The Worlds of Katherine Kurtz

The Deryni Series => General - Deryni => Topic started by: whitelaughter on April 06, 2019, 08:40:35 AM

Title: legal limits on Healers
Post by: whitelaughter on April 06, 2019, 08:40:35 AM
IIRC, healers are supposed to swear an oath of non-violence, yes?

Is it ever made clear how that interacts with secular titles? After all, if you can't fight for your lord, you can't hold land in return for providing military service!

Of course, Healers are rare, and a shrewd ruler wants as many as possible. Rulers also wish to prevent possible usurpers from strengthening their position by marrying princesses. So if Healers cannot inherit, the sneaky thing would be to marry your sisters off to Healers so that you get more Healers but fewer ambitious brothers-in-law/nephews.

And if my suggestion of Clarissa marrying Kelson was brain bending, Imre deciding to marry his best mate's sister and marrying off her suitor to his sister really calls for brain bleach!

Am I turning into a Shipper?
Title: Re: legal limits on Healers
Post by: DesertRose on April 06, 2019, 09:45:33 AM
I'm not sure if it's all Healers who swear an oath of non-violence; the Gabrilite vows definitely seem to lean that way, and it's implied that Dom Emrys received his training from an even more pacifistic but unnamed tradition than the Gabrilite priesthood.

Even so, the Gabrilite school trains their students in combat techniques, since most of the children trained are not going to become priests--Dom Queron mentions that the trials of one's vocation are particularly stringent in the Gabrilite order because the general consensus is that Healers need to marry and have children to expand the potential population of Healers.

So I don't know that we can posit that all Healers swear an oath of non-violence.  I get the impression that most Healers will aim to avoid violence if at all possible--I don't think we ever see Rhys Thuryn in any particularly combative situation (I think the closest he gets is Healing the wounded after the battle at Iomaire), but I have to think that if someone attacked him (or Evaine or their children or anyone else he held dear), he'd have defended himself/his loved ones with whatever means he had available to him, and if that meant a sword, so be it.

And Rhys was minor nobility; I'm not sure if he had a secular/court title other than Lord, but he was of noble family and owned the estate at Sheele as well as a home in Valoret.  I'd speculate that he had someone upon whom he could call to command troops conscripted from his estates, since he admits quite openly that military strategy isn't his strong suit (witness his and Joram's game of Cardounet in the short story "Catalyst" as well as a couple of remarks he makes in meetings surrounding Cinhil's restoration and meetings of the council during Cinhil's reign).  But having a trusted military commander and the willingness and ability to field a contingent of fighters, in addition to bringing his own Healing abilities to the battlefield, would probably fulfill the requirements of secular fealty.

I'm not sure what you mean by

Quote from: whitelaughter on April 06, 2019, 08:40:35 AM
Imre deciding to marry his best mate's sister and marrying off her suitor to his sister really calls for brain bleach!

Am I turning into a Shipper?

unless you mean that Imre ought to have proposed to marry Evaine and have Rhys marry Ariella, which, yeah, time for the brain bleach.  ;)

Edited to clarify a phrase
Title: Re: legal limits on Healers
Post by: Bynw on April 06, 2019, 10:02:15 AM

I would say that most Healers have an oath similar to that physician oath of causing no harm. For those Healers who are also priests then it is probably a bit strong in words. But most Healers were encouraged not to be priests so they could marry and have children and produce heirs and future Healers. The calling to be a Healer-priest had to be very strong in the would be candidate otherwise the religious orders wouldn't take them.

As for providing troops and leading armies. If a Healer Lord was called by his superior to take up arms. I'm sure there would be stipulations involved. Maybe the Healer Lord has a trusted general of his troops who is better trained in such matters who would take up the leading of the army in the Healer's name. While the Healer Lord himself would not be involved in battle.

Yet I think I remember seeing a mention of a Torenthi Healer in the battles that took place just after the Restoration. I don't have my books to recheck that bit but I believe it was mentioned. So the oath is just an oath. "Legally" binding of course. But like any oath, one can break it.
Title: Re: legal limits on Healers
Post by: DesertRose on April 06, 2019, 12:12:15 PM
Quote from: Bynw on April 06, 2019, 10:02:15 AM

I would say that most Healers have an oath similar to that physician oath of causing no harm. For those Healers who are also priests then it is probably a bit strong in words. But most Healers were encouraged not to be priests so they could marry and have children and produce heirs and future Healers. The calling to be a Healer-priest had to be very strong in the would be candidate otherwise the religious orders wouldn't take them.

As for providing troops and leading armies. If a Healer Lord was called by his superior to take up arms. I'm sure there would be stipulations involved. Maybe the Healer Lord has a trusted general of his troops who is better trained in such matters who would take up the leading of the army in the Healer's name. While the Healer Lord himself would not be involved in battle.

