[ANSTHRLD] Baronial investiture ceremonies

[Diane Rudin]

--- Tim McDaniel <tmcd at panix.com> wrote:

> I got asked last night -- does Ansteorra have any set or prepared
> baronial investiture ceremonies?  Is there a Bigge Booke of
> Cerymonies?  I believe the answer is "no" all around, but I thought
> I should be sure.
> 
> What needs to be in a ceremony?
> - Reading of the charter
> - Doing homage and swearing fealty

<picture Serena crying, tearing hair, & generally carrying on cranky>

***Period ceremonies didn't include reading aloud documents!!***

This is not a law-court proceeding, in which it is required that an
indictment be read aloud.  It's a public fealty ceremony, in which
everyone present knows exactly what is going on, and reading a
lengthy document aloud which most of the audience couldn't understand
anyway (being as it would have been in Latin) would have been (and
remains to this day) pointless.

I've read many a description at this point of period fealty
ceremonies, and they don't include reading the lengthy, Latin,
written contract.  Period fealty ceremonies (and for that matter,
modern ones) involve a LOUD (i.e., audible to the crowd), short oath
made on holy relics.  From time to time I have seen people produce
what they claim are lengthy "oaths", but which are in fact the
documentary contract, not the spoken oath.

A long time ago in the SCA, when awards were not preceded by lengthy
recitations of the reasons the person had been called up, the reading
of the "scroll" was what announced to the people present what was
being given.  Nowadays, especially with baronial investitures and
peerage ceremonies, but more and more with almost every other award,
reading the "scroll" is *pointless*, anti-climactic, a real drag on
court, boring, repetitive, etc.

Some persons have gotten it into their heads that if they don't read
the "scroll" aloud, then it isn't "read into law."  Baloney.  All
that is necessary is for the Crown (or their herald) to call up
someone and say, "Here's a Sable Thistle of Ansteorra for your
awesome leatherworking".  It's been said aloud in court, and that's
what makes it legal, not the exact phraseology of it.  (It almost
never happens that there is a "scroll" for a Lion of Ansteorra.  Who
wants to go up to a Lion and tell him/her that his/her award isn't
"real"?)

Another key thing is that period oaths were *audible to all present*.
 These ceremonies were performed in public for a reason -- so that
none could later deny what was sworn.  SCA ceremonies in which the
oaths are muttered so that the people standing *right there*, much
less the rest of those present in the hall, are completely and
utterly antithetical to the purpose of making a public oath.

In addition, homage and fealty aren't the same thing.  While these
were eventually conflated into a single ceremony on the Continent, in
England the ceremonial distinction remained.  Meanwhile, in the SCA
they have become hopelessly confused.  "Hey, let's put homage and
fealty into a blender and hit 'puree'!"  Homage is a personal bond;
fealty is a contractual arrangement.  That's why homage is sworn
hands-in-hands and fealty is sworn on holy relics.  The only persons
at Ansteorra's Coronation who swear true period fealty are the landed
barons & baronesses, and the knights.  They are the only persons who
are receiving/holding goods/services on behalf of the Crown of
Ansteorra.  What everyone else does (except the GOofS, who in
Ansteorra have never sworn "fealty" and never should) would have been
viewed as homage.

End of rant.  We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

While Master Modius has compiled a notebook of commonly-used
ceremonies, it is not in any way "THE" Book of Ceremony, nor should
there be one.  Ansteorra as a kingdom historically has been more
focused on persona than a number of other kingdoms, and therefore
ceremonies are usually tailored to the persona, where applicable, of
the honoree.  If you're interested, I can also provide period fealty
oaths, as opposed to one taken from the Lord of the Rings.  (Yes, I
know, Tolkien based that oath on a period Saxon fealty oath. 
However, it would be better to use the period model he used, rather
than his interpretation of it for his invented history.)

--Serena


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