Rapier Peerage Proposal – What is it?
A proposal is currently before the Board of Directors to create a peerage for Rapier and ‘Cut and Thrust’ martial activities. The proposal was created by the Additional Peerage Exploratory Committee, which was created by the Board of Directors. It was comprised of representatives of eleven kingdoms, including representatives of the Chivalry, Laurel, Pelican, multiple Orders of High Merit for rapier combat, and heralds. The Easterners on the Committee were Earl Kenric aet Essex and Mistress Alys Mackyntoich.
SCA members have unofficially discussed for years the possibility of additional peerages for the martial activities of Rapier as well as for Archery, Equestrian, Thrown Weapons and Siege Weaponry. Currently the only avenue to a peerage open to someone for these activities is if their service to the sport is significant enough to merit a Pelican. Peerages are only given for Service (Pelican), Arts and Sciences (Laurel) or Armored Combat (Chivalry).
The Committee examined input collected by the 2010 SCA Census and correspondence received by the SCA on the subject. They summarized what they learned as follows.
- Many SCA members view peerages as a way to reward excellence in SCA activities in general and not as things only for service, armored combat or arts and sciences.
- Respondents to the 2010 Census showed strong levels of support for additional peerages with the greatest amount of support being for a Rapier peerage.
- Rapier fighters exist with “elite levels of martial expertise, leadership, service and honor on the Rapier field, comparable with the skills and comportment expected of peers” and have received Pelicans or Laurels for their contribution to Rapier.
- Many Crowns have expressed a desire to elevate worthy candidates to a Rapier peerage.
- A peerage is functionally useful in the Society for generating the recognition needed to solve problems. A lower level award doesn’t do this.
- Rapier is flourishing in the SCA and found in all kingdoms. A Society wide peerage will improve the practice of Rapier and “benefit the Society overall”.
- Rapier peers would form a body that “can solve problems, represent and maintain high standards, and communicate effectively with the Crown in the way that only peers can”, especially across kingdom lines.
- Currently existing methods of acknowledging top-level Rapier fighters aren’t adequate because Kingdom awards are not analogous across kingdoms; kingdoms do use the same standards for entry; and these awards do not create the same bond with a Crown as peerages.
The report also discussed possible names, badges and regalia for the Peerage. The Board chose one of each to put forward for commentary.
- Orders of the Masters of Defense is a name based on the London Masters of Defense, a royally chartered guild of teachers of fencing in England.
- The badge suggested is three rapiers interlaced in pall inverted proper with the weaponry representative of the weaponry used in the new peerage.
- A white or silver livery collar with the badge of the Order hung from it is suggested as the regalia. This style was fashionable in the later part of the SCA period and should be easily visible in combat.
Anyone wishing to comment on the proposal should send their remarks to The Board of Directors by December 1, 2013. Use the title “Additional Peerage Proposal” as the subject line. Comments can be sent by email to comments@lists.sca.org or
SCA Inc.
Box 360789
Milpitas, CA 95036
Editor’s note: The proposal put forward by the Board for comment can be found at http://sca.org/BOD/announcements/APECProposal.pdf
First: I have deep friendship and the utmost respect for Kenric and Alys – these are two of the East Kingdom’s finest. I’m glad their voices were on the committee. I recognize how committees work, and that these reports represent a distillation and negotiation of a broad variety of opinions. To the two of you: thank you for being our representatives: we could not do better.
I think it is a terrible shame that neither the Board’s charge to that committee nor its full report seem to be available to the public for review and comment. I wish I had a copy of both.
I, personally, find myself deeply disappointed in the summary. Some of those summary points seem merely to be matters of opinion, some of them are very much unsupported matters of opinion. Speaking generally: it seems more like marketing and less like a report.
Alas, the second bullet point is simply wrong. The Census, as successful as it was, was an imperfect creation, and the pro-rapier-peerage voices consistently distort the results.
Let me quote from my comments to the Board on the matter:
———————
Nutshell: 17,821 people took the survey. Far more people who
took the survey wanted to use existing Peerages for rapier,
or wanted nothing, or didn’t even answer. Only about 22%
actually said they wanted a Rapier Peerage, with another
12% stating they wanted a new shared Peerage.
17,821 people took the Census.
1,375 (8%) gave no information at all
5,161 (29%) said No, No Opinion or Other Choice
4,358 (24%) said Use the existing Peerages
3,863 (22%) said New Peerage for Rapier
2,195 (12%) said An Omnibus New Peerage
Further, if you examine which sorts of people oppose the
idea of a new Peerage, it concentrates amongst the sorts
of volunteers one would not want to alienate:
Longer participation correlates with a reduced level of support.
Armored combat participants were more heavily against a new Peerage.
Officers and Autocrats were more likely to be opposed
The higher the office held, the more likely to oppose in general.