Yet I think I remember seeing a mention of a Torenthi Healer in the battles that took place just after the Restoration. I don't have my books to recheck that bit but I believe it was mentioned. So the oath is just an oath. "Legally" binding of course. But like any oath, one can break it.

@Bynw do you mean that the Torenthi Healer was actually fighting in the battles?  Because I cannot imagine a battle involving Deryni without Healers being present to Heal the wounded and ease the passing of those who were mortally wounded, but the Healer would probably not be a combatant, if for no other reason than that Healers, even in the best of times (in terms of availability of Deryni training), are rare and no military commander with half a gram of sense would send a Healer into combat in a fighting, rather than Healing, capacity unless the situation were truly dire.
Title: Re: legal limits on Healers
Post by: Bynw on April 06, 2019, 12:23:50 PM
Quote from: DesertRose on April 06, 2019, 12:12:15 PM

@Bynw do you mean that the Torenthi Healer was actually fighting in the battles?

yes as a combatant.
Title: Re: legal limits on Healers
Post by: whitelaughter on April 08, 2019, 08:24:58 AM
yes, I was specifically thinking of the instance that Bynw refers to:

during Cullen's final battle, Ariella's Healer is fighting and it is noted that he is doing it particularly well especially given his vows not to do so (Can't remember the exact wording). During the final clash between Cullen and Ariella, it's mentioned that the Healer has lost a hand and is crawling toward Ariella.
Title: Re: legal limits on Healers
Post by: DesertRose on April 08, 2019, 03:02:19 PM
Quote from: Bynw on April 06, 2019, 12:23:50 PM
Quote from: DesertRose on April 06, 2019, 12:12:15 PM

@Bynw do you mean that the Torenthi Healer was actually fighting in the battles?

yes as a combatant.

Quote from: whitelaughter on April 08, 2019, 08:24:58 AM
yes, I was specifically thinking of the instance that Bynw refers to:

during Cullen's final battle, Ariella's Healer is fighting and it is noted that he is doing it particularly well especially given his vows not to do so (Can't remember the exact wording). During the final clash between Cullen and Ariella, it's mentioned that the Healer has lost a hand and is crawling toward Ariella.

Well, I think in that situation, Cullen and Ariella and their respective companions/entourages are fighting quite literally to the death, which would meet the "truly dire" circumstances I mentioned above.

I stand by my assertion that a noble Healer could probably fulfill their duties of fealty by having a trusted military commander to lead the troops that the noble would be expected to raise upon the Crown's request and by traveling with their contingent in the capacity of a Healer, and that any king or general or other person in command would not use a Healer as a combatant except as a very last resort.
Title: Re: legal limits on Healers
Post by: Laurna on April 08, 2019, 09:14:44 PM
From what the 11 Kingdom's history book (the Codex) tells us, is that all known healers parish in the battle of Killingford in July of 1025. We know that after the regents, there were only a hand full of healers remaining. Killingford is 100 years after the regents. So a few new healers were hopefully born in the interume. These generations of new healers were not allowed to own land. Not with out special dispensation from the King. That dispensation likely involved, the healer being at the kings command whenever he deemed it necessary. There would be no age limit, and no refusing the king. Until the healer was too old to stand, or killed in battle or some court intrigue, that healer's fealty was to be present whenever he was called upon.  I see this true for both Gwynedd and Torenth. If the Healer had a knight or warriors in his household, than they would be called too. But I see most of them as having very small house holds after the regents.
So when the battle of Killingford happened, every single known healer on both sides, no matter their age, was called to the battle site. Not to fight, but to heal the injured nobility. When campsites on both sides got infiltrated, you know it would be the healers who would be targeted first. I am sure they fought back, but not nearly as well as the attacking enemy. And so it was that all known healers were lost for another 100 years.

As for the Deryni and half- Deryni Lords who went into hiding, they would all owe their fealty with the sword. If there was a healer in one of those houses, he was likely untrained in that capacity and had not sworn an oath of No Harm.
Title: Re: legal limits on Healers
Post by: DoctorM on December 27, 2019, 11:46:09 AM
Quote from: whitelaughter on April 06, 2019, 08:40:35 AM
IIRC, healers are supposed to swear an oath of non-violence, yes?

Is it ever made clear how that interacts with secular titles? After all, if you can't fight for your lord, you can't hold land in return for providing military service!

Of course, Healers are rare, and a shrewd ruler wants as many as possible. Rulers also wish to prevent possible usurpers from strengthening their position by marrying princesses. So if Healers cannot inherit, the sneaky thing would be to marry your sisters off to Healers so that you get more Healers but fewer ambitious brothers-in-law/nephews.

And if my suggestion of Clarissa marrying Kelson was brain bending, Imre deciding to marry his best mate's sister and marrying off her suitor to his sister really calls for brain bleach!

Am I turning into a Shipper?

Ariella's Healer in "Saint Camber" carried (and used) a sword at Iomaire. He seems to have served as Healer/bodyguard.