Re: Escorting Ladies (fwd)

[clevin@rci.ripco.com (Craig Levin)]

Poster: clevin@rci.ripco.com (Craig Levin)

> Poster: E L Wimett <SILVERDRAGON@Charleston.Net>

> But there is a simple and elegant resolution to this: don't kneel.

Works for me.

> I NEVER do.  Now I grant you that this is partly a matter of persona since
> my earliest days in the Society.  
> 
> However, it is also a practical matter:
> I wracked up my left knee when I was only 21 and more than half the time 
> cannot rise from a kneeling position even with the aid of an old-fashioned
> Roman Catholic prie-dieu.

Eeyowch!

> And, if anyone claims offense, I point out that for my persona in period, 
> failure to stand erect before my king and meet his eye firmly might and well
> would be taken as a sign of guilt and possible treasonous activity.

I would note that kneeling is, after all, a sign of sub-
ordination, and not even done in the ceremony of paying fealty.
Theoretically, all lord/man arrangements like fealty and even, to
some extent, homage, were made between equals, and, if one thinks
about it, there is a quid pro quo to be seen in these feudal
arrangements. You, as a vassal, are a contractor-not a client,
not a servant, not a slave, but a free man-and therefore equal
to your lord on that account. That he deserves respect, I cannot
deny, but not worship, of which kneeling is, obviously, a
symbol.

On the other hand, if your persona is unfree, then this goes out
the window. If you're a monk or nun, and the person in question
is your abbot/abbess, a similar relationship is at hand here. The
bishop/priest (or the minor orders) relationship is not as clear
to me.

At the risk of annoying the crowned heads in this forum, what
think ye?

-- 
http://pages.ripco.com:8080/~clevin/index.html 
clevin@ripco.com
Craig Levin
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