Commendation ceremony propositions

The College of Arms invites all the citizens of Ascalon to submit their propositions concerning the future Commendation Ceremony.

Before posting, please make sure you are acquainted of its stages and provisions.

In the first edition of The Golden Book, the single mention to the Commendation Ceremony was the following:

The new peer shall buy a scroll and inscribe it as it follows:
“I Lord/Lady [name of the new peer] do solemnly declare that I will bear true
allegiance to the Crown of Ascalon.
b. Count and above must also wear a white wig.

Discuss.

I believe that what is said in the Golden book covers everything. Wearing the wig and buying the scroll both cover the act of hommage. And the saying that is that the scroll would be inscribed with shows fealty. That would be the only thing i would change would be to expand upon the message. I don't know how much you can right so instead you could have them post it as flag news.

"I [new royal] hereby declare my loyalty to the flag of Ascalon.
That i will henceforth be dedicated to the values and virtues i have been granted.
I will hereby put the advancement of the flag first in my mind and actions.
I will uphold all rules set forth by the crown.
I dedicate my sword and spirit to protecting my fellow knights."

Leoric wrote:I believe that what is said in the Golden book covers everything. Wearing the wig and buying the scroll both cover the act of hommage. And the saying that is that the scroll would be inscribed with shows fealty. That would be the only thing i would change would be to expand upon the message. I don't know how much you can right so instead you could have them post it as flag news.

"I [new royal] hereby declare my loyalty to the flag of Ascalon.
That i will henceforth be dedicated to the values and virtues i have been granted.
I will hereby put the advancement of the flag first in my mind and actions.
I will uphold all rules set forth by the crown.
I dedicate my sword and spirit to protecting my fellow knights."

I like your idea of the flag news, but I'm afraid it's technically impossible. I think flag issues can only posted by Royals. Someone could confirm it?
We could get around that by assigning temporarily the title of Prince and then demote back to Titled member, but it sucks. I would comply with game mechanics, even if in this case are quite absurd. I really hope I'm wrong about the creation of flag issue, I must check.

As for the length of the message, you must know that the author of the Golden Book has worked a lot on it in order to remain under the threshold of 100 characters! Again, stupid game mechanics!!!

The wigs. Here I have a lot of people against (who cares? I'm the King): they say wigs suck. Those petty bourgeois! Can you imagine how cool such a ceremony would be if it was performed in a room where all the peers are wearing a wig?

Back to what Wikipedia says, I think the ceremony should be divided, as suggested there, in two stages:

1. The act of hommage

There is another Wikipedia page about this ceremony, I have excerpted the most interesting part:

Homage in the Middle Ages was the ceremony in which a feudal tenant or vassal pledged reverence and submission to his feudal lord, receiving in exchange the symbolic title to his new position (investiture). It was a symbolic acknowledgment to the lord that the vassal was, literally, his man (homme). The oath known as "fealty" implied lesser obligations than did "homage". Further, one could swear "fealty" to many different overlords with respect to different land holdings, but "homage" could only be performed to a single liege, as one could not be "his man", i.e. committed to military service, to more than one "liege lord".

From the page about the commendation ceremony, the most interesting features of the AoH, in my opinion are:

The junior who was to become the vassal of his senior (seigneur) appeared bareheaded and weaponless as a sign of his submission...

So, the TM shouldn't wear a hat (or even better: shows that he/she removes the hat). Weaponless can't be checked... maybe he/she could give a sword and a bludgeon to another person who takes part to the ceremony before being dubbed a Lord/Lady?

The vassal would clasp his hands before him in the ultimate sign of submission, the standard Christian attitude of prayer

Well, this is like when we open the trade interface in the knighting ceremony...

The vassal would announce he wished to become "the man", and the lord would announce his acceptance. The act of homage was complete.

If we want to keep this, we should think how to word it.

2. Oath of fealty

This is basically what we were debating in the first part of this post.

To confirm.

Flag Issues may be posted by the Monarch and Royalty.

Flag News (private and public statements) may only be changed by the Monarch.

(Titled Members have no extra responsibility towards the flag in game, than than created by the flag aka.. they have no extra buttons .)

Eureka!

How about using the top hearties to "pronounce" the oath of fealty?
One could simply hearty Ascalon (yes, it's an alt of mine) and show her as a top one, or we could try to come up with a sentence. That's not easy though.
1. No stupid words formed by more than one word (i.e. Ismysweetie, Ilubyou, etc.): they suck.
2. I am afraid they will be shown in alphabetical order, so we should muse about a sentence that would respect that order. Ascalon starts with A, so it might not be that simple using it as the object of the sentence. In facts I was thinking of:
Faithfullly, Serving, Ascalon - but it doesn't work.
Other solution could be either using Ascalons or Ascalonese.
Any idea?

I believe the scroll should stay as is...as i have one ready to go...wearing of the wig...that would be kewl ...would look great in a room of knights....as for Hommage ...how about an inscribed trinket that is worn for the world to see..... just a thought...

Ascalon Faithful Honourable Service Untodeath