Crown tourney requirements RE: [SCA-AE] Crown Tourney Question/personal banner display?

[KaziBrionSCA]

<<All that said, I think the requirement that crown participants bear their
own arms on the field is simply an attempt to make the most important
tourney of the reign have a more medieval look and feel. The display before
the tourney and bearing of arms on the field is one of the key points of a
medieval tourney -- and in this context it says "This is me. I am proud to
be here. Everyone know who I am, I who, fates willing, will be your king."

toodles, margaret>>

That sounds sensible on the surface. After some reading, though, some
gentles may be surprised to find that many a medieval noble was not
armigerous.  In fact, non-armigerous nobles were given arms by the Crown
*after* being elevated to a post that was fitting, or to commemorate a
particular event or deed.  Even landed gentry oftentimes did not have arms.
Now this was in Bohemia.  Admittedly Bohemia is Central Europe, but then
again Bohemia was part of the Holy Roman Empire, and Prague was the Holy
Roman Empire capital for a time so I would be surprised if that culture was
much different from parts of Germany.

For example, when a king would take a wife who didn't have arms, he would
give her arms at the time of marriage.  Or, there is the story of Jan Cap,
who was captured by the Turks.  As a kid he healed a stork, whose wing was
never the same afterward.  When Jan was a slave of some Turkish noble and
worked as his scribe, he recognized his stork who happened to winter there.
The stork recognized him back, and Jan was able to send a message. The stork
returned to the steading in the spring, a small scroll was removed from it's
leg, and the Crown was notified that one of it's subjects was held captive
by the infidel.  So the the Turk agreed to let his best scribe go for a tidy
sum, and the King gave Jan the surname "Cap" (meaning "stork"), and gave him
arms depicting a stork.  When I read Czech castle stories, I see many tales
which tell how this or that noble got his arms.  This tells me that having
arms wasn't automatic.  

If my Czech experience holds true for Western Europe as well, perhaps it
would be more period not to insist on arms, but grant arms to someone who
didn't have an AOA but did particularly well in the Crown Tourney.

Margaret, let me know if this tracks with your experience with Western
Europe, or whether I am merely blowing smoke.

Kazi




--On Tuesday, April 03, 2007 1:23 PM -0400 KaziBrionSCA
<KaziBrionSCA at worldnet.att.net> wrote:

> Alana Griffin wrote:
>
> <<If there were no requirements to enter crown, then yes, anyone with 
> a hot stick could win. But I believe that those who wish to rule, to 
> be our public face, to be the ideals of grace and chivalry, should at 
> the very least have passed some minor tests.>>
>
> And such tests exists.  It is called "Letter of Intent".  Their 
> Majesties have the right to refuse anyone entry to the Crown for any 
> or no reason whatsoever (and hopefully do it with grace).  It's called 
> "monarchy" for a reason.
>
> I have seen untried lords and ladies be excellent kings and queens 
> (Cygnus and Dorinda, for example).  I have seen Peers be lousy 
> monarchs.  Give the plebeian hot stick a chance.  After all, fighters do
more than just fight.
> Virtually nobody is "just a hot stick" in the SCA.
>
> In a previous post, I called Lord Stephen's objection to having 
> submitted arms a way of hiding his real objections behind 
> pseudolegalistic arguments. OTOH, I must say that I have seen various 
> Crowns hide behind equally inane pseudo-legalistic arguments to 
> somehow weed out unqualified entrants, and be absolved of the 
> unpleasant responsibility to weed them out by hand.
>
>  <<And truthfully, the small amount of money it costs to add on a 
> heraldic submission is nothing compared to the money already spent on 
> armor, weapons, authorization and travel, event fees - and if that 
> couple were to win, the future costs of being royalty. Much as there 
> is a travel fund, it is not enough to cover everything, and much as 
> clothes and items are donated, there is always a needed outlay of 
> money from those who win crown.>>
>
> So what's next:  a requirement to submit a bank statement?  I wonder 
> how many couples would be willing to enter the Crown under the 
> condition of such utterly unacceptable violation of privacy.
>
> Since sitting the thrones is personally and financially demanding, we 
> need new people to take their turn.  Not doing so would exhaust the 
> personal and financial reserves of several "usual suspects".  We don't 
> want people to burn out and disappear from the SCA, as they sometimes 
> do after being King and Queen.  Nobody will be the perfect ruler, but 
> that's OK.  We are glad to have them whether or not they are on a learning
curve.
>
> Kazi Doubravka Vltavska
>
>
>
>
>
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