At the birth of all creation, countless aeons before today, the universe was spoken into being with perfect tones, and beauty was born. In imitation all wise and noble wanderers practice their arts, hoping by emulation to bring forth light and plant the roots of virtue in the land.

In commemoration of this sublime event, a noble order was created by our ancestors. Dressed in homage of those roots of virtue and charged with spreading knowledge and seeking enlightenment among the laurel leaves.

Among the endless golden plains of the han of O-Hata in the Kingdom of Chushinchi, an elder of this order came upon one who sought beauty in all forms. In the shape of a word upon the page; in the sanctity of movement and ceremony; in the dance of blades upon the field, soaring like the tsuru. And so, the elder convened her order, the Roju and Kugyo, and then sought admittance before the Crown.

The Tenno Robert, born to the House of the Stag and adopted by the House of the Falcon, received the Elder. The Chugu Magge, of wisdom and grace the greatest exemplar, heard her words. Knowing the lord of O-Hata of old and believing his virtue to have not diminished, they called him before them.

Thus came the cherry blossom lord Takauji, born of the Saito. A wandering stag himself, his sword wielded among the lords of Ayutthaya, home found in the heartland. In due and ancient form, he renewed the oaths he had been called upon to swear. And further swore an oath of blood to serve loyally unto death, or to be scourged by the kami of his house and the land, and the four kings of heaven.

Noble blood in noble garb attired, and in the ancient forms was he made a peer. To his holdings the Tenno added lands of at least 25,000 koku, sufficient to rank among the hon-kunimochi, and the right to be adopted to an Imperial vassal house. To his dignity, the Chugu granted the right to keep a household, to appoint retainers, and to advise her and her successors.

To all this were the Imperial seals set by those of limitless compassion and sympathy, in the 40^th year of the Kingdom, in the second month of the reign, on the 23^rd day of Hazuki, in the 59^th year of the Society.

________________________                                                _________________________
Tenno                                                                                      Chugu

(This text is from a variety of sources. Japanese promotions of rank in period were not elaborate texts or writs—they were most often written on ‘gray paper’, i.e. paper which had previously been used for other purposes. I was tempted to have it written on the back of a preprint AoA for the reign, but decided against it both out of vanity and to have it not confuse the herald.

Like the two other Japanese texts I’ve written, this is based in part on the Infinite Life Sutra, also known as the Longer Sukhavativyuha Sutra. The other scrolls which utilized this were Ki no Kotori’s Lily and Uesugi Katsumoto’s Huscarl; as they are both dear friends, I was delighted to write my own with similarities. It also draws on the blood oath ceremonies described in Land and Lordship in Early Modern Japan by Mark Ravina; Kishomon, or blood oaths, were part of the fealty sworn by a vassal to a superior and included divine retribution if violated. These are also featured in the Laurel ceremony.

The references in the scroll are as follows:

• Tenno and Chugu: Emperor and Empress.
• Chushinchi: Lit. ‘Heartland’, translated by Kameshima Zentarou Umakai during my tenure as Gold Falcon Principal Herald.
• Roju: Elders, one of the most prestigious positions in the Tokugawa shogunate. The position begins just out of period. Their fiefdoms were ranked at 25,000-50,000 koku.
• Tsuru: Crane.
• Kugyo: A collective term for the highest ranked individuals attached to the Emperor’s court, effectively the 12 people with the highest court ranks. By referencing both officials of the Shogun and the Emperor, Robert and Magge’s place as undisputed and undivided heads of the Kingdom are emphasized.
• O-Hata: “Great Plains,” the name that I created to represent Mag Mor in Japanese. See https://dishonoronyourcow.com/?p=312.
• Golden Plains: A reference both to the bountiful wheat and corn of the mundane state of Nebraska, where the Barony of Mag Mor is; and also, to the Canton of Golden Playne, which we started in Thailand.
• Ayutthaya: Further reference to having lived in Thailand. As there were Japanese warriors who served in the courts of the lord of Ayutthaya, Takauji traveled to Thailand as well.
• Kami: Shinto spirit or god.
• Four Kings of Heaven: A group of powerful Japanese deities, said to guard over each of the four cardinal directions. Used in Japanese blood oaths; see Land and Lordship, 39.
• 25,000 Koku: Japan ranked its fiefdoms by size in terms of agricultural production of rice. One koku was considered to be the amount of rice necessary to feed one person for one year. A fiefdom of 10,000 koku was considered the minimum boundary for being considered a Daimyo; given that I am a landed baron and now a peer, it seemed appropriate to peg my personal lands not at the minimum required for the rank but be pegged at that of a Roju but not Kugyo.
• Hon-kunimochi: Great country holding lords, another division of powerful nobles in Japan; great landowners which can be seen as somewhat autonomous and thus appropriate as ‘peers’ to the Shogun.
• Adoption: Adoption was a method of social mobility in Japan. The Saito ceased to be a going concern before the end of period, and as a result it would be appropriate to be adopted to a higher-ranking clan. I have chosen the Matsudaira, a vassal of the Tokugawa, to represent this; please see my article on the subject.
• Hazuki: August.)