From: justin@inmet.camb.inmet.COM (Justin du Coeur MKA Mark Waks)
Subject: Alchemy, Barons, Dance, Autocrats, etc.
Organization: The Internet
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 22:50:07 GMT

Re: Alchemy

Caradoc writes:
>Heavily by influenced by Arabic magic, Alchemy was a spiritual path. 
>You know, aimed at the spiritual perfection of the soul an' all that.
>Alchemists were around, and are acceptable as personae.

Question: how far back did alchemy in the Christian world go? Most of
the "major" alchemists I've heard about have been pretty late; the
ones I can think of offhand seem to all be Renaissance. Not that
Renaissance is OOP, but I *am* curious...

(I've occasionally played with the notion of putting together a
Hermetic secret society within the SCA -- could be heapum fun, if
done carefully...)


Re: "Feudalism", and Baron-Choosing

Angharad points out that democracy isn't exactly an integral part of
feudal culture. She is, of course, right; I was tossing the term
around rather imprecisely. There's a tendency to use "monarchist" and
"feudal" to mean "centralized" and "decentralized" in the SCA. While
it's easy enough to see how that analogy came about (I tend to think
of "feudalism" in terms of economics, with the wealth flowing up
from the bottom; hence "feudal" == "decentralized"), it really isn't
a good use of the term.

So, to be a little more honest, I tend to take a "decentralized" view
of the Baron thing -- in a large Kingdom, I am rather skeptical that
the "centre" (the Monarchs) can choose a Baron as well as the local
group can. Certainly democracy isn't perfect, but it *does* tend to
work better than most autocracies.

As for the Baron-selection issue (getting back to the real topic at
hand), I don't disagree too strongly with Richard -- a combination
of local influence and Royal choice is *probably* always a good idea,
and the balance should vary from Kingdom to Kingdom (and maybe Barony
to Barony) as local conditions require. As I said before, I rather
like the idea of the Monarch being able to force an election (hence
being able to give a "kick" to some unpleasant, but stable, situations),
but having a local vote decide. Yes, voting can result in some bad
rulers, but it *tends* to produce the best of the alternatives...

Also, Yaakov points out that even a good Baron can lead a group to
quiet stagnation. Quite true, and it certainly happens. Again, however,
the question is how to appropriately deal with that, so as not to
throw the good out with the bad. Continuing to use Carolingia as an
example (there's nothing quite like an example close to home), we've
got anything but a stagnant situation -- indeed, the Barony has, for
a couple of years now, been undergoing a period of experimentation
& growth almost unparalleled in the scope of my SCA knowledge. So it's
demonstrably true that political stability does not necessarily
lead to recreative stagnation. (I *could* argue that it does just
the opposite -- that political stability allows people to concentrate
on the important stuff instead of the power fights -- but I'm not
sure that the argument is convincing.) How do we deal with stagnant
groups without hurting the active ones? I don't know...


Re: Dance Teaching

Vashti writes:
>Sometimes having a partner who knows it is a detriment, too --  they
>get you through the dance, but you didn't have to 'work' to do it, so
>you aren't learning the dance, just keying off the experienced dancer.

Have you actually found this to happen at all often? We do the "pair
the experienced with the inexperienced" pretty often, and I haven't
seen this problem arise much. Provided the dance is taught, most people
seem to concentrate on learning the dance just as hard as they would
without the experienced partner. (Sometimes harder -- there are a fair
number of people who try *really* hard if they're with a knowledgeable
partner, because they're afraid of embarassing themselves.)

>Galliards are pretty easy -- 6 beats -- you kick left right left right,

Y'know, when I saw this sentence, my gut reaction was, "no, that's
wrong". It took a minute or two to realize that your galliard
reconstruction is coming from Arbeau; I'm used to playing with
sources that start kicking the right foot, not left. Just goes to
show how hard it is to kill that damned "that's wrong" reflex...

>Get someone to show you at an event.

Hear, hear -- galliards *can* be learned from paper, but they're *much*
easier if you have someone to show you what to do...

>Julia Sutton's translation of Fabrito Caroso's Nobilita di Dame
>(originally published in Italy in 1600)

Translation available from Oxford University Press. I also recommend
Gustavia Kendall's translation of Negri's "La Gratie d'Amore", which
is available from University Microfilms Int'l. This is a *lot*
cheaper than Caroso (from $35-$65, depending on whether you can claim
academic credentials, and whether it's in hard or softcover). Negri
spends a *lot* of paper on galliards, and gives a zillion variations.


Re: The Membership Thing

Grimmund proposes ways to ensure that everyone pays some money to
Milpitas. Part of the solution is to make it easy to pay money at
the door. I'll repeat the counter-argument: if we do this, why not
eliminate "membership" entirely, unbundle all of those features
that the Corporation has been increasingly wrapping into "membership",
and simply define everyone who comes to events as "members"?

I've been thinking about this a lot lately; I won't interrupt this
general-purpose posting with a long discussion of the subject, but
look for a detailed farfetch proposal of how the Society *could* be
restructured, in the next day or so...


Re: Vuong Manh

In response to someone saying that Vuong Manh wasn't much active,
Angharad points out that he still shows up at events. Indeed -- he's
even on the Net. I just got a Rolls entry from him, and hopefully
 he'll be joining us here...


Re: Legal Autocrats

Hal points out that one can easily skirt the "autocrats must be
members because they represent the Society" idea, by having the
legal documents (which are few and far between, in my experience)
signed by the Seneschal.

Indeed, this leads to a very simple rules-hack, for those who are
put out by this exceptionally silly rule -- have an "autocrat of
record", who is a member, and who signs the contract if one is
needed, and have a "sub-autocrat" (maybe with the title "Steward", hmm?)
who actually does all the work. Fills the letter of the law, while
not really requiring anyone to change their habits much...


Re: Barony Ages

Fairfax writes:
>Northwoods has been in existence for
>27 years...

This seems unlikely -- the SCA hasn't quite hit it's 27th birthday yet,
and I don't think that the Midrealm was founded until, what? AS III?
24 or 25 years I might buy, but if Northwoods has been around for
27 years, then there's a very interesting story somewhere...

Which leads to an interesting little question (I always love starting
discussions): how many "ancient" Baronies are there around? For the
sake of argument, let's define an "ancient Barony" as one that was
around when a Barony was defined as somewhere not inside a Kingdom.
(This would bring us up through AS V or so, I think.) Carolingia is
one; how many others? I hypothesize around fifteen -- anyone have
real numbers?

				-- Justin du Coeur
				   Eastrealm Deupty Royal Historian

Random Quote du Jour:

"You've been in the SCA too long when your spell check recognizes `pursuivant'"
		-- Henry of Linlithgow

PS: Yes, Arval, that *is* a random quote...

				-- Justin
				   Who hasn't decided if he likes his
				     newly-assigned Stupid Peer Trick...