From: c1741@moncol.monmouth.edu (MICHAEL CARSON)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Authorization and armour requirements
Date: 15 Oct 92 16:30:45 GMT
Organization: Monmouth College, W. Long Branch, N.J.  07764

In article <718836736.F00004@ocitor.fidonet> Ruth.Woodring@f4229.n124.z1.fidonet.org (Ruth Woodring) writes:
> Acceptable insofar as it is appropriate for your station in life. A peasant 
> wouldn't wear one.  Don't think a bard would.  But if you're being the 
> "gentleman So-and-So, traveling from afar" or "Lord Plume de ma Tante, a 
> courtier in the 15th c." it would be appropo to have it hanging from your
> belt.

	This seems reasonable.  The idea I'd choosen was a simple man-at-arms,
who'd won (read as:found) his blade on the battlefeild (it's old/rusty looking,
so that would seem reasonable) in the service of his laird, the McPherson.
	Would the name "Lord Plume de me Tante" be allowed?  I thought there
was a special signifigance to the title "Lord" in the SCA?  If a bard would 
have a sword depends, I think, on what you mean by a bard.  The early
poet/historian bards did fight, I believe, although a "bard as musician only"
types probably didn't.  
	Anyway, since I do know one end of a sword from another, I think I can
pull the above off.  :)

>
> Here are the caveates:  Learn to sit down in it.  Learn how to manage it
> in a  crowd -- ladies take it rather unkindly when they are poked by hard
> pointy  things in public * or slapped across the calves by the blade of
> someone who  didn't control his blade.  You'll have to take it off when
> you marshall in a  tournament, or when you herald one -- the rule says "No
> Live Steel on the  field", not just on the fighters.  In some kingdoms
> you'll have to take it  off before approaching the Thrones in Court
	
	These restrictions seem reasonable.  I think I can control my blade,
especially since I intend to keep it sheathed and cloaked, in public.  :)
	Hmm...  Sitting down.  I hadn't thought much about THAT.  How DOES
one sit with a sword on?  In all the time I spent wearing one, I don't think
I ever sat in a real chair with it.  I suppose I could simple move/remove
the baldric, but that raises problems of it's own...
	Do you know if the bit about removing it before apporaching the
thrones in Court applies to the East Kingdom?

> It is amusing to read the Italian manuals of 1599 by Negri and Caroso and
> find that a gentleman danced wearing his cloak, his hat AND HIS SWORD. 
> I have been teaching dance in the Society for a decade and a half, and
> would be appalled to have to face weapons on the dance floor.  (Feet are
> bad enough!  (grin))

	I can see how an undisicplined blade could cause problems on a dance
floor, even more than in a crowd.

> * I said in Public -- what they do in private is between them and the 
> gentleman....
			<grin>

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