From: jtn@nutter.cs.vt.edu (Terry Nutter)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Barons and their removal
Date: 30 Sep 92 15:26:36 GMT
Followup-To: rec.org.sca
Organization: The Rialto

Greetings all, especially Justin (and welcome back!), from 
Angharad ver' Rhuawn.  Justin wrote,

>In the discussion of how Barons should be appointed & removed (disappointed?),

I love it!  Disappointed!

>Richard Fitzgilbert presents the monarchist view that Barons should be
>dealt with by the will of the King. That may be fine for Atlantia, but
>I really doubt it would work in the East. With such a large Kingdom,
>even a well-intentioned Monarch is going to have a truly difficult
>time knowing what's best for a particular Barony, because he or she
>simply isn't likely to know the group well enough to know what's best
>for it.

I don't think Richard meant that any king should just sort of 
charge into any barony and start shuffling things.  Two points 
that have been overlooked in this discussion are, first, that
significant numbers of people from several of the affected groups 
had been complaining to the crown for years about problems with
the coronet -- and not just people from any one faction within
either group, or the same people over and over --, which is a
large part of why the king acted, and that the same law that 
instituted the removal rules also _introduced_ a formal requirement 
that the populace be consulted.

>Therefore, for at least a large Kingdom, I'd strongly advocate the other
>side, taking the feudalist view that the groups should inform the
>Royalty of who they've picked by vote. 

Cariadoc has also supported this view as feudal.  Can (either of)
you document it as taking place in any of the major European powers?  
From what I recall of English history (my knowledge of France is 
thin, and of anywhere else _woefully_ thin), no such procedure or 
anything like it was ever followed (not even once) between, say,
1066 and 1500.  Immediately after the Conquest, tenancy-in-chief 
given out to William's associates, who were unknown locally.  
Otherwise, it was normally inherited, either directly or per 
matrimonium.  In the rare cases where it was not, usually involving 
estates that had fallen into escheat (no living relatives) but 
sometimes following disseisin, selection of a new lord was made for 
national rather than local reasons, and with no local consultation.  
Indeed, I can cite numerous cases (especially Henry II, John -- yes, 
Bad King John --, and Richard III) of kings who sided with the populace 
against barons out to rape them (metaphorically more than literally), 
and became dangerously unpopular with their nobility thereby; I'm 
having trouble thinking of any cases of the contrary, except for the 
Pilgrimage of Grace, which failed pretty dramatically.

I could be wrong about this, and would be happy to see evidence; but 
meanwhile, I regard the "let the locals choose" approach as a modern 
recognition of the fact that we deal with modern people, and not as 
an institution of feudalism.

Also, having lived through five hat fights, I both disagree with Richard
about the limits rule -- the idea of _requiring_ hat fights when you
could avoid them makes me shudder -- and disagree that the local vote
is necessarily wiser than the king's decision -- I've had to live with
the results of some pretty flaky, polarized, politicized, and hence
_dumb_ local votes.  Remember, this is the system that gave us George 
Bush, and looks likely to give us Bill Clinton next.

Then again, I don't think there's such a thing as a system that's got
a strong chance of getting it right each time; which is why it is
particularly important to have some recourse at hand when we get it
drastically wrong.  I just don't think limiting terms is the way to
do it; vide the Carolingia case, where, if you have it drastically
_right_, it's silly to mess with it.  But Atlantia is _not_ monarchist, 
and few kings are prepared to walk in, say "You people have been 
griping for six months (or two years, or five years, or more); it's
time to fix the situation," force a referendum, and live permanently
with a backlash from the "in" group -- since the coronet almost surely
are not _completely_ isolated -- that will be rather nastier than the 
negative judgements Ian of Gloucester recently expressed, whatever the
merits of the decision.  Since groups can't enforce removal of bad
coronets from the inside -- whatever the group as a whole feels, under 
Corpora, the king has to actually _do_ the "disappointing" -- it's the 
king who takes the hit.

I'm afraid this is another of those "no good solution" problems the
real world is so good at presenting.

Cheers,

-- Angharad/Terry
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca