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Re: Of Kings and Queens [Legality response]




Poster: einar@cvn.net (einar)

>From Elen Prydydd:

Bob Minowicz <minowicz@nc.na.auspex.com> wrote:
>Royal Lists. Properly constituted Lists to determine, by combat, the
>successors to current royalty. Royal Lists must be conducted at a
>tournament announced in the kingdom newsletter as being for that
>purpose. They are known as "Crown Lists" for kingdoms, and "Coronet
>Lists" for principalities.
>
>Now given all of this, it seems that there are two points to consider.
>Both the definition of Kingdom and the definition of Royal Lists use the
>phrase 'by combat.'  They do not state that it must be heavy combat. 
>Further, no where in the document is 'combat' defined.  It could be
>taken that it is left up to Kingdoms to define 'combat,' but that may be
>stretching things a bit.  Better to say that 'war' is certainly 'combat'
>and that the BoD and perhaps more importantly, the Grand Council could
>be consulted to determine if this is an appropriate interpretation. 
>Also note that nowhere does it use the term 'single combat.'  This may
>well have been an intentional choice of wording.  How will we know
>unless we ask?
>
>The second point to consider is perhaps a bit more sticky.  That is the
>statement in the definition of Royal Lists that they 'must be conducted
>at a tournament announced in the kingdom newsletter.'  The trouble here
>is the definition of tournament, and the explicit use of the singular. 
>However, if we were to under a traditional tournament have a qualifying
>tournament to keep the length of the Crown List down I'm sure they would
>not object.  Why then would they object to a series of 'tournaments'
>used to select Crown?

Furthermore, if a tournament is a particular kind of competition, and
*competition* is necessary to achieve the crown, then making the change in
phraseology would assist in broadening the methods of choosing the
sovereign.  Then you have firmer ground for making A&S points part of
crown/coronet selection.

I know some folks out there really hate A&S competitions:  they have a
tendency to bring out the most persnickety and perfectionist instincts in
judges, but the end goal for winning Cr4own/Coronet will be the sheer
number of points.  That should have at least one salutary effect -- getting
more people involved in A&S competition, and therefore getting some our
more shy artisans some long-deserved recognition for their work.  I'm sure
there will be other benefits.

>All that would be required then is to contact the Grand Council and get
>their take on these items and if they then believe this would require
>some slight modifications to the Corpora to convince the BoD to make
>those changes.  This is not as arduous a task as has been presented.  It
>can be done if it has to be.  The thing is that it may not have to be.
>
>I guess what I'm saying here is that we should worry about crossing this
>bridge if and when we come to it, but even so, from here it doesn't look
>too bad.

No, it doesn't.  If the political will is there, it will happen.  What will
be worrisome in this process is inertia:  "it's been done this way since
rocks were soft, it's tradition" and therefore a sacred cow.  I don't
believe in such sacred cows... they outlive their usefulness and become a
nuisance.  Once that inertia is overcome, then many things become possible.

Elen Prydydd

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