[MR] 4/5th Peerage - OMG WILL IT NEVER END?

[Barclay, Peter C LTC USA CIO/G6]

Greetings unto Melchoir from Terafan,

   You stated (in response to another):
>> 1) 'Rapier is not a society wide activity'
>   There is a Society Rapier Marshal just like there is a Society
> Armored Marshal, to me that says the Society seems to think it is
> indeed a society activity. Look it up :)

These are two completely different statements and they aren't equal.  Just because the Society has an "officer" for an activity doesn't make it a "society-wide" activity.   It does make it a society activity and certainly one that the Board believes has enough activity level (and may be risky enough without reasonable *consistent* controls) to find value in having someone be responsible for the big picture view.  

*I* interpreted the statement "Rapier is not a society wide activty" to be a very different statement.   One of the key things about the peerages is that they are "international".  If you are a KSCA, you are a knight of the *society*, not a knight of kingdom X, and are a knight no matter what kingdom you may move to.    At the moment, a rapier peerage is very difficult because not every kingdom participates in and has a rapier culture. 

For those who don't understand much about the peerages, the best document explaining them was written by a Western knight/laurel now living in Drachenwald.  You can find his (long) article at http://www.greydragon.org/library/peerdoc.html

To quote Sir Wiglaf: 
"One thing I can say that the standard is in fact an international standard, because it is an international order. If you are knighted in Drachenwald, you are a knight in every kingdom on the known world; you are KSCA, a knight of the SCA."

So again, it would be very hard (at the moment) to develop a peerage for rapier or thrown weapons or equestrian or archery or etc., etc.,  because there isn't enough of a true international standard.  

Although it is easy to cast out the phrase "there ought to be a 4th peerage" and lump all those things together, it poses lots of practical problems because it is very difficult to compare archery to rapier to equestrian to thrown weapons, etc.   If the first peers are rapier guys and the next ones are thrown weapons guys, do cliques start to form within the order because "those guys don't have to learn to fight, they just throw things at a block of wood..." or "those guys don't have to do hard things like train horses, they just wack each other with metal swords..." ??      [Those statements are merely meant as examples of what could be said, rather than an attempt to disparage thrown weapons or rapier or equestrian.]  

Once you realize the difficulty of an all-encompassing 4th peerage, then start the arguments that we ought to have *6 or 8 more* peerages:
 - Rapier
 - Archery
 - Shopping
 - Equestrian
 - Thrown weapons
 - Youth activities
 - Legal wrangling
 - Coloring/submission of heraldic papers (is that service, art, or a special form of combat?)

cheers,
   Terafan


________________________________________
From: atlantia-bounces at atlantia.sca.org [atlantia-bounces at atlantia.sca.org] On Behalf Of Kevin B [melchior at houseblueheron.com]
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2009 6:00 PM
To: atlantia at atlantia.sca.org
Subject: Re: [MR] 4/5th Peerage - OMG WILL IT NEVER END?

Should there be a another peerage for non-armored combat? If it comes
to pass then I guess there should, if not then I guess not. *shrugs*
things happen in time for reasons I for one shall just wait and see.

There that's done, I would however like to address a few points. "Why
Melchior, why bother?" because these are opinions and non-legitimate
arguments, and I feel the need to dispel them. In this I will use the
term rapier as that is what has been directly discussed. Feel free to
replace it with whatever flips your fancy [As appropriate] :)

1) 'Rapier is not a society wide activity'
   There is a Society Rapier Marshal just like there is a Society
Armored Marshal, to me that says the Society seems to think it is
indeed a society activity. Look it up :)

<snip>

In short: don't poo-poo on people because they play the game
differently than you do.

Fini~

-Melchior zum grauen Wolf
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