The Honourable Sôgmô Gaius Soergel Publicola has issued a new decree to provide more substance to the Sandum system of nobility, that marked its fourth anniversary Wednesday, and to update the Most Honourable Order of the Throne of Sandus nearly eight years after its foundation, among other matters.
The decree adds hospitality (hospitium, ξενία) to the principles of the Sandum nobility with the creation of a custom of hospitality, or ius hospitii. This new customary law obliges barons and baronets to offer hospitality when they are able, “so long as the host does not receive any damage” (dummodo hospes nihil damni capiat). In addition to a law of hospitality, the decree also regulates matters dealing with noble grants, letters patent, heraldry, and other ceremonial matters in Sandus.
Apart from hospitality, the decree also foresees an investiture ceremony akin to that of the Homard’s investiture in February 2020 with nobles now and in the future giving an oath of fealty to the Sôgmô. In the oath, nobles now swear allegiance to the Sôgmô and the State of Sandus, to pledge to protect það, and to offer hospitality for all Sandum citizens. The decree also creates a new royal oath of duty that will be a royal counterpart to the sagamorial addendum to the oath of citizens that exists as Sandus’s closest version to an oath of office. This oath of duty specifies adherence to the Sandum philosophy, deference to the constitution, governance with moderation and wisdom, the respect of citizens’ rights, duty to the obligations of the office, and respect and honour to the State of Sandus. Finally, the decree also creates a vision for an extensive order of precedence in theory which is, in practice, simplified based on the number of people in the order of precedence and tailored to fit the situation at hand.
After the nobility, the decree also is concerned with the system of honours in Sandus and with honorific orders, allowing them to be governed in the future by their own bylaws issued by their sovereign. The decree creates a new honour, the distinction of friendship, which is of two ranks: distinction, represented by a lapel pin, and a medal.
The Most Honourable Order of the Throne of Sandus (MHOTS), the oldest Sandum decoration and honour, received its first update in nearly eight years of existence. The foreign members of the order, who frequently receive membership in the order out of respect and recognition of friendship, will now be enumerated in a separate roll, the Roll Extraneous, and all foreign members will have “extraneous” suffixed to their ranks to note them as subject to separate rules that have governed the order since its inception. The decree also establishes and broadens the principle of degradation in the order, which has existed and rarely been practised in the order. In the past, Commanders and Elders could be degraded based on inactivity or on dishonour but now all members may be, and Members who are degraded are automatically expelled. In the future, former members of the order who will have been degraded by attrition (that is, their honour has “rubbed away” by inactivity) may continue to use the style and fashion of the order, but former members who will have been degraded by dishonour may not.
Finally, the MHOTS will also have its own holiday, Throne Day, on the anniversary of its foundation on 21 July.
Lastly, the decree specifies that the Fraternal Annonary Order of the Wooden Bowl, a chivalric order and company reserved to its sovereign, the Sôgmô, and King Adam I of Überstadt as its two seigneurs, will be restarted. In addition to the principles of charity that began the order, it will also be for camaraderie and Chökhor Düchen will remain the order’s principle administrative day for the purposes specified in the order’s founding règlement.
sandus.org 