🚀 go-pugleaf

Graybon has written:
>I've got a problem with this - it involves things I regard as unethical.
>
>For instance, being a proper Hundred Year's archer would involve (to stick
>to the typical) a tendency to loot anything not bolted down, get roaring
>drunk (if possible), wench indiscriminately, and sometimes shoot at heralds.
>I have no desire to act like that.

Accepting that if there are n paricipants in the SCA there are
probably n+1 views as to what we do and why, still I seem to remember
being told around the time that I joined, and hearing others told
since, that we _selectively_ re-create the Middle Ages.

Thus, we don't strive to recreate the bubonic plague, the percentage
of nobility to peasantry is perhaps higher than would be found in
most real medieval societies, and tolerance (for example, religious
tolerance) is more prevalent than might have been the case.

In addition, our re-creation of what we do re-create is usually
restrained by mundane legalities. Thus when re-creating medieval
armed combat (something that has made it past our selective filters)
we still try our best not to _really_ kill anyone.

I think these two restrictions on medieval recreation should solve
your ethical conflicts. Looting and shooting at heralds [tempting
though some might find them :-^)] would seem to be in direct conflict
with mundane law. Getting roaring drunk and wenching indiscriminately
could be items, like the bubonic plague, that you shoose not to
re-create. The goal to strive for is not necessarily to re-create
everything that existed in period, but to strive to ensure that what
you do re-create existed.

Of course, speaking of the bubonic plague, whilst re-creating an
archer of the Hundred Years War, it is possible to recreate one who,
through seeing or hearing of the terrible plague as grown concerned
about the state of his soul and thus has an excuse to avoid the
Mortal Sins of Lechery and Drunkeness (a subcategory of Gluttony).

This may not be the typical, but it is certainly reasonable.

David Tallan (who you would never guess has been known to show up at
              Pennsic as Thomas the Pardoner)
David Tallan (tallan@flis.utoronto.ca)