[ANSTHRLD] Baronial investiture ceremonies

[Tim McDaniel]

On Thu, 24 Jan 2008, Cisco Cividanes <engtrktwo at gmail.com> wrote:
> 1. I know of at least one landed couple who did research into their
> history, and while I can not say that their whole ceremony was
> period per say,

("Per se".)

I would bet that the ENTIRE ceremony wasn't period, even when you
leave aside the issue of modern English versus whatever languages the
originals were in.

For example, period oaths had a great deal of calling upon God -- that
was the *purpose* of an oath, to call upon God to help you keep it and
to punish you if not.  But involving God in an official ceremony gets
problematic very fast in the SCA.

For another, a period receipt of a fief was for life (barring a legal
case or later mutual agreement to change it).  Cue Hossein's answer to
"What's the Arabic title for someone who has reigned once and stepped
down?": "'The Late', or if he's lucky, 'the Blinded and Castrated'."

> I know for a fact that a number of elements they included in it were
> absolutely documentable and accurate.

It's the best you can do.  You have to balance period practice, modern
sensibilities, and modern practicalities.

> 2. If I am a herald and someone comes up to me and says "I am being
> invested as Baron of [Insert group name here], and I want to do the
> ceremony like Baron [Insert super-cool SCA baron's name here] did
> when he was invested", then I have only thoughts: a. my opinion of
> historical vs SCA traditions don't mean squat, a future noble just
> told me the terms of my employment as his herald.

Uh, no, that's not at all true.  You're not their slave and you may
have valuable insights and suggestions.  You are perfectly free to
say, for example, "I've talked to their herald and he has some
thoughts about what worked and what didn't.  He also has some period
bits that his baron and baroness didn't go for, but I wanted to
mention them to you in case you thought they were cool.  I do want to
advocate hewing closer to period models."  Or, even, in the limit,
"I'm sorry that I'm not able to help with this".  (Unless you're the
baronial heraldic officer and they don't want to get another herald to
do it, in which case BOHICA, or you have to decide whether it's
atrocious enough to be worth resigning over.)

Danet de Lyncoln
-- 
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com