It seemed an interesting question, so... In (smiling) service, Eleonora/Franca francagorraz@sprintmail.com
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- To: sca@mc.lcs.mit.edu
- Subject: fealty and homage questions?
- From: ALBAN@delphi.COM
- Date: 19 Dec 1996 22:57:16 -0500
- Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
- Organization: The Internet
- Sender: inews-mailgate@bloom-beacon.mit.edu
(this is being posted here on the Rialto, and on the calontir list. I'd like it to be spread over onto other nets/lists, if possible, if y'all would be so kind - as long as you don't go overboard.....<grin> Please be kind enough to include the entire questionaire, of course, including my email address.....) I'm slowly working up an article on historical fealty and homage ceremonies. Several friends have suggested that I add in a section on SCA-specific fealty and homage thangs, as a sort of Known World anthropology discussion. I was wondering, therefore..... I'd appreciate hearing from y'all on as many of the following as you'd care to tell me about. Mind you, I don't need full-fledged historical studies here; I'm looking for SCA practices, feelings, prejudices, and such. If they're based on history, so much the better; I'd appreciate references. 1) What is fealty, and what is homage? 2) I've heard there are three types of fealty sworn in the Society: officer, where you swear fealty to the Crown and Kingdom as an officer of the kingdom; associate, where you swear fealty to a bestowed peer as a squire, apprentice, and/or protege; and personal, where you swear to your head-of-household, the rest of the household, or some other person or group. Which have you done, why, and if you haven't, why not? 3) If the Crown has offered the chance for the populace to swear fealty (as happens in Calontir, for example), why or why not have you sworn? And if you were the Crown that offered such, why? 4) If you've sworn fealty/done homage to a person, why, and what ceremonies and/or oaths did you use? 5) If you've _received_ fealty/homage from someone, why? 6) So, presuming you wanted to swear fealty to or to receive fealty from someone, how did you approach that person? 7) General comments. Be specific. <grin> If this works out, I might turn it into one or more classes for the Calontir Royal University (pending their approval and my stage fright), and possibly even *gasp* publish it. This means, obviously, I'd like to attach your name to your comments, if they make it into the class/article; if you have some objections, tell me, and I'll keep your name out of it. My email address is alban@delphi.com Many thanks. Alban St. Albans, Calontir. (Yup, I did it, too: came up with a more-or-less historic homage ceremony, borrowed an oath from Bracton (an English legal writer a century or two after the Conquest), and *poof* I had done homage and sworn fealty to Mistress Tegan. The article I'm working on came out of the research needed to do all this as right as we could.)
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