[Artemisia] Thought for discussion-

[FactorOfSurprise at aol.com]

    For matters of peerage, I think the idea of quantity vs. quality isn't 
sufficient.  Operating at the level of a knight, a laurel, or a pelican ought to 
be a quantity and quality issue.  If a fighter wins every fight he engages 
in, but only fights once a year at Harvest Wars, I can't imagine that being 
sufficient to earn a knighthood.  Same case with someone who spits out a new set 
of garb for every event and fighter practice, but makes their garb out of 
polyester and the easiest Simplicity pattern they can find, with as little 
attention to detail and embellishment as they can manage.  Such a person wouldn't be 
deserving of a Laurel.

    A peerage ought to be awarded because constant effort is seen dedicated 
toward improvement in an area by a person already possessed of a degree of 
mastery in said area.  A Scadian couldn't go to polyester-tunic making person and 
pick up information on period clothing manufacture, neither could they turn to 
once a year fighter-X and reliably expect to learn from fighting against him 
because he simply couldn't be counted on to be there.  Both polyester-tunic 
and fighter-X are contributing to the game, any participation in our game is a 
contribution, but a peerage ought to - and does - require a lot more.

    Perhaps this comes from my not being a peer, but I also disagree with the 
"top 10% level" idea as well, in theory if not in practice.  If you went to a 
Solstice Court and saw that everyone had fully researched their garb, put 
hours of time and effort into coming out with a beautiful piece of art, and not 
only had researched the manners and customs of their time period but were 
implementing them in their game play would they not all deserve laurels - or only 
the 10% who had a few extra hours to put into their research and came out with 
a better finished product?  Granted, in real life 90% of our kingdom doesn't 
have the time, or necessarily the desire to put out laurel level products and 
awards should be given to those who deserve them, not as a matter of habit, but 
is the point of a peerage to create an elite inner circle of people who 
through their own conversations and judgements have deemed themselves more skilled 
than the rest of the kingdom, or is it to reward the hard work, efforts and 
achievements of people dedicating their time and efforts to medieval reinactment?

Bijou Jacqueline Josephine de Fontane