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callistotoni SCA Post; I feel the need to blog about this to a limited audience just to get it out of my head.
There is currently a petition to the BOD to change Corpora to allow Kingdoms to add Principality royal consorts to be added to the Order of the Rose. Heretofore, The Order of the Rose was reserved for those who had served as a royal consort for a Kingdom only. The petition is pretty clear that the change would be to *allow* Kingdoms to do this--Kingdoms would not have to-- and does not specify *how*. So a Kingdom could choose not to do it at all, or do it for principality consorts moving forward, or include all past principality consorts, whatever scenario a Kingdom decides on.
Reading some responses to the FB post about this petition, it seems like some Kingdoms do this already. I know in An Tir, past principality consorts are considered "of valorous estate" and included in a lot of royal peer activities, but I don't think they are in the Order of the Rose. Someone online cited the person who created the Order in the first place as saying that there were no Principalities when it was created, but would have included them if they had been. Interesting inter-kingdom anthropology.
Here's my possibly unpopular opinion: If I were a betting person, I would bet a large amount of cash that if the BOD approves this change in Corpora the West Kingdom will not do this. One reason is that we in the WK have So Many members of the Order of the Rose already, and they (IMHO) have A Lot more social capital/respect than the Principality orders. I think the WK Roses would think there's too big a gap in rank to add Principality consorts, and if it did happen, I think there would be a significant amount of begrudging tolerance of these new members at best from a significant number of Order members. I think this is part of our very-old WK culture.
Another reason is sheer numbers. The WK has 3 Principalities that go Way Back, so there are many many Principality consorts--I'll be way more than any other kingdom. I can understand the attitude of "you can't have an elite Order if too many people are part of it." Parallel to this is the old "Great Grey Nameless Horde" of past Mists royalty, which people were joking about about 40 years ago (there were surcotes--time flies).
I've had conversations with a few other viscountesses from the Mists, and, I have to say, the vibe in the WK made us unclear as to whether we were royal peers or not, or even if the title had any sort of rank associated with it at all. This gets back to what I was saying before - the social cache of being an ex principality consort if far less than an ex Kingdom consort, at least in the WK.
Of course, each WK principality has its own order for past consorts (the Mists just changed the name, and I'm not remembering the other names--bad me :-/ )To the best of my knowledge, those orders have never been organized to do anything, but they could.
Anyway, I'll be watching how this plays out and we'll see if I bet correctly. But, of course, it doesn't really matter in the greater scheme of things, especially with everything else going on in the world.
There is currently a petition to the BOD to change Corpora to allow Kingdoms to add Principality royal consorts to be added to the Order of the Rose. Heretofore, The Order of the Rose was reserved for those who had served as a royal consort for a Kingdom only. The petition is pretty clear that the change would be to *allow* Kingdoms to do this--Kingdoms would not have to-- and does not specify *how*. So a Kingdom could choose not to do it at all, or do it for principality consorts moving forward, or include all past principality consorts, whatever scenario a Kingdom decides on.
Reading some responses to the FB post about this petition, it seems like some Kingdoms do this already. I know in An Tir, past principality consorts are considered "of valorous estate" and included in a lot of royal peer activities, but I don't think they are in the Order of the Rose. Someone online cited the person who created the Order in the first place as saying that there were no Principalities when it was created, but would have included them if they had been. Interesting inter-kingdom anthropology.
Here's my possibly unpopular opinion: If I were a betting person, I would bet a large amount of cash that if the BOD approves this change in Corpora the West Kingdom will not do this. One reason is that we in the WK have So Many members of the Order of the Rose already, and they (IMHO) have A Lot more social capital/respect than the Principality orders. I think the WK Roses would think there's too big a gap in rank to add Principality consorts, and if it did happen, I think there would be a significant amount of begrudging tolerance of these new members at best from a significant number of Order members. I think this is part of our very-old WK culture.
Another reason is sheer numbers. The WK has 3 Principalities that go Way Back, so there are many many Principality consorts--I'll be way more than any other kingdom. I can understand the attitude of "you can't have an elite Order if too many people are part of it." Parallel to this is the old "Great Grey Nameless Horde" of past Mists royalty, which people were joking about about 40 years ago (there were surcotes--time flies).
I've had conversations with a few other viscountesses from the Mists, and, I have to say, the vibe in the WK made us unclear as to whether we were royal peers or not, or even if the title had any sort of rank associated with it at all. This gets back to what I was saying before - the social cache of being an ex principality consort if far less than an ex Kingdom consort, at least in the WK.
Of course, each WK principality has its own order for past consorts (the Mists just changed the name, and I'm not remembering the other names--bad me :-/ )To the best of my knowledge, those orders have never been organized to do anything, but they could.
Anyway, I'll be watching how this plays out and we'll see if I bet correctly. But, of course, it doesn't really matter in the greater scheme of things, especially with everything else going on in the world.
