A Baron or Baroness, or the two together acting as a pair, are designated by the Crown of Atlantia to hold certain lands in the Crown’s name. Those lands are designated as a Barony. Each Barony has specific borders. In a clash of medieval and modern, they’re designated by SCA Corporate by their zip codes.
If you’re reading this, you probably live in the Kingdom of Atlantia – Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and a slice of northern Georgia. If you’re not sure, you can look up your Kingdom on the SCA’s main website.
Baronies, Cantons, and Shires, Oh My
There are seventeen Baronies and six Shires in Atlantia. What does that mean? There are a number of different district types in the SCA: Baronies, which may have Cantons; Provinces, which may have Ridings; Shires; Colleges; Ports and Strongholds. Most of these have evolved to cover special cases – for instance, a stronghold is a military base. The membership changes regularly as active duty personnel cycle in and out, but the people there always have access to an SCA organizational structure. Ports are also based at military facilities, but ones where the staff may be detached for a while – say, when they go to sea for a long time (eighteen months is pretty common). Colleges are similar to Strongholds or Ports, but are based at a university or research facility. A Shire is a local group that reports directly to the Kingdom as an administrative unit. They tend to be in rural areas, though there are other reasons to organize a Shire.
A number of Atlantia’s baronies have Cantons, which are groups on their way to becoming Shires or Baronies on their own. They report through the Barony, and are included in the Barony’s Lands.
Back to Baronies.
Properly speaking, a Barony may have a baron, baroness, or one of each. If a Barony has both a Baron and Baroness, they are not required to be married or to be a couple in real life. All the barons and baronesses of Atlantia together, or the state of being a Baron, can be referred to as Baronage.
Barons are designated by the Crown after a long, involved process. While they hold those Lands for the Crown, they give up all use of their personal device and household colors. They wear the coronet of the Barony, can be preceded by the Barony’s device, and are the only ones who can wear or carry the Barony’s device with Laurel leaves on it. While the length of term (in years) keeps changing, the term may be extended under certain circumstances. During that time, the Baron and/or Baroness are the Barony, both reporting the Crown’s desires to the populace and important news of the populace to other Baronies and perhaps to the Crown, as appropriate.
On this site we will use “Baron/ess” whenever possible to refer to individuals. If we say just “Baron”, it implies the same thing – the person or persons designated by the Crown to hold a set of lands in the Crown’s name, also known as a “Territorial Baron/ess “or “Landed Baron/ess”. “The Baronage” usually refers to all the current Territorial Barons and Baronesses. For more detail, see the “What’s a Baron?” menu.
Court Baron/esses
Court Barons are given this honorary title by the Crown, usually for performing an extensive amount of good work that doesn’t fall in the category of any of the standard Orders or awards. It is common for a Territorial Baron and/or Baroness to be awarded this title when they successfully complete their tenure as a Territorial Baron/ess. After all these years, there are a lot of Court Baron/esses running around any given event. However, if you hear someone talking about the Baronage, they’re probably only talking about the currently Landed ones.