Precedence

[msmemory_archive]

I definitely need to whip together the list of Civil Peers By Seniority. I was prompted to do Carolingia's list following the Frosty Revels Ball, when we spent a little time scurrying around so as to give the right answer to jdulac, when the toasts were due. It's clear I need to have the same list set up for the kingdom, and a copy stuck in my feast basket, not just on my pc.

It seems last night that jducoeur (May 1992) was in fact the second-most-senior non-Royal peer at feast. As far as we could tell, there was one pair of Count/Countess (Griffyth & Aikaterine, seated next to us), and one Pelican (Quentin), who outranked him, plus the Crown. All the other elder peers had gone home or out instead of staying to feast.

Comments

[bubbette.livejournal.com]

Order of Precedence numbers. Rank plus date of award.

And you can either write them in permanent ink on the foreheads of the members, or you can have them "tattooed on the back of the neck".

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

There are kingdoms that do this, resulting in a sort of medieval social security number. You have the ranks, and the date of (highest) rank determines the suffix. I, for example, would rank by the date of my Pelican.
I would then just have to remember that I'm D.237 or whatever.

What burns me, repeatedly, about this toasting custom is the number of people -- including a number of Very Highly Placed Persons Who Oughta Bloody Well Know Better -- who always screw it up. It isn't "highest ranking person", dammit, it's "highest ranking bestowed peer", i.e. Chivalry, Laurel, Pelican (and, arguably, Lady of the Rose), royal peerages not counting in the calculation. This is from Master El, who was there when the custom started</>. Now, I gotta tell ya, I hate being the guy to give that toast, albeit I frequently am. But, I understand the medieval mindset here, which was very much "use it or lose it" so forgive me for zealously guarding that privilege.

[bubbette.livejournal.com]

Ansteorra's system is numeric...a two-digit number for the award (the smaller the number, the bigger the award...King and Queen are 01, Prince and Princess are 02, etc.) and an eight-digit number for the year-month-day of award. So my "current" Ansteorra value is 1519960224, based on my receiving a Baronial Service Award (armigerous) in 1996. If I send my Eastern awards to the Ansteorran herald and ask them to be registered in the OoP, I'll have a "higher" (lower award number for the Peerage) value.

It's heraldry geek-ness.

Oh, and you're old, Your Excellency. (grin)

[liamstliam.livejournal.com]

What bothers me is how consistently it is screwed up even when people *know* they're not supposed to do it.

In my mind, if an event's that small, you *can* usually find out just by asking.

It almost happened to me once, but at the last minute, a viscount decided to stay.

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

See? That's the thing. For this purpose, viscounts don't count. If Liam is the highest ranking "bestowed" peer, then the person to give the first toast (to the King and Queen) is Liam. The viscount, unless he got a bestowed peerage before Liam did, does not give the first toast. If, say, he's also a knight, and was made a knight before Liam was made a Pelican, then, yeah, okay. But otherwise, it's Liam. The viscounty rank is irrelevant.

Not exactly rocket science....

[liamstliam.livejournal.com]

Sorry Steffan.

I was not clear.

It was Karl. Of course he has precedence on me.

I keep forgetting that there *might* be royal peers who are lower in precedence than I am. I have not been a peer that long. Certainly, at that time, a couple of years ago, that was not true, and I do not think it's true in the East quite yet.

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

Sure it is. How could so debonair a gentleman as you, Liam, forget the fair ladies [GRIN]? Regarding only bestowed peerages, as I explained up-thread, you outrank three Ladies of the Rose: Countesses Geneviere, Svava, and Aikaterine.

[liamstliam.livejournal.com]

*shakes head*

Once my master, always my master.

How about Her Majesty? (And eventually, Her Highness)?

I am on a roll.

[lumineaux.livejournal.com]

I cannot count the number of times recently when I've discovered that I am the most senior Peer in the room. Scary times, these.

[jducoeur]

Huh. Hate to say it, but that tradition has passed -- and passed long enough ago that I didn't know it *had* been the tradition. By the time I started being senior enough to wind up involved in the toasts (maybe 5-7 years ago), the Royal Peers were always factored into it. I do sympathize with guarding the privileges, though: it's why I always sit inside the Crown Finals list, despite it frequently being a worse view.

So out of curiosity: it is also now pretty clear tradition that the local Baron toasts the King, to start things off. Was that part of the original design?

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

Is it possible to differentiate between a tradition that has changed and a tradition that is "currently very frequently screwed up"? It seems to me that this is going to be an unsolvable argument, muchly analogous to the religious wars between linguistic prescriptivists (a language's rules are such as are prescribed in the grammar books) vs. descriptivists (a language's rules are what people say when they talk, ain't they?).

You'll find that most senior heralds and most long-time peers adhere to the old tradition. When I'm at a feast and it's clear that I'm among the senior bestowed peers (which is not infrequent, given my Date of Rank of 8/17/84), but I'm pre-empted by a Royal Peer, I never argue the point. I figure it isn't worth it. But, I have to admit that part of me thinks it is, because that's how you lose this sort of right. I recall the story of a saintly local lord in the Real Middle Ages who often forgave the rents due him from poor widows and the like, and who was warned by his steward that if he did not require them, he could lose his rights to his properties. His steward, of course, was right. That's how it works. And I gotta tell ya, part of me thinks that maybe we're too complacent in the name of SCA "Courtoisie" [tm] and not nearly medieval enough in our thinking and reactions. Just sayin'.

[jducoeur]

Is it possible to differentiate between a tradition that has changed and a tradition that is "currently very frequently screwed up"?

Not clearly, no. But when I haven't seen it *not* screwed up in many years, it's hard to think of it as a living "tradition" any more. (Then again, I *am* a self-professed descriptivist.)

[jducoeur]

She's actually been doing that for many years now, for the march at Crown Tourney. (Well, only tattoo'ed on the cards we use to arrange the march, although back of the neck *would* be a nice time-saver.) But doing it for everybody is a separate project...