Does that mean it didn’t happen?
Lady Feilimidh Dearforghail of Caer Anterth in (then) MK created a very successful Pages’ School with a comprehensive handbook explaining to the young students the workings of the SCA and how they could play a productive role within it. Copies were requested around the Known World. Some time later, submissions were invited for a Society compilation of texts, and Feilimidh wrote to offer her Pages’ Handbook – which was declined with the comment that they already had a text in that category. When the publication came out, Feilimidh discovered that it was in fact an abridged version of her own Handbook, credited to a lady from another kingdom, even using obviously traced-over copies of the same artwork (the key wards etc. were identical). One notice of copyright violation to the publisher followed, requiring correction labels be put in every copy and sent to every purchaser of a copy already sent out. It turned out the other lady had gone to the trouble of hand-typing the entire Handbook verbatim, changing only the credits and placenames, and the Society publisher had done the abridging. On the strength of this massive plagiarism, the lady in question had been about to receive a Laurel; this was dropped, but she claimed mental distress, and suffered no penalty.
Now you may wonder: did the Laurel then go to the actual author? Why, no, never, and here’s the reason why, quote: “Haven’t you heard? She threatened to sue the SCA!” … [See “notice of copyright violation” above.] And many years have gone past.
My late friend Master Solomon ben Jacob OL, who invited me to move to this state and housed me while I earned my first month’s keep, was a judge at the Pennsic Pentathlon where this happened, and verified the details to me: a gentleman who’d been credited the highest number of points and announced the winner turned out to have been inadvertently credited his wife’s points along with his own; when hers were subtracted, he had the second-most points, and Lady Gwynfreya ferch Llewellyn ap Morganwyn (a previous PP winner) now had the most points.
You’d think the solution would be obvious, right? Change who’s announced the winner? Not quite. “To avoid embarrassing” the already announced winner, it was then announced that Gwynfreya had also tied for first place.
On the strength of his “winning”, that gentleman thereafter received a Laurel.
The actual winner? Twice an actual winner? Never received a Laurel.
This is told in verse as part of “The Midrealm Laurels”, but I shan’t repeat myself.
Now tell me, DrDeth, as an Exchequer: if titles were pay, was the pay fairly handed out here, in either case? You could say the latter gentleman had not, at least by the end, claimed his wife’s points as his own… but he accepted the results of those points, the first place in the Pentathlon, when his own points entitled him only to second place; and that allowed him to accept a Laurel. IMHO, this is like handing back stolen tickets after you have crossed the line where they are checked (and torn in half). The honorable thing is not to cross the line (= accept all those results), but to see that the real winner does so.