>I was just wondering if anyone would like to enlighten me with your
opinion or stance on the matter. I
 >hear a lot of people say they are against a 4th peerage, especially in
Calontir, yet not a lot of meat to the
 >opinion, if any explanation at all. I would really appreciate it - and
hopefully this doesn't start a horrible
 >argument.

The SCA currently has three peerages - the Laurel for arts and sciences,
the Pelican for
service, the Chivalry for martial arts. In Calontir, the very strong
tradition was for a long
while against allowing "cut and thrust", aka fencing, at all; obviously,
if no-one could
do it, there'd be no reason to allow a fourth peerage for that activity.

It's allowed within the kingdom now; and other kingdoms have allowed it
for much,
much longer, even unto further back than the memory of man runneth not
to the
contrary (or whatever the phrase is). Since all 19 kingdoms allow it,
proponents have
agitated for a peerage, equal to the other three, for "masters of
defense", aka "fencing",
aka "cut and thrust.

You will have to ask those people the whys and the wherefores.

I am against the idea, very firmly so. We already have a peerage for
fighting in its
many forms, and I cannot see that fencing is sufficiently different to
allow a different
peerage. Once you add a peerage for a particular subsection of the current
peerages, it sets a precedent I don't care for - what's next? A
Practical Laurel for
the sciences, and a Decorative Laurel for the Arts? An Obvious Pelican
for those
who serve at events, and a Shy Pelican for those who work behind-the-scenes
at home?

It seems to me that we have The Three, and they pretty much cover all the
bases. Why gussy it up with frou-frou?

(I have another set of arguments that deal with SCA tradition, and
politics,
and the past history of, well, bitterness that the whole fencing debate
caused,
but that's for another day, and discrete discussions at a post-revel.)

Alban, who should add he has never fought and intends never to fight, so he
has no reason on that basis for or against.

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