Your Majesties, we, Girard and Guenievre, do homage unto you with respect to the fief of Windmasters Hill, and will bear you fealty in life and limb and earthly honor. We shall be loyal and true unto you, our liege lord, as the rightful Crown of Atlantia. We swear we shall govern the barony well and truly, with all our might, ability and diligence, during our term as baron and baroness. We will maintain all the franchises of the barony, and every parcel thereof, with all power, wisdom and acumen, and perform all other duties that pertain to our station. Thus we swear and affirm.

It was not a precise copy of a period oath, rather it was … a cut-and-paste job from various sources – as shown below the cut.

The thing about the form of this oath is that featly for a baronage is not precisely like being a medieval landholder, and yet not quite precisely like being the mayor of a town. So we used bits of both.

Terrshee (Mistress Dierdre) provided us with a mayor’s oath from 15th century, in the town of Lynn:

Sir, you shall place your hand upon the book and swear that you shall govern and rule the community of this town well and truly, with all your might, ability and diligence, during the year that you are mayor. And maintain all the franchises of the town, and every parcel thereof both within and without, with all power, wisdom and business [acumen], and perform all other duties that pertain to the office of mayor of this town. So help you God.

We also consulted a pamphlet written on period fealty by Alban St. Alban (tedeisenstein, whom I’m grateful sent me not one, but TWO copies of his work (the first was lost in a move, I think).  Some of the phrases provided in this were from a 13th century compendium of English law, including “I become your liege man of life and limb and truth and earthly honors, bearing to you against all men that love, move or die, so help me God and the Holy Dame. ”

Lastly, portions were taken from http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng330/ceremonies_of_homage_and_fealty.htm -

“Homage is the most honorable service, and most humble service of reverence, that a franktenant1 may do to his lord. For when the tenant shall make homage to his lord, he shall be ungirt, and his head uncovered, and his lord shall sit, and the tenant shall kneel before him on both his knees, and hold his hands jointly together between the hands of his lord, and shall say thus: ‘I become your man from this day forward [of life and limb, and of earthly worship,] and unto you shall be true and faithful, and bear to you faith for the tenements that I claim to hold of you, saving the faith that I owe to our sovereign lord the king’; and then the lord, so sitting, shall kiss him.

But if an abbot, or a prior, or other man of religion shall do homage to his lord, he shall not say ‘I become your man, &c.,’ for that he hath professed himself to be only the man of God. But he shall say thus: ‘I do homage unto you, and to you I shall be true and faithful, and faith to you bear for the tenements which I hold of you, saving the faith which I do owe unto our lord the king.’

Also, if a woman sole shall do homage, she shall not say, ‘I become your woman’; for it is not fitting that a woman should say, that she will become a woman to any man, but to her husband, when she is married. But she shall say, ‘I do to you homage, and to you shall be faithful and true, and faith to you shall bear for the tenements I hold of you, saving the faith I owe to our sovereign lord the king.’ [ . . . ]

“Fealty is the same that fidelitas is in Latin. And when a freeholder doth fealty to his lord, he shall hold his right hand upon a book, and shall say thus: ‘Know ye this, my lord, that I shall be faithful and true unto you, and faith to you shall bear for the lands which I claim to hold of you, and that I shall lawfully do to you the customs and services which I ought to do, at the terms assigned, so help me God and his saints’; and he shall kiss the book. But he shall not kneel when he maketh his fealty, nor shall make such humble reverence as is aforesaid in homage.

And there is great diversity between the doing of fealty and of homage; for homage cannot be done to any but to the lord himself; but the steward of the lord’s court, or bailiff, may take fealty for the lord.

Also, tenant for term of life shall do fealty, and yet he shall not do homage. And divers other diversities there be between homage and fealty.”

All in all, I’m not really sure where Baronage falls on that continuum, in a period sense between homage and fealty. But I think I succeeded in capturing something in a period style, that expressed our intent.

We thank everyone for their congratulations and well wishes.  The out flowing of support has been greater than we ever imagined.  We expect to take just about everyone up on their offers over the next couple years.

As for blogging and LJ, we intend to keep on posting things just as we did before.  You folks seem to like what we’ve said so far, so seems like there’s no reason to change course there.  Don’t expect juicy gossip, or baronial politics to spring up here, not even on filters.  However, we won’t be going back and friends locking our entire journals.   That said, there’s a good chance our updates will be a little less frequent.

Thank you again, and we hope to see you all at Ymir!