[Mid] fealty oath

Saradwen said
>I am sincerely and genuinely interested! You've peaked my
>curiosity, so please do tell us what the Calontir Oath of Fealty is,
>and as well, tell us what the Oath that you swore to your Peer is!
My own oath ran:
"Hear this, Mistress Tegan, that I will bear you fealty in life and
limb, in body, goods, and earthly honor, so help me God and these
sacred relics." This was a slightly mdified oath, from F.L. Ganshof,
_Feudalism_, 3rd English edition, trans. by Philip Grierson, London;
Longmans, Green and Co., 1964, p. 77, which quotes a section from
Bracton, an, ummm, eleventh? twelfth? century English legal text:
"Hear this, my lord: I bear you faith in life and limb, in body and
chattels and earthly honour, so help me God and these holy relics."
(The "sacred" relics I swore on included Tegan's grandmother's
Bible, my copy of the Tao Te Ching, a 450-year-old English coin, a
3rd-Century Welsh arrowhead, two wisdom teeth, and, for the fief
transfer, a stick and some beans from Upper Fenwick (the farm I
live on). (There, was that more than you wanted to know? <grin>)
(And you should see the oath she swore to me!)
>I had been told at Baron Wars to write a Ceremony that would be
>performed at Pennsic. On Household Night, my Peer asked if I
>had written anything yet, and I blushed and said, no, I'd tried and
>couldn't find the words.
Ummmm, with the best of intentions, I'm wondering why you
didn't look around for other fealty oaths/ceremonies? There are
quite a few lying around in the SCA, not to mention those in
historical texts. . . One need not quote verbatim; they could be used
as a source for inspiration, if one doesn't wish a direct quote. . .
>It was truly magic and they were words spoken from my heart of
>hearts, not written or scripted or anything. Would that all Fealty
>Oaths could be done that way...............
True. I've heard there are two camps of thought on scripted
oaths/ceremonies. One camp is that unscripted oaths/ceremonies
are the better, since they come from the heart; the participants say
what they mean. The other camp suggests that pre-scripted,
regularized oaths/ceremonies are the better because that way no-
one forgets to say anything important, and there's a certain zen
(for lack of a better term) in doing things in One Certain Way
repetitiously that gets people into the Right Mood quicker. (What's
the word I'm looking for? Koan? Whatever the term is that people
use to get into a meditative state.) (Note it's not only an Eastern
religion thing: think of, oh, rosaries and Pater Nosters, that
encourage some Christians to get into a prayerful way. And, for
that matter, it's not specifically religous, either. Some baseball and
football players tape up and put on uniforms in one certain way to
get themselves psyched up for the game - and so do some SCA
fighters, I hear.)
Sorry, I've gone far afield here.
Calontir fealty oath? There is no one standard Calontir Fealty Oath.
I don't know for sure what the current Crown uses (we switched a
month and a half ago, and I haven't made it to any events since
then, damn the luck), but the previous Crown used several
different oaths: the peerages used minor variations on one basic
oath, switching between fighting, service, and the arts&sciences as
appropriate; the territorial baronage used a different oath because
they hold land in fief; and so forth. The basic populace oath was, I
believe, something along the lines of "Here do I [swear my
fealty][pledge my service] to the Crown and Kingom of Calontir,
to well and loyally support Crown and Kingdom, to the best of my
abilities, striving always to uphold the ideals, laws, and traditions of
the Society. Thus swear I, <name>." There were a couple of people
who used their own oaths, for personal reasons.

Alban, fealty goob
From: ALBAN@delphi.com
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ to unsubscribe, send a message to
`~-, ,-~`~-, ,-~`~-, ,-~`~-, ,-~` majordomo@midrealm.org with
. | | | | | | | | 'unsubscribe sca-middle' as its body.
Received on Sat Nov 6 18:13:42 1999