[Sca-cooks] regalia

[Wanda Pease]

Yup,

	Been there, seen all of that. I've even been on the receiving end of the
vendetta and lived to tell the tale.  Doesn't make it any prettier, and it's
also spoiled a lot of the love I had for my Homeland.  I got mad, and I got
even, but it was sheer luck.

Regina

-----Original Message-----
From: sca-cooks-admin at ansteorra.org
[mailto:sca-cooks-admin at ansteorra.org]On Behalf Of Siegfried Heydrich
Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2002 9:35 PM
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] regalia


    Fealty was a military concept to begin with - a way to ensure that the
King would have troops available when needed. If you were enfeoffed with
land, you were in fealty. In exchange for the grant of land, you agreed (and
the agreements were really pretty specific) to certain conditions and
obligations, most notably not to backstab your Lord, and to marshall however
many troops you were bound to by your fealty. (or at least pay scuttage)
    However, it was a 2 way street. If you were attacked or injured, your
Lord was bound to come to your defense and aid. His failure to do so could
quite easily release you from your vow, and happened quite often. This is
the biggest problem I have with fealty as practiced in the SCA - it's a one
way street, here. If you're having troubles within the context of the game,
you're on your own. Unless you're the King's personal chum, fealty doesn't
even rate as a small joke on the downward side.
    It's also open ended in that there is no definition of expectations.
I've seen fealty used to compel votes in circle. You've sworn fealty to me,
and I command you to vote in the following manner . . . It was used against
me to compel me to silence as I watched a Queen pursue and destroy a landed
Baron & Baroness she want to take vengeance upon . . . among others. They
had also sworn fealty to her, but that didn't stop her from hounding them
out of office. We had a particularly nasty problem with a local household
whose head (he had a GoA) demanded that all his house members swear personal
fealty to him, whereupon he worked them like slaves, and took credit for all
their work. Needless to say, his house is now gone, and he wanders around at
events with no one to talk to any more. The Queen, BTW, dropped out of the
SCA at the end of her reign to avoid the repercussions of her behavior.
    I am bound by my Peerage to serve my Kingdom and the Society. I don't
think of it as fealty, because there is no reciprocal relationship. It's an
obligation accompanying the Peerage - Noblesse Oblige, pure and simple.
There are some Crowns to whom I would have no personal objection to swearing
fealty, but then I remember that I made the terrible mistake of trusting
Crowns before (to my bitter regret), and refrain. Never again . . .

    Sieggy