Etiquette and Social Rules

[Cearnach]

Some helpful rules to govern behavior, drawn from Urbanus Magnus by Daniel of Beccles.


If there is one general rule, it is to keep yourself inward, and not to air the interior of the mind or the body to the general public. If there's a second rule, it's to respect status. If there's a third one, it's don't get dirty.

Theological Basis for Manners and Etiquette
Ultimately, good behavior derives from Christian piety. Therefore, you should do the following:
1. Keep to your Christian virtue and shun vice.
2. Obey the Commandments
3. Perform good works
4. Behave in church
5. Consider often the inevitable nature of death, how awesome heaven will be, and how much hell is to be avoided.

Sex and Marriage
It's bad manners to have sex with the following:
1. Nuns or other religious women.
2. Your parents and other relations.
3. Your godparents
4. Animals
5. People of the same sex
6. Prostitutes.

If, for some reason, you are overcome with erotic desire, Daniel of Beccles suggests you get it over with quickly.

Daniel of Beccles suggests that you not commit adultery (see the Commandments), but to recognize that there's a better-than-average chance that some adultery is going to be committed. If that happens, for God's sake don't tell anyone about it. Don't even discuss it with your wife. That would harm your marriage. Just pretend it never happened.

Direct Misogynistic Quotation Time: "When there is something you do not want people to know, do not let your wife know it."

If your lord's wife tries to seduce you, Beccles suggests that it is much better to lie and feign illness than to actually sleep with her.

Household Rules
1. Keep your children, who are gross and bad-mannered as a matter of course, out of sight of your guests.
2. Kids do the following: get their clothes dirty, dribble on their clothes, and wipe their noses ("flowing with filth") on their sleeves. Maybe don't do those things either.
3. Don't let your mules or cattle be stabled inside your hall. Also, keep your pigs and cats outside. Only the following animals are acceptable indoors: Your Charger, your palfrey, your hounds, your mastiff puppies, your hawks, your sparrow-hawks, your falcons, and your merlins.
4. If you are going to ride a cob horse, don't mount him inside the hall. Let him wait at the door.
5. Daniel of Beccles spends several lines of poetry describing how a servant should get straw ready for his lord to wipe his bottom after he relieves himself. I read these. You're welcome.
6. N.B.: If two people are sitting on a privy, one should not get up while the other is in the process of relieving himself.
7. Do not be a nose-blower nor a spitter.
8. If a cough attacks, defeat the cough.
9. If you want to belch, look toward the ceiling.
10. If a privy is not available, you should go into the woods and squat down, facing into the wind, and use your left hand to wipe.
11. It is very rude to attack an enemy when he's in this position.
12. If is wrong to fart indoors.
13. Don't go hunting for fleas on your arms or chest when in your lord's presence, or really even in front of his servants, because they'll talk.
14. Don't go picking your nose in front of important people.
15. Loosen your reins when riding over a bridge
16. Receive gifts from great men with gratitude
17. If you are a judge, be just.
18. Be careful to whom, why, when, and of what you speak.
19. It is often better to keep your thoughts to yourself.


Table Manners
1. If your companion has some good food in front of him, don't go reaching over there with your fingers. Your companion can offer it to you if he wants.
2. When your companion has drained all of his cups, don't keep shoveling food in your mouth. Chill out until he gets a refill.
3. "Beware of shouting 'Wassail' unless you are bidden to do so.
4. Don't drink while you have food visible in your mouth. Hidden in a cheek is okay.
5. Don't speak while you have any food in your mouth at all. A cheek is no defense.
6. Don't take a bite so big that would prevent you from speaking if you really needed to.
7. "Beware of drinking wine greedily, like Bacchus."
8. When eating at the table of the rich, speak little.
9. "Sitting at table as a guest, you should not put your elbows on the table. You can put your elbows on your own table but not on someone else's."
10. Do not clean your bowls with your fingers.
11. "Spoons which are used for eating do not become your property."
12. Do not say "drink first" when the butler offers you a drink
13. If someone says "Wassail," the proper response is "Drink hail"
14. Only the host can urinate in the hall after dinner. Everyone else should go outside.
15. When it's time to leave, be sure to thank your host for his hospitality.

[Cearnach]

A quick reminder: the Ten Commandments. N.B.: There are other wordings which ought to be taken seriously. This one is the one I grew up with, and we're only including it for a rough ol' guide on expectations.

1. I am the Lord your God: you shall not have strange gods before me.
2. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
3. Remember to keep holy the Lord's day.
4. Honor your father and your mother.
5. You shall not kill.
6. You shall not commit adultery.
7. You shall not steal.
8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
9. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife.
10. You shall not covet your neighbor's goods.

