Re: Homage and Fealty

[Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy@abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU>]

Poster: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy@abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU>

  Tibor,
  Please, twist not what I have said....

Mordrea, am I MORTIFIED if that is what you think I was doing.  If anyone has
taken it that way, I must apologize AT ONCE.
  
  As a squire, I am in FEALTY to my knight. I am bound by my pledge, by my honour
  and by duty to him... I ALSO show him respect and hold him in great esteem...
  but, within the question, if you are going to cut and dry ask, "in the SCA do
  we pay homage or do we give fealty", I restate, that in my experience in the
  SCA we give fealty... we hold in great honour and esteem those to whom we have
  given our fealty, but, at least for me, I do much more than give/show "esteem
  shown one as due or claimed by one as a right," thus homage is incorrect... I
  am in FEALTY.

I am still but an egg in this regard, and much beholden to Pedro de Alcazar for
sharing what he knows...

But, what I have found in my experience, is that by and large, fealty was
almost a contractual agreement: but homage was a degree of personal loyalty
foreign to most modern Americans.

No self-respecting Society Squire would, say, call their Knight a rude name in
public, and storm off.  Nor would any person in fealty act counter to the best
interests of their liege: they tend to act, well, Loyal.

A feudal relationship in period was a series of rights exchanged in a public
manner: but you didn't have to like each other one little bit.  It was, well,
business as usual.

Now, perhaps I misunderstand period.  Perhaps (although less likely) I
misunderstand Society fealty relationships (despite some direct experience).
But it is the element of intense personal loyalty that we feel in the Society
when we take our oaths, that leads me to think of them more as homage than
fealty.

Am I making sense?  Am I making an error?

	Tibor
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