Torpido is a fisshe

[ursula]

In fact, a torpedo is a sting-ray.

The new herald for a new barony recently posted a list of proposed order names to SCAHRLDS. A certain number of people responded with, "Why on earth do you need all those orders? It's not remotely authentic!" She then replied that giving lots of awards is an integral part of the SCA culture, and alienating people by insisting on authenticity with no regard to their feelings is a Bad Plan.

This is the plan for a more-authentic, SCA-friendly baronial award system which I posted:

• As nobility, the Baron and Baroness should give cool stuff to their followers at every opportunity. This could range from free food all the way through, oh, I don't know, piles of gold (assuming your local artisans incline that way). Wearable items with the baronial badge might be particularly appropriate. Earlier on this thread we had some discussion of non-physical cool things to give, as well, such as Freedom of the Barony.
  
  The SCA is very susceptible to the "Anything Done Twice Becomes a Tradition" law. If the Baron and Baroness present the same cool thing twice for the same reason, I'm willing to bet that it will be virtually indistinguishable from an award with a registered name.
  
  
• Actual orders should be limited in number. This can be set up like the Award of Arms. Everyone understands that an AoA honors a wide range of things. It also carries a certain precedence. I'm not the right sort of herald to ask about how precedence works with Baronial awards, but something along the lines of Order of Cool People and Order of Absolutely Astonishing People seems reasonable, and bards and fighters (and clerics and rogues?) can all proudly belong to the Order of Astonishing People together.
  
  
• The Barony should allow for barony-sponsored guilds, military companies, schools, and the like which are modeled on medieval groups other than knightly orders. Membership or title in a specific guild may be the best way to honor skill in a specific area.
  

(For those of you playing along at home, one natural conclusion from this line of reasoning is that the best way to deal with awards with unregistered names such as the Tsveti Madrone [which comes with a flower medallion and can be received multiple times] is NOT to register the name, but to treat it as a specific example of the Baron and Baroness' great generosity in giving gifts to worthy subjects.)

Comments

[katerinfg.livejournal.com]

Or as Silverwing's Laws (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2888/laws.html) say, "Anything a king gives twice is an Order. (If the king gives me a dead halibut, he has given me a dead halibut. If, next week, he gives you one, we are now Companions of the Halibut and I'm the principal.)"

BTW, thanks for helping the new Sorcha with her name. She's one of my students, and I just don't have the time right now to give her a lot of help with the research (besides which I would probably just look up the same articles she looked up and then ask the list, myself). You can also find her here on LiveJournal as gemdol, if you're interested.

[ursula]

Any chance of getting alaric to start handing out halibut? :)

Have you showed gemdol how to search old Academy of Saint Gabriel reports? Since she's looking for information on specific names, they might be helpful. (Though it's hard to find a better source than Mari's articles, if you're willing to start with a list and go from there.)

[katerinfg.livejournal.com]

Dear, *I* have never gotten around to learning how to do that. I'm much more of an armory herald than a name herald, and even in that I still have loads and loads to learn. I'm barely staying a hop, skip, and a jump ahead of my students.

So, how do you search old Academy of Saint Gabriel reports?

[ursula]

Actually, it took me several years of belonging to the Academy to figure out where the right search tool was, and they only put it in a logical public place recently. The advanced search tool is here:

http://www.s-gabriel.org/advancedsearch.html

It's slow and just lists results by report number, but it's still the best way I know to look at old reports. As an example, searching for Jonathan (without changing any of the optional fields) yields four or five reports, including this report:

http://www.s-gabriel.org/1172

which says that Jonathan was a rare name in England, and there probably isn't a period Irish equivalent.

The Academy FAQ for Heralds:

http://www.s-gabriel.org/faq/heraldsfaq.html

has a little bit more about other ways to search old reports.

[ctseawa.livejournal.com]

Well Reasoned. You might present this to Their Excellencies of Madrone.

[ursula]

Thank you.

Are Their Excellencies thinking about registering order names at the moment?

[ctseawa.livejournal.com]

I was asked (a long time ago) to assist with registering the Barony's awards. Most of them are not registered and there are problems with the ones that aren't.

I have also encouraged TE to consider if they are going to add an award or awards to make sure they talk with heralds before naming it or giving it any kind of heraldry.

Plus, it's always good for them to hear about handing out du-das :)

[ursula]

Hmmm, maybe I can talk to them about awards vs. orders after the largesse display . . . Seems like a good opportunity.

[gwacie.livejournal.com]

You'll get nuthin but agreement from me. :) I think too many Baronies try to mirror the kingdom award structure and end up with a bajillion awards that are less meaningful than they should be. There are many more ways of recognizing someone than giving them an award. There is the gift of a baronial tabbard to the newest member of your battle unit (or perhaps to the most distinguished member, who can then give his/her old tabbard to a newer fighter), an old fashioned favor, giving them hunting/farming/passage rights in your lands, or just calling them forward and saying nice things about them in court.

I always liked that Cleftlands had only one Baronial Award; it was very prestigeous.

Of course, now that the first award has been retired we're in a long lull waiting for the new award(s) to be approved!

[ornerie.livejournal.com]

part of it is every baron/baroness wants a legacy (I know I did) and so they want to create something that can be identified as theirs after they step down.

creating an award or order is one way to do that. it also allows you to emphasise something that you find important and of value, and as an award/order, there's more chance of that value being promoted after you're gone.

[ursula]

I really think this is one of those situations where we can eat our cake and have it too: we can have cool traditions which honor nifty people and activities AND be more authentic AND avoid wasting everyone's time on inauthentic registrations.

The problem is that we have one good idea ("reward cool stuff") and one period phenomenon (knightly orders) and we're trying to shove all the rewarding-cool-stuff behaviour into the knightly orders box. If we take the awards that aren't like knightly orders and change the schtick so we're not pretending they ARE knightly orders-- in other words, change "I hereby present you with the Award of the Flying Pig" to "The great Baron in his wondrous generosity has commanded his artisans to build for you this intricately crafted model of a Flying Pig" or "The Baroness has granted you revenue from ten acres of land near the town of Saint Cuthbert, where legend has it pigs can fly" or "The Baroness congratulates you on your membership in Saint Cuthbert's Academy, full of men and women who are knowledgeable even in the creation of Flying Pigs"-- then we aren't inflicting the dubiously authentic phrase Award of the X on innocent ears, we have some nifty new ceremonies, AND we can take the things that walk like a knightly order and quack like a knightly order and start treating them like a knightly order. (In other words, convene them for some reason other than inducting new members. To walk into court together and look cool? To give them more presents? I'm guessing there are period Knightly Order Activities which wouldn't require more commitment from already-busy people. Let's put that on the list of Things To Research.)