Former Kings/Princes/Barons were far more strongly opposed.
Higher activity levels correlate with less support.
Higher ranks correlate with less support.
Multiple Peers correlate with less support.
Longer term paid membership correlates with sharply reduced support.
————————
Put another way: I voted “in favor of the initial Census question permitting some recognition for rapier participants via the Peerage, but I voted against a Rapier Peerage. Nevertheless, as this committee reported the results, they would distort my vote to be in favor of a Rapier Peerage.
When you have people like Alys around in your Kingdom, the need to recognize people who do rapier with Peerages seems rather obvious, doesn’t it? 🙂
My personal hope for change is this: while I think we should continue to permit and to encourage the Pelicans and Laurels to reward contributions in Rapier on the same scale as for any other SCA endeavor, the Chivalry is simply not permitted to at this time. Whether or not they are inclined: they may not.
I’d like to see Corpora gently tweaked, so that if and when the members of the Chivalry wish to recognize new members in rapier, they may do so. I trust in my brothers in Peerage who are Chivalry to maintain their Order, and do the right thing for the Society, over time, and if permitted to do so. And I’d be mighty proud if that started here in the East, of course.
I am dead set against a new Peerage for anything at all. I believe that the existing Peerages cover the Society adequately, and with a minor tweak to Corpora, could do so even better. And I don’t see how to introduce a new Rapier Peerage without causing serious harm to the Society as things stand now.
The proposal that was put forward by the Board for comment can be found at http://sca.org/BOD/announcements/APECProposal.pdf
Yes, good point.
But that is a summary document, not the full report (I gather), and does not include the Board’s instructions to the committee.
Yeah — I don’t know if it’s actually the case, but the PR has been making it sound like this proposal is running on rails. And I think that’s very unfortunate: IMO, a Rapier-only Peerage is the worst of the options on offer. Personally, I favor the “omnibus” option, mostly because I honestly don’t see the *good* option — expanding the Chivalry — ever happening. (I don’t have as much faith as you in the Order: I’ve heard too many OMDB’s from members of it.)
But Rapier-only is a horrible precedent. As Ygraine says, by the numbers the archers *should* be ahead of rapier, and it’s hard to see any credible argument why there should be a Rapier Peerage and not an Archery Peerage. If Rapier gets one, the Archers will do so before long. And with that in their sights, there *will* be long-term movements for, eg, Equestrian, Missile Weapons, and so on: basic human nature is going to force things down a “me, too” path.
Loath though I am to invoke “slippery slope” arguments, this one is pretty obvious. We’re still going to have the “big” Peerages that everyone knows — the Laurel and the Pelican, which are wide in their scope — and the Chivalry will always be set apart by the way the game works. And then we’re going to have “little” Peerages that are narrowly focused but just not as *important* as the Chivalry, that might be Peerages but won’t get as much mindshare and respect. The system was never quite balanced, but the notion that there is one Peerage for the enormous concept of improving the game (the Laurel), one for the enormous concept of running the game (the Pelican), and then lots of little Peerages for specific subjects is going to confuse folks, and many will just ignore them.
*One* more Peerage, that encompasses the concept of Martial Prowess separately from Armored Combat, we can probably afford without seriously breaking our memes and rituals — that would at least parallel with the Laurel and Pelican in a reasonable way. (And the Chivalry will ever be the weird exception. Frankly, this approach would properly call out how weird that exception is.) But I think the current plan is deeply unwise, and is going to be full of unintended consequences…
I hope you write to the Board.
Justin, you’ve known me a long time. So you know that my opinion of the Chivalry has, shall we say, evolved over time. It was not nearly as positive as it is now. 🙂 Experience has been good for me.
I am QUITE certain that there are members of the Chivalry who feel that Over My Dead Body is the appropriate answer. But I am also sure that there are members who will consider the individuals carefully, and eventually make a positive recommendation.
I am also sure that, at some point, a Crown will come along who is as interested in the outcome of a Rapier Knight, and make one.
I also believe (and this is a bit transparent, but what the heck) that if there is a potential avenue to being the first Rapier Knight (or the second) that it will change the dynamic between the two sports, in ways that are mutually positive.
It’s surely a waiting game. Within 5 years? Short odds. Within 20? Certain odds. It doesn’t have to be soon.
(Curious: it isn’t allowing me to reply directly to Tibor’s comment to me. Does WordPress have a maximum nesting level? Seems a poor design choice.)
I hope you write to the Board.
Yeah, I really should. I nearly did when the committee was formed, but I found it coming out interperate, so I back-burnered it. I should get around to doing so sometime soon, though.
It’s surely a waiting game. Within 5 years? Short odds. Within 20? Certain odds. It doesn’t have to be soon.
