Sender: Jay.Rudin@f0.n9000.z93.fnyrg.net (Jay Rudin) Date: 12 Mar 98 17:07:43 GMT Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Order of Precedence Message-ID: Organization: PODNet <-> FidoNet EchoGate! From: Jay Rudin Lines: 87 Path: ccw.ch!bali.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.direct.ca!hub.org!news.trends.ca!ftn.hub.org!tor250!net!fnyrg!z93!n9000!f0!jay.rudin Master Arval d'Espas Nord wrote: AdEN>That doesn't follow. My local former group had a certain notion of AdEN>precedence, but we never even considered seating people according to AdEN>precedence. Just because they were paranoid about precedence in 19th AdEN>century Europe does not imply that they felt the same way in 15th century AdEN>Europe. AdEN>Of course, they did pay attention to precedence in some circumstances; but AdEN>even that doesn't mean that they worried about the relative ranking of AdEN>every available honor. Even in the Society -- where precedence is almost a AdEN>psychosis -- there are some awards which carry no rank. And Master Michael Fenwick of Fotheringhay replied > Ummmm ... If I Recall Correctly, the Spanish nobility in the > time of the Armada (and a bit before and after) were very > conscious of rank and its perquisites. I'm trying hard to > remember which book talked about who could sit, and who had to > stand in the presence of the King, who could retain his hat, > and who had to uncover, the order in which people had to > speak, who had to use which form of address and which titles > when addressing the King, and so forth and so on in quite > stultifying detail. I remember thinking that this was must > have been where the East Kingdom got a lot of its ceremonial. > ;=) > Anyone?????? You are correct that precedence issues are no modern thing. The philosophy of the Middle Ages included the Great Chain of Being, an immense pecedence chain from God, through the nine levels of Angels, the planets, people, animals, plants, rocks, dirt, etc. You had a specific place in the Great Chain, and every thing and everybody was either above you or below you. A few examples of their concerns in period and post-period times: In some of the Nordic tales, where you sat in the hall mattered very much. This was not a prissy issue of social rank, but a very real issue of comfort. There's a door at one end of the hall and a fire at the other end, and where you sit in the winter *matters*. When Cedric the Fiddler earned his Laurel, the poem I wrote for him included: He earned his place in Ansteorra's mead-hall Close to the fire Far from the hall door. According to Frederick Bryson's *The Point of Honor in Sixteenth Century Italy*, many of the cartels sent (and therefore the duels fought) at that time were specifically about who had the right to enter the hall first, or apply for the office, or some such. Two of London's Guilds, and I don't know which ones off-hand, did not have clear precedence between them, and it caused problems whenever the city held public events. It was finally decided that they would take turns marching in parades in the sixth and seventh guild position. The silliest story I've heard is from pre-revolutionary France, perhaps the most privilege-happy time of all. When the Queen arose, the highest ranking lady present had the right to pick up the Queen's shift, passing it to the next ranking lady, and so on, until the lowest ranking lady in the chamber would present it to Her Majesty. Once, during a several day long fete, when people were there specifically to prove their rank, the Queen arose and the game began. But other ladies would enter the room, and they had to re-figure. The word got out down the hall that the Queen was awake, and ladies came running in to exercise their rights. The result is that Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, stood naked for forty-five minutes, freezing her royalty off while all the ladies of the court sorted out their precedence again and again, using the Queen's underwear to keep score. I've seen dumb precedence games in the SCA, but we've been out-done. Robin of Gilwell / Jay Rudin --- # Origin: Austin InfoMail Association <--> Internet Gateway (1:382/87.0) -- | Gated by the premier Fido Technology Networks gateway . | Providing USENET, Internet Email and FTP hub facilities. | See "http://www.gryn.org" for details. ###### Path: ccw.ch!usenet From: Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Order of Precedence Date: 16 Mar 1998 21:44:55 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 40 Message-ID: <7m5umkl4.fsf@chonsp.franklin.lugs.ch> References: X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Jay Rudin gave us this anectote: > The silliest story I've heard is from pre-revolutionary France, perhaps > the most privilege-happy time of all. When the Queen arose, the highest > ranking lady present had the right to pick up the Queen's shift, passing > it to the next ranking lady, and so on, until the lowest ranking lady in > the chamber would present it to Her Majesty. Once, during a several day > long fete, when people were there specifically to prove their rank, the > Queen arose and the game began. But other ladies would enter the room, > and they had to re-figure. The word got out down the hall that the > Queen was awake, and ladies came running in to exercise their rights. > The result is that Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, stood naked for > forty-five minutes, freezing her royalty off while all the ladies of the > court sorted out their precedence again and again, using the Queen's > underwear to keep score. Well assuming M A did not get to be twice the victim of such an incident, your version is a bit garbled. The version I have here (from Victoria Holt, The Queens Confession, 1968), read (but ca 8 months ago) goes: It was the right/job of the highest ranking lady in presence to _dress_ the queen with her shift. M A started out with an normal servant who was just going to dress her when a lower noble lady entered, so she took over. Just as she was going to dress her an higher one appeard. So through all levels up until the queens sister in law. Each entry costed time (introductions, etc) leading to the 45 minute freeze. Interestingly we know of this incident because M A, who in her early days was an complete foe of the restrictive court ettiquette, noted this incident of bad treatment in her diary (on which above book was based) and actually had this rule abollished. Yes, it is OOP, but still we want to be accurate, don't we :-) -- private: Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch, http://www.ccw.ch/Neil.Franklin/ office: franklin.remove.this@arch.ethz.ch, http://caad.arch.ethz.ch/~franklin/ If I go missing, its once again my newsfeed that has craped