From: vader@meryl.csd.uu.se ("]ke Eldberg")
Subject: Period calendar; Nonfighter kings; Drachenwald ideas
Organization: The Internet
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 16:11:06 GMT

Greetings from William de Corbie!

PERIOD CALENDARS

I have a book called "Calendar for 500 years", from 1500 to 2000.
It gives dates, weekdays, holidays, saint's days, how to write Latin
dates and how to translate them, and a bundle of other information.
There is an appendix which covers the period 1200-1499.

However, the info only applies in Sweden, Findland, and to some extent
in Norway, Denmark and northern Germany. Further, it is all in Swedish
so you need this language in order to understand it. If you are still
interested, write to Kalendator forlag, Box 198, 199 23 Enkoping,
Sweden. The calendar is not expensive, I think about $ 20.


NONFIGHTING RULERS

I agree completely that there is no reason to assume that non-fighters
are better rulers than fighters, or vice versa. Indeed, any attempt to
establish a system where rulers are chosen for quality is likely to be
a failure. What one can do is reduce the base from which rulers are
recruited, so that all of them belong to a group which is known to
have a minimum quality.

Introducing non-fighter rulers is not a matter of quality but of
equality; what type of medieval re-creation a person does should
not determine whether (s)he gets a shot at the highest positions.

Dennis O'Connor suggests that rulers be chosen by:
>Civil War. This could be great fun. Monarch wanna-bees would go out
>and solicit fighters for their cause. Then a series of battles would
>be fought,

Neat concept. However, I think that it would be less a matter of non-
fighting wannabes soliciting fighters, than of fighters banding
together to champion a popular person whom they wanted to make King.


MY DRACHENWALD IDEAS

I wrote:

>>1. Fighting and archery. Make it law that any rewards for fighting or
>>   archery shall require the use of authentic equipment.

Justin du Coeur replied:

>I like the motivation, but I'm not sure that laws are the best way to
>accomplish the goal. In the US, at least, you would get *endless*
>arguments about the definition of "authentic"; you might have fewer
>rules-hackers in Sweden, but it still smells like a problem to me. 

Point taken. I do not want a rigid definition, but rather some form
of statement to the effect that authentic equipment counts at least
as much as skill (at using it), or more. Thus, we should reward
authentic re-creation rather than *winning*.

>a bunch of "thou shalt not"s would breed a lot of resentment around here, 

Yes. Perhaps I was unclear; I did not intend to make all my suggestions
and ideas into rigidly defined Kingdom laws. If we legislate everything,
we become an oppressive Soviet system. But on the other hand, if we do
not make some kind of official decision about how we are going to do
things, and perhaps also about how we are *not* going to do things,
then there is a risk that old habits will just continue.

A note: Please disregard and forget my statement about EK elitism.
It is just a feeling I have had, that the East is more tight-fisted
with peerages than most other kingdoms. I really cannot verify this,
so ignore my bloop.

Justin:

>I'd probably recommend some means of unseating the Royalty if reigns
>were that long -- three years is long enough for a bad Monarch to do
>actual damage, or for a good one to burn out and not realize it.

I do not believe that such long reigns would be possible with the
present style of rulership. It would require a different role for the
monarchs, with fewer duties. As has been pointed out, ruling is both
expensive and tiresome. If a reign was 3 years, we would need a very
developed royal administration to take some of the burdens off the
King & Queen.

One idea is to do a combination; a reign is for example "minimum 6
months, and maximum 3 years" (or some other period). You can stay on
after the 6 months if you want, but you are then free to call a Crown
Tourney any time.

A mechanism for unseating bad Royalty without resorting to nasty
stuff like Courts of Chivalry or Board action, should be possible
to invent. For example, we could have an annual Civil War where the
King summons all his people to put down all rebels, with the
provision that if the King loses that war, he also loses the crown.
A popular King will of course win, and retain the throne; if the
people are not satisfied, he will be ousted.

THEME EVENTS

I never intended to *require* people to wear correct garb for the
period or anything. As people have pointed out, such a requirement
would violate Corpora. The main idea of theme events is to have a
re-creation where everyday SCA reality is temporarily suspended in
favor of a theatrical setting which depicts one particular aspect
of our period.

But Justin is right: making the holding of any events save Crown
Tourney mandatory, is a bad idea. Nevertheless, I believe that
we need some provisions for the conduct of theme events, stating
clearly that they are allowed -- especially if "standard SCA
reality" shall be temporarily suspended. Oh, details...

William

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