[ANSTHRLD] OP question - Court Baronies and Baronies in fief

[Jay Rudin]

Daniel opened the following can of worms:

> - Technically, you don't know that the 1999 text was used, or even
>  what was said at that time.  For all you know, the queen said "Dude,
>  you're a cee bee", and the king went "*hic*  Shure.  Whaever.
>  More mead, dammit. *slide* *thump*"

 Oooh.  I *want* that scroll.  The illumination should be fascinating.

> - One of the mottos of the College of Arms is "Non scripta, non est"
>  -- "if it's not in writing, it doesn't exist".

True.  But we aren't talking about CoA documents; we're talking about royal 
documents.  Many awards have been given without a written document, and 
there is no requirement in Corpora or Kingdom Law that there be a document.

> - Have previous backlog scrollers been careful to research the text
>  used at the time of the bestowal?  I defer to scribes, but I'd be
>  inclined to doubt that scribes have generally been that scrupulous.

The purpose of having standard texts is to make this not matter.  If 
granting a Court Barony always means the same things, then any wording that 
does so is fine.  (See below, when I start getting pedantic.)

>  Side question: do they hunt up the old crown who granted it to
>  sign?  What if one or both is dead or unavailable?  I dimly recall
>  hearing that the official royal signatures are on file for allowable
>  forgery.  Which leads me to ...
>
> - Anachronistic forgery of legal documents is well-known from period.
>  While normally I'd condemn forgery if it creates a false impression,
>  in this case, it would be entirely harmless, and indeed would
>  clarify the situation.  I deserve to get warts from typing this
>  next: consider it a creative anachronism.
>
> But I Am Not A Scribe.  I'm just opining from general principles.
> I expect an expert scribe to come along and take out my pretty bubble
> with a little prick.

The crucial issue is that it is not forgery, it is perfectly acceptable 
delegation.  Allowing somebody else to sign for you is completely legal. 
(The law doesn't even require you to know how to sign your name.)  Many 
executives have a secretary or assistant to sign things.  Diane (Serena) and 
I routinely sign each other's signatures, with permission.  A power of 
attorney is a specific grant of this right, usually with detailed 
instructions of the circumstance in which it is authorized.  During their 
reign, Karlanna signed both her and Seamus's signatures on many scrolls.

If a scribe signs a Crown's name with the permission of that Crown, on a 
scroll accurately announcing their court pronouncements, that is completely 
legal and aboveboard.

By contrast, forgery is "The false making or the material altering of a 
document with the intent to defraud.  A signature of a person that is made 
without the person's consent and without the person otherwise altering it" 
(Black's Law Dictionary)    Note the phrasing "a material altering".  A 
scroll granting a Court Barony, on the date and by the Crown it was actually 
granted, is not a material altering, even if the wording on the scroll isn't 
the wording originally used.

By contrast, if a scribe makes up a scroll giving somebody an award that was 
never actually given, then anything she signs at the bottom would be 
forgery.

(Note: no, the Ansteorran Crowns have not given a blanket permission for 
scribes to sign their names.  Only a very few people have been given that 
permission, under particular instructions, and not all Crowns have done so. 
If you haven't been given specific permission to do this, then you don't 
have it.  It's been occasionally suggested that the signatures be made more 
generally available.  No matter how convenient an idea this may seem, it is 
simply illegal, because some of those signatures, and the right to use them, 
have been given under very strict conditions, and we have no right to change 
those conditions)

 Robin of Gilwell / Jay Rudin