ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2758
http://www.s-gabriel.org/2758
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Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!

We will be happy to help you choose suitable names for the winners of 
your principality's dancing, singing, and riding competitions.

As a first step, we'd like to suggest that an "order" isn't a 
particularly good medieval model for what you're trying to name.  A 
medieval order, whether religious, secular, or military, was a group 
of people who swore to obey a given charter of rules of behavior.  
They generally took some kind of oath of obedience or loyalty; and 
adopted a common dress that they wore at least at formal activities of 
the order and often also on certain days, whether they were able to 
attend the order's gatherings or not.  The word "order" implies 
ordering, regulation, and that was really the key to the nature 
of medieval orders.

When the princes of Europe began to create "orders" in the 13th and 
14th centuries, they borrowed some elements of earlier types of order. 
Admission to an order like the Garter or the Golden Fleece required an 
oath of loyalty and obedience to the prince who led the order.  The 
companions had ceremonial dress and jewelry, which they were required 
to wear on many occasions as a sign of loyalty and simply to show the 
power of their prince.   Defaulting on these obligations often 
resulted in large fines!  Fundamentally, these monarchical orders were 
a way for the great princes to gather an elite body of noblemen who 
could form the core of the government and military of the realm.

Late in our period, in the late 15th and 16th centuries, some of the 
forms of this sort of order were adopted by far less formal "orders" 
which amounted to little more than ceremonial tokens of royal favor.  
One scholar refers to these as "honorific pseudo-orders".  They 
required no meaningful commitment on the part of new companions.  

Society orders are generally most similar to the last category, the 
purely honorary awards.  Some involve a small commitment on the part 
of companions, like the requirement in some kingdoms that knights 
renew their fealty regularly and the custom of meeting to advise the 
Crown on potential new companions.

All period orders shared a couple important features.  First, an order 
was a group of people who had been elected to membership in some way.  
A person could join an order (or receive an order, in Society terms) 
only once.  Second, selection to the order was based on various kinds 
of criteria, but we know no example of election by competition. 

The awards you described are all selected by competition; and a single 
person could potentially win several times.  An order, therefore, does 
not seem to be a good historical (or Society) model for this award.  
We think we can suggest several good alternatives that are better 
re-creation.  They will be somewhat out-of-the-ordinary in the 
Society, which you might find attractive.  And some of them probably 
wouldn't have to be registered at all.

If this approach interests you, let us know.

   Arval
   for the Academy
   09 Apr 2003


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Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!

Deciding whether the match between the period model of an order and 
the structure of this new award is really a question that you and your 
royalty need to answer.  We can help you explore the comparison and 
we can suggest other period models that might work better, but judging 
whether it's good enough isn't up to us.

The problem you've posed to us is an interesting one, since award 
names are an area we haven't looked at much, and it is an area where 
the prevailing level of authenticity is pretty awful.  We've thought 
of several period models, other than orders, that are worth 
considering:

* Household offices.  The idea here is that the winner of the 
competition each year would assume the office, with its title, 
privileges, and duties.  This model is used sometimes, e.g. King's 
Champion, Queen's Bard.  The office of "Master of Horse" occurred to 
us as a good match for one of your competitions.  We haven't 
researched the historical use of that title yet.  If you're 
interested, we can.  The office doesn't even have to be related to the 
skill being judged: There's no reason why the winner of a dance 
competition couldn't be rewards by being made Warden of the Prince's 
Forests.  

* Royal gifts.  In the Middle Ages, when a prince wanted to honor 
someone, he usually gave _stuff_.  Money, precious objects, annuities, 
land, offices that carried income, etc.  We can't duplicate the aspect 
of wealth, but we can use the forms.  

* Medieval competition prizes, of which we know only a few.  A reward 
can be a fancy piece of garb, a coronet, a collar, a ring, a royal 
standard, etc., that the winner gets to carry and display until the 
next competition.  The East used to have an unofficial award called 
the Portable Feast, embodied in a large footed bowl that was given 
everty six months to the person or household that set the most 
authentic and splendid table at Coronation feast.  We know of a couple 
of medieval examples, as well, one that was decorated with the arms of 
each year's winner.  

Let us know if you'd like us to research any of these options further.

   Arval
   for the Academy
   10 Apr 2003