Peer
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Peers are those gentles who are either "retired" royalty or members of one of the three Great Orders of the Society.
Royal Peers
Royal Peers are those who hold the rank of Viscount/ess, Count/ess or Duke/Duchess, indicating they have served as royalty and ruled either as Prince/ess of a principality or King/Queen of a kingdom.
Peers of the Society
Peers of the Society are the members of the Order of Chivalry, the Order of the Laurel and/or the Order of the Pelican. With the exception of Knights (part of the Order of Chivalry), who are addressed as "Sir", members of these orders are addressed as "Master" or "Mistress."
Peerages bestow a Patent of Arms and titles.
(A "keeper" posting from the Steps, Feb 2006.)
As a non-peer old-old-timer, then: peers are recognized as such by the Crown because each of them is in some way contributing notably to the function of the kingdom and the SCA in the medievaloid game we play. Some of them are contributing by their excellence in fighting skills. Some of them are contributing by their research and re-creation. Some of them are contributing by their service. All of them are *supposed* to be contributing by setting a good example of courtesy and chivalry and honor and by teaching whatever it is they do. And this is all *at the time they are recognized*.
It's *supposed to be* an ongoing job - in fact a peer promises to keep on doing what got him/her the recognition in the first place - but there's not much done to remove titles of lapsed or inactive peers. I suspect that this is in part because a peerage is, despite the contrary assertions of most peers, an honor, not just a job. One does not strip earned honors from the honoree for lack of further contributions to the common good.
In the old days, peerages were the ultimate in SCA awards - so I was told, then, by peers. Claiming that it was "recognition" came later, as did discussions of Peer-Like Qualities that are supposedly, nowadays, a sine-qua-non for being recognized as a peer. In the old days, one could be decidedly a rough diamond in some respects and still one's service would command the respect of a peerage. I even remember the first time I noticed that it was changing: a lady whose accumulated service had reached the levels where a Pel should have been imminent, but the then Crown refused to do it, since she was lacking in PLQs - specifically IIRC she had aggravated them somehow, as her personality was rather abrasive, but the reason that was given was phrased as ideals to be reached for, not personal pique. That was in AS XVII. No, I wasn't at the council. But I heard about it from someone who was, and was annoyed with the Crown because, abrasive or not, she'd been working her heart out in service to the SCA for a long, long time.
But to continue:
Since before I started playing in the Current Middle Ages, it's been considered bad form for peers to keep playing but stop contributing their efforts and examples. But as we work on the honor system (more or less), we depend on self-policing rather than trying to enforce it.
And one does not remove a Pelican from the Order because she has disappeared. She may come back some day. One does not remove a Knight or a Laurel from the Order because he died; that wreath is an honor, even when the recipient is forever beyond being able to keep up with the attached expectations of example and service.
Most of the time it does work for us. There are exceptions, but they are not all that common.
Just my personal experienced observations and opinions!
Sister Guineth, playing this sometimes silly game since AS XIII.