[MR] early SCA peerages

[Dave Montuori]

Scripsit Gorm:
> On 6/24/08, Beau Meredith <beaumeredith at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> so where did the first peers come from???????
> 
> assuming you mean SCA peers...
> 
> basically, shortly after the first "organized" SCA tournament, it was
> decided to put some awards together...the powers that were then came
> up with names, wrote ceremonies (borrowing liberally from Tolkein,
> Arthurian legend and any other medeivalloid resource they had handy,
> which wasn't as many as we have now), and gave em out.  Those were the
> Knights and Laurels, given out at the first 12th night celebration,
> back in AS low single digits (the West Kingdom has a site with the
> exact history, but I can't get to it right this second).

According to the West Kingdom OP, there were three knightings in the SCA 
prior to Twelfth Night of AS II (6 Jan 1968). At that 12th Night, nine 
gentles were made members of the Order of Chivalry and two became the 
premier members of the Order of the Laurel.

http://heralds.westkingdom.org/Awards/Chivalry.htm
http://heralds.westkingdom.org/Awards/Laurel.htm

Now, for those who have an interest, the Order of Chivalry was kind of 
"boot-strapped" into being, as discussed in the "Pre-History" page of the 
West Kingdom history:

http://history.westkingdom.org/Year0/index.htm

but David the Herald (later Ardral Argo verKaeysc) is still regarded as 
the First Knight of the SCA, as his was the first knighting done *in* the 
SCA, on 1 May 1966:

http://history.westkingdom.org/Year1/FirstTournament.htm

-Evan