right and responsibility through that membership to display
certain signs denoting their qualifications and membership in good standing
The notion that the middle ages and renaissance were a time when a man's
word was all he needed simply doesn't hold up to the mass of court records,
inquests, and legal maneuverings one finds in the historical record.

Be that as it may, there is, of course, much about the SCA that is mundane
and inelegant.  It's the price we pay for living in a postmodern litigious
society.  However, such mundanity should, in my opinion, detract as little
from this game as possible.  One thing that many people don't seem to grasp
is that a deliberate attempt to hide mundanity behind a euphemism often
simply serves to put big neon lights and air horns on the mundanity.  One
example is the use of <*shudder*> "period driver's license" instead of
"equestrian authorization".  Another, sadly, is "official okey dokey".

Etienne

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