[MR] A Rapier King?

[Lisa and Ken Theriot]

Andas wrote:

[Some rapier fighters also want the "prizes" that heavy fighters take for 
granted as "their right". Those prizes include not only awards and titles, 
but also the right to rule.]


I don't know why I want to respond to that, but I do.  I was chatting with 
a friend at Pennsic, a man who has been in the SCA basically from day one. 
 My hubby and I were singing "Ban the Fencers", and my friend said, "And 
what a fine idea."  This surprised me, as I consider my friend a tolerant 
chap, and as I have many dear friends in the rapier community, I inquired 
further.  Though I still support rapier activities (I have fenced, and you 
couldn't pay me to take up heavy weapons), I was forced to concede that he 
had a valid point.


The SCA began as, and substantially still is, an organization dedicated to 
the High Medieval period.  That's not 1599, that's _1299_.  Though we've 
expanded our horizons, I have been in the SCA long enough to remember when 
the Board felt the need to set 1600 as the limit because of the number of 
cavaliers, Jacobites, and dragoons turning up regularly at events.  I 
myself have been seen in cavalier dress, and a darned shame it is that it's 
post-1600, but I understand the need to draw the line somewhere.  No one 
can date anything even remotely resembling fencing earlier than the 1520s, 
and the real heyday came much later than that.  By that time, courtly love 
was a memory.  Europe was long past the days of seizing a throne, or much 
of anything else, by right of arms.  The medieval tournament had its heyday 
in the 12th to 14th centuries, after which time it became an excuse to 
dress up and have a big party (hmmmm, maybe that wasn't the best 
example...).


Fencing in the SCA began as what it was in period, a number of clubs, with 
guys getting together and doing something they enjoyed, and which might 
come in handy if they found themselves in a nasty squabble.  Which of those 
clubs ever stormed the palace and set up their leader as king?


Adelaide