Fealty
Joseph Beckenbach {Adapter Software Release Engr}
doth Joseph d'Aquitaine send courteous greetings!
The context you crave had been stated in Hal's letter, from which you
quote. This is the Knight's fealty oath. Slight variants appear in ceremony
to elevate peers and to install Great Officers. These are repeated verbatim
at the appropriate ceremonies of renewal. This text is used at no other time
(unless ceremony has been changed in the last three months since the Western
Herald's Handbook was published).
I see an entire contract here. These words cement the status, rank,
and estate/office for which the supplicant was called forward. The well-being
of the Kingdom, the estate or office, and any necessary ceremonial material
goods befitting the new status and rank, are the objects. In what way is this
not fealty?
Personal opinion: With Royalty turning over so often, it were more
seemly to swear not to the Royalty but the Crown. Kings and Queen come and
go, but the Crown lasts until the Kingdom ceases to exist -- roughly "when
the world ends".
More personal opinion: Oaths should standardize enough to create
the entire contract, leaving minor variation for good cause up to the
discretion of the two persons directly involved. The Western oath has
the force of tradition, and I do not know how often either the supplicant or
the King has wished to vary wording from one of the standard variants.
Joseph
Southern Shores / Mists / West
of, but not speaking for, the Western College of Heralds
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Joseph Beckenbach jer...@ultra.com 408-922-0100 x246
#include <disclaimer>
Josh Mittleman
provided by Hal, and asked:
> Is this in fact an oath of fealty? It seems to me to correspond more
> closely to homage, i.e., an affirmation of inferior status. Fealty is not
> given in a vacuum; it is a legal contract concerning some possession held
> by the vassal from his overlord. You can swear fealty for land, for an
> office, for rank, status, and estate, but I don't think it makes sense to
> swear fealty without respect to some object.
Joseph d'Aquitaine replied:
> I see an entire contract here. These words cement the status, rank, and
> estate/office for which the supplicant was called forward.
Do they? I don't see how; there is no mention of any of these things. The
candidate swears absolute obedience to the Crown in all things, and the
Crown promises to protect him. I suppose that is a complete contract, but
it is hardly a feudal contract.
> More personal opinion: Oaths should standardize enough to create
> the entire contract, leaving minor variation for good cause up to the
> discretion of the two persons directly involved.
I agree with your intent, but I don't think that this requires
standardization. Oaths of fealty should be tailored to relationship being
formed, as it is perceived by the two parties. If the King wants to use a
standard oath of fealty for all his peers, that is his legitimate choice.
If I were one of those peers, I doubt I would be willing to accept a
boilerplate fealty.
In a similar thread, Hal wrote:
> ...I was rather startled to find out recently that the Peers in the
> Principality of Cynagua (West), *don't* swear fealty to their Prince.... I
> had naively assumed that the practice of being in fealty to the Prince
> was practiced as it is in the Mists--where Peers swear fealty with the
> caveat that the King has "priority" on their fealty.
An interesting point. Are you saying that they include in their fealty to
the prince a clause like "...except as this oath may conflict with my oath
to the Crown"? That would be reasonable. Of course, it only makes sense
if they have a well-defined contract of fealty with the king.
It raises another question in my mind: Why do people think that fealty is
transitive, e.g., that swearing fealty to a prince who is in fealty to the
king means that you are in fealty to the king and bound by his commands?
It is a basic tenet of feudal law that the vassals of my vassal are not my
vassals.
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Arval Benicoeur mit...@watson.ibm.com