[Bryn-gwlad] Obedience and oaths

[tmcd@panix.com]

On Tue, 5 Sep 2006, James Crouchet <james2 at crouchet.com> wrote:
> BTW, at the time I was cadet to Don Robin (the opposing baron). I
> was also a member of the Bryn Gwlad Baronial Guard

Illustrating nicely the very period problem of conflicting oaths.
I suggest to anyone that, before swearing a second oath, consider how
it might affect your first, and make provision for it in the second
oath (with permission of the one to whom you are swearing it), like
"saving the obedience I have hitherto sworn to my Laurel, Foo de
Bar".  Or making the second oath the greater, with the permission of
your first lord.

In period, there were more complicated oaths and more complicated
solutions.  I dimly recall one case in which the lord went to one
overlord with the men at arms that he owed for that service, but sent
all the rest of his men to fight on the side of his other overlord.

> and so with an oath to defend my barony there was never any doubt in
> my mind that I would fight for Bryn Gwlad.

Um, begging your pardon, but I think you should have given it some
thought.  You might have asked Robin, for example, for his formal
permission to fight on the side of Bryn Gwlad, explaining your
situation.  Unless Robin has greatly changed, I would not have
expected him to refuse it.  It might have also made great court
schtick.  Robin being Robin, I bet he could come up with a really
clever scene, and one that emphasized principles like "we're all
friends".

One period principle was that a man holds in chief of the one of whom
he holds the most valuable fee.  I could imagine (if they had guard
tabards at the time) of someone weighing a tabard versus a red scarf
and concluding that the tabard was the greater.


On the other hand, I would not hesitate in such a case, but that's
because I've already thought it out, and I had and have no dual
obedience.  The only oath I have sworn, and still hold by, is my oath
to my dear liege lady in the Middle Kingdom.  If I had combat archery
gear, and if she were to point to the king of the Middle, or the king
of Ansteorra, and said "kill me that king", I would cheerfully say
"certainly, my lady.  On your head the sin" and let fly.  Shakespeare
said it better in Henry V, Act 4:

    KING HENRY V
    I dare say you love him not so ill, to wish him here
    alone, howsoever you speak this to feel other men's
    minds: methinks I could not die any where so
    contented as in the king's company; his cause being
    just and his quarrel honourable.

    WILLIAMS
    That's more than we know.

    BATES
    Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know
    enough, if we know we are the kings subjects: if
    his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes
    the crime of it out of us.

    WILLIAMS
    But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath
    a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and
    arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join
    together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at
    such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a
    surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind
    them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their
    children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die
    well that die in a battle; for how can they
    charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their
    argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it
    will be a black matter for the king that led them to
    it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of
    subjection.

But I don't hold with the royal absolutism there: for "king" I read
"lord or lady".

Danielis Lincolnia
-- 
Tim McDaniel; Reply-To: tmcd at panix.com