These were added to in the New Testament, with:
1. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
2. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

[Cearnach]

And now, a word about Status and Authority.

Most of us have some background in playing L5R. In that game, status is a big deal. The higher one's status, the more unimpeachable one's word, the more force one has in law, and the more voice one has in council. The Emperor is Divine, with all of the weight of authority that entails. His or Her word can make gods, bend reality, force people to ignore objective fact in order to preserve their ineffable power, and his chosen servants are to be obeyed.

It's not like that in the Middle Ages. Yes, Kings and lords were to be obeyed, there were very real limits to their power and authority, and there were always options available to vassals who grew unhappy with their lords. Let's take a second to break down some differences and get to the bones of the relationship between lord and vassal.

First: High status does not make you know more, nor does your word count for more, than any other human being. It never occurred to people in the West that their leaders would not lie. Now, there are consequences for calling a man a liar. He might not like it, and you might be accused of libel or slander and have to defend your accusation in combat, but no one thinks such an accusation is out of the question.

Second: The relationship between liege and vassal is reciprocal. That means each side owes the other something in order to make the relationship work. The vassal owes his liege service and a degree of deference. The liege owes his vassal a living, dignity, and a modicum of security. If the liege stops providing, the vassal is within his rights to lodge grievances against his lord. That might look like appealing to the king to reverse a lord's decision. It might look like betraying the liege at the worst possible moment. These things are complex, but only because lieges tend to be more powerful than their vassals, and thus more able to force the vassal to comply to their wishes. If the vassal grows too powerful, things can get very tricky for the lord.

Third: A knight owes his lord his service in battle. He does not necessarily owe him his life. This is a subtle distinction, and actually quite a new one. Until recently, the expectation in combat was to kill the enemy, and one generally killed the enemy as efficiently and brutally as one could. Lately, the focus has begun to turn to capturing noblemen. The reason for this is simply cash money. Ransoming is more lucrative than murder. As a result, surrendering to another nobleman after a defeat in battle is not the end of the world, shame-wise. This will continue to transition in the next couple hundred years until killing large numbers of noblemen in battle will be a huge shock. Just last year, at Hattin, the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, including its King, surrendered to Saladin after getting whupped and becoming too exhausted to continue the battle. The Knights Templar and Hospitaller who surrendered were executed, but the actual nobles were imprisoned and eventually released. In 1356, the Black Prince will capture Jean the Good of France at Poitiers and keep him as an honored guest for well over a year, straining the finances of England to house a second king.).

There are some laws surrounding surrender. First, you shouldn't just give up right away. That's not cool, and people will make fun of you. Second, the first rule is only true if you're not being besieged. A town that resists a siege and refuses an opportunity to surrender MUST be put to the sword, according to several commentators on chivalry, so take your offers as they come.

Fourth: Trials.
A nobleman can be tried before the King and a jury of his peers (that is to say, other nobles). Testimony is the favored method of proving guilt, but evidence is acceptable, particularly if the evidence is Divine in nature, or can be framed in such a way. However, more often then not a jury cannot determine who did something by virtue of testimony, so there are other methods to try the accused that, it was believed, would give God a chance to point out who did the thing. These include trial by combat (a popular choice), trial by fire, trial by water, several other ordeals. The ideas for all of these are the same, namely that God will determine guilt or innocence.

In a trial by combat, He will favor the victor, because the loser will have lost, and you can't lose with God on your side.

In a trial by fire, a person will walk across red-hot ploughshares or hold a red-hot iron in their bare hands. Your wounds (you'll have some) are treated and bound. If, after 3 days, your wounds were not festering and had begun to heal, then God had intervened to help you out and everything was chill.

In a trial by water, a person plunges their hands into a boiling pot of water, sometimes retrieving a stone from a hand's depth, sometimes from the elbow, depending on the severity of the crime. The process after this is identical to the trial by fire.

The trial by cold water (which many people are familiar with from witch trials) had been abolished from Frankish law by Louis the Pious in 829. Apparently, in its original form in Babylon, you were innocent if you survived jumping in a river, and you could kill your accuser and take his house. It started back up in Germany as the "if you float, you're guilty" system in the 1350's and grew in popularity until the witch-crazes of the Reformation period. Our game is in the 12th century, so we don't have to worry about this one.


So I suppose the take away here is that power is transactional. If part of the transaction is broken, then the legitimacy of the person in power is damaged, and rebellion becomes possible, just not automatically successful. There are options for lower status nobles to keep higher status nobles in check, and ultimately your sword (and your twelve best buddies' swords) can decide an awful lot.