SC - Re: newsletter recipes

[Karen]

The nobility question is discussed thus:
>>>>>>>>

  To my dismay, this is being recreated right along with the rest of the
"noble" persuits.  I have seen rudeness and vicious backbiting and
plotting and maneuvering in the so-called nobility of the SCA that has
driven many of my old friends to leave.    I have seen kings that had no
idea what chivalry means and ladies who were anything but.  Maybe we
should get back to what the SCA was formed to be....a recreation of what
should have been or could have been instead of spending quite so much
time worrying about what was.  In other words...re-create rather than
re-enact.

        But Caitlin, "what should have been" *is different for
        everybody*!  My should have been and could have been are
        a courtful of my friends and friendly acquaintances all in 
        their best garb, laughing and talking and dancing, nobody
        hiding in corners...nobody trying to read slight into the
        slightest things, just happy to be here and with one another.

        What's _your_ particular dream?  (Not capital, not tm)

Countess Berengaria de Montfort de Carcassonne, OP
<<<<<<<<

And I find that I agree with Berengaria, mostly.  I do not disagree
with her, but find that I am pointed in slightly a different
direction.  I think that one reason that the ideal of nobility is
"pushed" as it is in the SCA is because some of us do not like the
alternative.  I remember when slavery was outlawed in Atenveldt, and
the reasons behind it.

I have seen other recreation groups that require every new member to
enter as a peasant, limiting the color and style of clothes they can
wear until they can "earn" the right to more rich attire, and more
"elbow rubbing" with "more important people".  I think that the idea
of nobility is an effort at democracy in a non-democratic society.  If
we make all of us more or less equal at the beginning, we may have
less of the competition to prove that "I'm better than you are" as
there would be with a divided class society.

Another problem we might be having in this discussion is merely in the
scope of the SCA.  It really covers too much time and too many places
for all things to be equal.  Perhaps Caitlin is as noble in comparison
to those people around her in persona as Berengaria.  The ideal of
nobility was different in many times and places.  My husband teases me
with my Irish/Norse persona because he says that all it took at that
time in Ireland to be a King was a stone house, more than 7 cattle,
and a couple of men-at-arms.  So the idea of nobility was different
than in England with the Norman inheritance and blood-right of Kings. 
And the ideas of the Norsemen about leadership were totally foreign to
"divine right of kings" that developed in several places later in
history.

I assume that all around me are noble of one sort or another, unless
informed differently.  I have a very good friend that, many years ago,
would have a peasant persona ready on hand for emergencies.  Like
waking up at a camping event, with a desperate need to go to the
privy, and not wanting to take the time to appear as her station
demanded (she was 13th Cen. Welsh noblewoman, and peer of the realm as
Companion of the Pelican).  So she would slip into her peasant tunic
and sandals, and send her maid to the privy for her.  Thus Mistress
Rhonwen was never seen in public in unseemly state.  Only her serving
maid.

For those that take offense at the "high-handedness" of the nobles,
lighten up, they didn't mean it that way (and if they did, they can
just live with the results!)  To those who have taken offense at the
slovenliness and ignorance of the peasantry, lighten up, they didn't
really mean it that way, it is just a fun way to blow off the
pressures and troubles of modern life, to go back to worrying about
basics like food and shelter instead of problems at work, scheduling,
whether your children are indulging in illegal or unacceptable
activities or whether "that other faction" in the barony is "winning"
or not.

Nobility has its place.  Peasantry has its place.  I take a very dim
view of slavery or games of that sort.  I am embarrassed when someone
takes my polite overtures as an insult because I didn't know just
looking at them that they are not noble.

Nuf said.

Tyrca




 
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