Intellectually, I can see that. I don’t know if I agree, though. The problem is the existence and structure of the Chivalry, which leaves folks in the other martial arts feeling hard-done-by, and I can’t say that that’s entirely unjustified: the system *is* poorly structured at the moment. 20 years is a very long time, and I can sympathize with folks who aren’t prepared to wait that long.
If it was actually 5 years, I might agree. But the politics make it challenging to evaluate this — even having been on the Census Committee, I didn’t get a terribly clear sense of whether that’s plausible or not. And folks don’t really want to depend on anecdote and hearsay…
A combined-purpose additional Peerage has long been part of the discussion initiated by the archers. Anyone interested can join the Yahoo group at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/sca-4peerage/info
and several years of discussion are archived there. The biggest problems raised were what to call such an Order and what badge would be appropriate.
This was my preferred compromise, as additional martial activities could be included as participation and expertise warranted such recognition (instead of having a proliferation of special interest Orders).
Well, Justin, we live in the finest of all possible Kingdoms – so I’m perfectly OK with our creation of Laurels and Pelicans whose contributions within Rapier are might, and I’m perfectly OK with the leaders of Rapier working with the Chivalry to make a better day possible.
We may have our varying opinions on what the Chivalry will DO, but that’s all just guessing. The years have taught me that the Chivalry are super-concerned about the quality of the SCA, and are selflessly dedicated to its improvement (by and large, individual mileage can vary some).
If there stopped being a need to defend so much, if there was a new status quo which encouraged aiming for the existing Peerages and the possibility of success – well, I dream well.
I agree with Master Tibor.
FWIW, I responded to the survey, I sent comments to the committee early-on, and I just sent them another comment. Although my opinions remain the same, the focus of my comment has changed to reflect the “done deal” tone of the proposal.
Basically:
1) I oppose any new peerages, because I believe excellence in the martial arts being discussed can be rewarded through the existing peerages — Pelican for service, and Laurel for research and authenticity. Yes, prowess alone is not recognized, but I’m okay with that. If I had my druthers, only one peerage order would have been created in the early days of the Society, with different “flavors” for the reason, but I realize that cannot happen now.
2) If any additional peerages are created, archery should come before rapier, because some in the archery community have been campaigning for it far longer, and archery has a higher participation level throughout the Known World. (This is tough to measure, because archery does not require warranting.) An archery peerage was first proposed decades ago, back in the 1980’s I believe, by Sir Jon fitz Rauf; I’ve monitored the discussions throughout most of that time, though I did not (and do not) support the movement. I would be sad to see a rapier peerage happen and an archery peerage not happen, just because the rapier community is better at PR than the archers… 😎
3) I strongly oppose reserving a white or silver livery collar for the use of the proposed rapier Order. A badge, yes; collar, no. Many SCAdians wear livery collars as an appropriate accessory for their garb, and I would hate to see this excellent form of jewelry restricted to members of a new peerage. And there are already too many restrictions on accessories — in law and in tradition — for people to remember, especially new folk.
Just my thoughts on this contentious topic. YMMV.
Ygraine of Kellswood
Laurel & Pelican
Court Baroness
Grand Master Bowman, Sagittarius, EK Archery Scorekeeper, etc.
Mistress Ygraine – the report is a report to the Board. What the Board chooses to do with it is still open. I’m sure that some members of the Board have already picked their inclinations. But smart letters to them (on whatever side of the matter) would still be useful.
Ya’all write now, y’hear?
It’s important to note that in the proposal the restricted regalia is a white or silver livery collar with the badge of the order hanging from it. Plain white or silver livery collars would not be restricted
This makes little sense. Throughout the SCA, display of badges of orders are reserved to members of the orders. This is no different. Who cares what the badge is pendant from? You certainly did not intend to make it OK for nonmembers to wear the badge from a string and clearly you say the collar is not reserved.
Yup, what the badge is hanging from should not be mentioned at all. The wording in the proposal is misleading, that’s why I brought up the issue.
A livery collar would be restricted ONLY if it had the badge of the order hanging from it.
We were not asked to consider anything but a Peerage for rapier. Whether any other martial art should have a Peerage was not within our mandate.
I would gladly lend my research help to the archers in finding a registerable name and badge if they wish to make a proposal to the Board.
Thanks, Alys. IIRC, several good suggestions were made for a name/badge for an archery Order, it was a *combined* Order that was proving problematic.
As sad as I am to say it, since I know that a large amount of work went into coming up with this proposal, I do not support it for many of the reasons mentioned by Tibor and Ygraine.
I believe that singling out Rapier over other martial arts will only reinforce the current issue, which is that under our current system it is what you do, not the dedication, decorum, and love of the Society with which you do it that makes you a Peer, despite the fact that being a Peer is almost entirely about that dedication, decorum, and love.