Re: Response to Proposed IAC Banishment Change

[Lisa Steele <lsteele@mhc.mtholyoke.edu>]

On Tue, 26 Mar 1996, Stephanie Malone Thorson wrote:

> city-states we've mentioned were as famous for their civil unrest as for 
> their republican government.  It seems to me that it is unwise at best, 

  I am researching that very topic (9-15C Italy, that is), but I hestiate 
to say that the Italian city-states were turbulant because of their 
democratic functions.
> 
> Well and fine, but how many of these forms of vote-taking are 
> authentically medieval or Renaissance?  I am not familiar with all of 
> these, and would like to know.
  None of the seriously debated methods were historical. However, the 
methods used in the Lombard city-states are pretty well documented and 
coudl be adapted with some reasonable certainty of the source.
> 
> At some point someone expressed the concern that the inauthentic form of
> the crown tourney as a means of selecting royalty could interfere with the
> SCA's corporate status as a non-profit educational organization.  Would it

  I know I raised the point in my letter to the BoD and GC. I consider it 
a possible risk because it is so clearly ahistorical and, unlike many of 
the safety rules, lacks a good justification. I raised the Carolingian 
example not as an ideal for method, but as evidence that even in a highly 
active, very political barony, one could have an election without the 
politics often feared.

> (though on the battlefield and not in tournament) in medieval Europe -
> William of Normandy thus became king of England, after all. 

  And similarly the Normans captured Sicily and Naples, but it was not 
done by single combat.
> 
> My lady, I believe you mentioned at some point the methods used by 
> tournament societies in period for selecting their leaders.  Perhaps you 
> could explain these more fully?

  I have heard the methods discussed on the Rialto, but I don't have 
citation to hand. When mundane life slows down, I will try to find some 
sources.

> I would say here that the concept of the *monarch* as opposed to the
> *sovereign* is not a medieval idea, or really even a Renaissance one.  The

  Too true, especialy when one goes outside England. Perhaps the problem 
is then that some royalty and some members of the society have the wrong 
idea of what a king should be. That aside, while a monarch needed the 
cooperation of major landholders (including clergy), he or she rarely 
needed the cooperation of an independent bureaucracy. I think it is that 
concept that reminds me too much of how modern civil servants view 
political appointees.
  --Esclarmonde