[Ravensfort] to Mary...

[L T]

I appologize to the list
but I could not remember Mary's address
and so am posting it where she will read it...

Mary,

I saw this on the Ansteorran list...and it demonstrated
why it is so hard to get your SCA persona follow your
real SCA affiliations...

(It's a discussion between Don Iago and Don Luciano)

Lorraine

--- Theron Bretz <tbretz at montroseclinic.org> wrote:
> From: "Theron Bretz" <tbretz at montroseclinic.org>
> To: <ansteorra at ansteorra.org>
> Subject: Re: [Ansteorra] WWSD? was: WWAD? was: WWMPD?
> Reply-to: ansteorra at ansteorra.org
> Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 11:06:00 -0500
>
>
> > While I nearly gag when I hear the Artherian legend lines in reference to
> the SCA, I must agree that I don't want to do in all situations what a 16th
> century Spaniard would have done. So in reference to WWSD (What Would a
> Spaniard Do):
>
> Good for you.  If you won't gag over Arthurian references, I promise to try
> not to visibly shudder every time I hear someone reverently intone The
> Dream(tm). :-)
>
> > I have no urge to conquer and enslave the native people when I travel to a
> new place. I certainly don't want to force them become Catholic.   I'm not
> real up on the whole burning heretics thing either.
> >
> > Too many of my friends have English personas, and I'd hate having to go
> around killing them off. (Some of them shoot too well anyway.) Although it
> might be funy to string up an occasional pirate now and again, I don't think
> the police would be amused.
>
> But you would do none of these things if you were in a foreign country for
> non-military purposes.  The notion of nationalism is generally not germane
> to the period covered by the SCA.  Nations interacting with other nations
> was the business of heads of state, not the man on the street.  At least,
> not until he was sent off to die for the cause.
>
> [To head off objections and exceptions, I will note a fair amount of nascent
> English nationalism in the second half of the 16th c.  This was engendered
> intentionally by Elizabeth and her ministers and facilitated by the fact
> that it's easier to create an "us versus them" mentality when you live on an
> island apart from your enemies.]
>
> For a look at the more common view of things, take the "Italians".  Apart
> from living in the region we now call Italy, there were, in fact no Italians
> as such.  Not to their minds.  They were Tuscans, Umbrians, Napoli, Veneti,
> Florentines, Genovese, Pisani, Romans, Sicilians, Milanese, Papal, Imperial,
> Guelphi, Ghibelline, and that's just barely scratching the surface.  Yes,
> they shared a more-or-less common language (often less), and religion
> (again, more or less - Catholics were QUITE capable of burning each other,
> y'know), but for the most part, the differences were more important than the
> things in common.  It's only when threats to the whole of the region come
> down the pipeline that you see any sort of unity, and even that was
> piecemeal at best.
>
> Ditto for most so-called nationalities.  Would a Castillian soldier be safe
> walking through the streets of London?  Possibly not (certainly not in the
> 1580s), and folks would want to know his business, but he'd probably be in
> as much danger in Barcelona (the capital of occupied Catalunha) even with
> reinforcements.  Put that same Spanish soldier on the streets of,
> say...Ravens Fort and he's just another foreign visitor in a land full of
> foreign visitors.  In such situations, without your Company to back you up,
> you're going to be on your best behavior.  Hopefully, so will everyone else.
>
> By treating Ansteorra as a place we've traveled to, it solves a lot of these
> cultural conflict issues.  After all, it doesn't matter what I think of the
> Turk, so long as he buys my oil.
>
> Luciano Malatesta
> Veneti - non Italiano
>
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> Ansteorra at ansteorra.org
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