If you're unable to make a clear decision about something, ask yourself "What is best for the kingdom?" --Earl Kane
Common sense is what tells you the world is flat.
"A gentleman is never rude unintentionally."
--Oscar Wilde
I have often seen people uncivil by too much civility, and tiresome in their courtesy.
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), French essayist. Ceremony at meetings between kings,The Essays (Les Essais), bk. I, ch. 8, Simon Millanges, Bordeaux, first edition (1580).
He was one whose glory was an inner glory, one who placed culture above prosperity, fairness above profit, generosity above possessions, hospitality above comfort, courtesy above triumph, courage above safety, kindness above personal welfare, honor above success.
Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 1 (1962).
A native of Virginia, she was describing the Virginians' ideal self-image.
The age of chivalry is never past, so long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth, or a man or woman left to say, I will redress that wrong, or spend my life in the attempt.
Charles Kingsley (1819–1875), British author, clergyman. Quoted in Charles Kingsley: His Letters and Memories of His Life, vol. 2, ch. 28, Mrs. C. Kingsley (1879).
There is another side to chivalry. If it dispenses leniency, it may with equal justification invoke control.
Freda Adler (b. 1934), U.S. educator, author. Sisters in Crime, ch. 4 (1975).
Considering how easy it is to cheat in heavy weapons combat, there are actually a surprisingly low number of cheaters out there. Compare it to speeding, for example:
Because it's easy to get away with, almost everyone speeds, even though the extra few minutes you gain on a given trip mean almost nothing to the person who speeds.
But in heavy fighting, winning any given bout usually means quite a bit to the person who must choose to act honorably or not. Yet the number of chronic cheaters in heavy fighting is much lower than the number of chronic speeders.
Perhaps paradoxically, the ease with which one may cheat in the SCA is part of what increases the drama of it. Because the person who decides the winner is the person who loses (think about that one) each fighter faces a test of character each time we are struck with a good blow. Because losing is optional, every fighter's honor is reasonably easy to see. We as opponents and bystanders get to look into the hearts of our fellows in a way that I don't believe is otherwise possible without actually risking our health, or placing ourselves in life-and-death situations. We get to know our fellows in a way that is real and meaningful and that cannot be discovered in bouts that are refereed or any other field of endeavor where cheating is harder.
All of that said, a single person who is both reasonably talented and a cheater ruins the day for pretty much everyone. But this is the price that we pay to know the real nature of those we associate with.
Don't sleep with your squires.
It's good to be hard to hit. It's bad to be hard to kill. One is a demonstration of skill, the other is a failure of judgment.
Make sure you and your squires have the same sort of fealty relationship in mind before you take them. See this article.
All other things being equal, it is better if the witnesses to a tournament final bout are happy with the results. If a victory is greeted with silence from an attentive crowd, the winner should look carefully within his heart. Either the fight looked bad, the opponent had a home town advantage, or they don't have much to look forward to for the next year.
A tournament prize should be nice enough that the victor isn't ashamed to display it, but not so nice that contestants will be willing to shame themselves to get it.
The most important quality of a peer is duty.
It is important for any new ceremonial leader (king, baron, etc.) to set his own agenda before others do so. Moving targets are harder to hit.
Women fighters who worry about their ranking relative to other women fighters are making as much sense as blonde fighters who worry about their ranking relative to all the other blondes.
The "sword leg forward" style of fighting espoused as the answer for women fighters' physiological differences takes a style that requires being big or strong or fast or thick and teaches it to people least likely to be any of those.
I've never seen any woman fight it successfully without (to use a euphemism) really good armor. In fact, the only people I've seen fight this style successfully have been exemplary physical specimens, usually gifted with plenty of big and strong and fast, and always having at least two of these. So if you're a 5'4" 95 lb girl, it probably isn't the right style for you.
You can beat about 80% of the fighters out there just by getting a few good blows and by carrying a big shield. The other 20% will beat you every time.
I think many "thick" fighters suffer from the opinion that they're better than they are, or that by keeping their acknowledgment high they'll gain greater respect from the Chivalry. Helping the former is difficult, but here's a simple aid for the latter: winning fights by being harder to kill than the other guy does not raise your stock among the knights.
Most people tapped to judge a tournament's chivalry prize don't know what they're looking for.
Kingdoms tremble when dukes get new girlfriends.
Just because you want to be king/queen doesn't mean it's a good idea.
I'm very thankful to have lost the last crown final I was in. My life would probably have been torn apart. And this was at a time when I thought everything in my life was great.
Be very careful about stepping into that list.
Two contradictory thoughts:
How can one help but love the queen?
Just because you love her, doesn't mean she'll be a good queen.
One of the best benchmarks for the health of any SCA group is the number of its members who regularly travel outside of their home group. Healthy cantons/shires/baronies have lots of members who travel regularly. Any group that spends all of its time locally ends up filled with tangled, incestuous and outright bone-headed ideas. Not that the broader SCA isn't filled with bone-headed ideas, but they won't be the same bone-headed ideas, and learning how the kingdom works tends to show you that things in your group don't have to be the way they are.
Further, some people aren't good fits for their local group. They need to know that the larger kingdom has people and groups that will appreciate and nurture them, if the local group is incapable of doing so. This improves the individuals, the local group and the kingdom.
The way we choose Crowns is the worst possible way of doing so. Except for all the others.
Imagine how much worse politics would be in the SCA if we voted on who gets to be king and queen.
Imagine how much worse politics would be in the SCA if contenders for the throne had to recruit armies to fight a field battle for the crown.
Imagine the political infighting involved in the judging of Arts & Sciences entries if the winner of the A&S contest got to be the next Crown.
Many people who teach heavy fighting have no idea what they're doing. Some of those people have awards for that teaching, which is unfortunate. Don't confuse enthusiasm or volume of teaching for actual success at it. If none of your students have ever gained a reasonable level of success, maybe it's time for you to shut up on the practice field.
Take the time to actually look at "your" student's face while you're talking. If they look bored or like they want to get away, let them go.
Practice time is precious. Don't stick your nose into someone else's instruction, especially if the instructor is better or more experienced than you, or is regularly capable of kicking your ass.
Good fighters can be bad teachers. Those with more talent than skill often have no idea how they do things, nor any idea how to show the talent-challenged how to make something work when that something only works for them because they are gigantic, strong, or fast as a cat.
Bad fighters cannot be good teachers, though a non-competitive fighter can be a good teacher. But he better have been good once. New fighters: be very careful about putting stock in advice from people you never see fight.
The poor dumb reality of fight instruction and fight practice interaction is that per capita there are as many people at your local fight practice who shoot their mouths off, ignore non-verbal communication and think too well of themselves as there are out in the rest of the world. Which is lots.
As a culture, Atlantia's heavy fighters have not done a good job of placing our trust and honor in our consorts. We have not expected, emphasized or enabled their governing of our behavior. Those we fight for should be the penultimate* guardians of fairness and honor on the field. Consorts need to pay attention to their opposite's fights. Plainly put, when a fighter routinely misses blows it reflects on the honor of the consort. The consort isn't out there, filled with adrenaline. In important tourneys like Crown, a consort has the real ability to withdraw their favor at any time if they feel their fighter has acted dishonorably. If the consort's relationship to that fighter isn't strong enough to withstand the questioning of a fight and the possible withdrawal of a favor, then it isn't strong enough to handle being the Crowns, either.
*The ultimate guardians of fairness and honor on the field are the king and queen, which is of course the reason it is so important for them to have won that right honorably. Winning the crown dishonorably poisons the entire reign.