There's the fun story of Shibboleth as well.
Definitely don't want to fail that particular 'citizenship test.'
Definitely don't want to fail that particular 'citizenship test.'
Passports, please!
- Thread starter Baron Opal
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Ydars
Explorer
I think the term passport came from papers that people had to have to enter or leave a port during time of war. They were certainly in use in the 1400s as there is a reference to "letters of safe conduct" in a document from the time of Henry V in 1414 and in also in the play "Henry V"; "He that hath no stomach for this fight, let him depart! His passport shall be made and crowns for converse put into his pocket."
The earliest one we have from the UK is this from the reign of Charles I and here is the text of it.
CHARLES BY THE GRACE OF GOD, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith etc; To all our Mayors, Justices of the Peace, Bailifs, Customans (?), Comptrollers, Searchers; And more particularly to our Admirals, Vice-Admirals, Captains of the Forts Ships and our other Ministers and Officers both at land and Sea whom it doth or may concerne Greeting. Whereas wee have given and by these presents doe grant leave and license to our Trustie and Wellbeloved Servant Captain William Bradshagh Esqre one of the gentlemen of our Privie Chamber to transport himself and his familie into the parts beyond the Seas. Wee doe therefore will and require you and every of you to suffer and sayd Captain in Bradshagh quietly to passe by you and to embarque himself together with his Wife Margaret Bradshagh two Mayds and two men Servants with their trunks of apparells and other necessaries not prohibited at any of our ports; giving them rather all furtherance and assistance for their safe and speedie passage than any trouble lett and molestation. And hereof you may not faile as you to render our pleasure and this shall be as well unto you and every one of you as unto the said Captain Bradshagh sufficient warrent on this behalf. Given under our Signet at our palace of Westminster the Eighteenth of June in the Seventeenth year of our reign - 1641."
There are also references in the bible to Moses giving Abraham such a safe conduct letter as well.
The earliest one we have from the UK is this from the reign of Charles I and here is the text of it.
CHARLES BY THE GRACE OF GOD, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith etc; To all our Mayors, Justices of the Peace, Bailifs, Customans (?), Comptrollers, Searchers; And more particularly to our Admirals, Vice-Admirals, Captains of the Forts Ships and our other Ministers and Officers both at land and Sea whom it doth or may concerne Greeting. Whereas wee have given and by these presents doe grant leave and license to our Trustie and Wellbeloved Servant Captain William Bradshagh Esqre one of the gentlemen of our Privie Chamber to transport himself and his familie into the parts beyond the Seas. Wee doe therefore will and require you and every of you to suffer and sayd Captain in Bradshagh quietly to passe by you and to embarque himself together with his Wife Margaret Bradshagh two Mayds and two men Servants with their trunks of apparells and other necessaries not prohibited at any of our ports; giving them rather all furtherance and assistance for their safe and speedie passage than any trouble lett and molestation. And hereof you may not faile as you to render our pleasure and this shall be as well unto you and every one of you as unto the said Captain Bradshagh sufficient warrent on this behalf. Given under our Signet at our palace of Westminster the Eighteenth of June in the Seventeenth year of our reign - 1641."
There are also references in the bible to Moses giving Abraham such a safe conduct letter as well.
I do a little bit of dialect difference in my Greyhawk campaign.
Basically, I assume people know by accent what group one is generally from, across a broad region and whether people are from "around here" or not.
There are also racial/ethnic differences in Greyhawk, and my campaign is set in a border region where Baklunish ethnicity/language is on one side, Flannae on another, and "Common" in the country the PC's serve.
As for passports and citizenship, I don't worry about it at all. Even which country owns a particular village is often up for grabs in a border region, and some areas are beyond any rule, IMC.
But I did have the PC's once get a letter from the ruler letting them quarter in the village they were adventuring near -- basically, the inn had to put them up for free, as part of the village's feudal dues.
Last edited:
taliesin15
First Post
great post Ydars
as to Haakon's thoughts on dialects, I basically agree with this--I work with the assumption that most people have never travelled more than 50 miles from their home--so you'll definitely have accent differences noticeable between say villages 100 miles away from each other--but further apart? That's where I tend to say the dialects are different enough that people are speaking another language within Common (or my version of quasi-Gaelic, etc)...
I do think that learning regional accents and dialects really is like learning another language--I've never bothered to learn the local dialect of English whereever I've lived accurately--my version of English is a hodgepodge mixed with what television anchors use, therefore people who've lived here in Central Texas all their lives know that I'm not from around here, are ya boy?
as to Haakon's thoughts on dialects, I basically agree with this--I work with the assumption that most people have never travelled more than 50 miles from their home--so you'll definitely have accent differences noticeable between say villages 100 miles away from each other--but further apart? That's where I tend to say the dialects are different enough that people are speaking another language within Common (or my version of quasi-Gaelic, etc)...
I do think that learning regional accents and dialects really is like learning another language--I've never bothered to learn the local dialect of English whereever I've lived accurately--my version of English is a hodgepodge mixed with what television anchors use, therefore people who've lived here in Central Texas all their lives know that I'm not from around here, are ya boy?
There was a census of Roman Citizens every 5 years, where each citizen was counted, assigned to an electoral tribe (if he didn't have one), and had his property assessed for voting purposes.
Lists of citizens were kept by the censors, and could be referred to.
Roman citizenship was RELATIVELY easy to get (compared to citizenship in most ancient city-states) but was still a prize that some people thought worth serving in the army for 25 years to get.
When a person was granted Roman citizenship through direct government action, such as army discharge, he was given a "diploma", a folded-over durable document, as proof.
Paul claimed citizenship, because a provincial governor could not beat or execute a citizen and must needs send him to Rome to be dealt with. So, they would have been prepared to check this sort of thing lest every single criminal who was brought before them would claim Roman citizen to avoid immediate punishment.
If the citizen was obviously an Italian, they wouldn't need to check real hard. If he claimed citizenship from some other source, he would either produce a diploma, or offer proof by reference to witnesses or the census.
Lists of citizens were kept by the censors, and could be referred to.
Roman citizenship was RELATIVELY easy to get (compared to citizenship in most ancient city-states) but was still a prize that some people thought worth serving in the army for 25 years to get.
When a person was granted Roman citizenship through direct government action, such as army discharge, he was given a "diploma", a folded-over durable document, as proof.
Paul claimed citizenship, because a provincial governor could not beat or execute a citizen and must needs send him to Rome to be dealt with. So, they would have been prepared to check this sort of thing lest every single criminal who was brought before them would claim Roman citizen to avoid immediate punishment.
If the citizen was obviously an Italian, they wouldn't need to check real hard. If he claimed citizenship from some other source, he would either produce a diploma, or offer proof by reference to witnesses or the census.
Historically, this approach to accents and languages is accurate. Languages like "French" were not really standardized until early modern times, when languages like Langue d'Oc were blended into the language of Paris, and languages like Breton and Alsatian were essentially stamped out. A lot of that process had to do with mass conscription to armies, and mass literacy.
Same process in Spain with Castillian becoming Spanish, but never quite surpressing Catalan and Basque.
And in Africa, during colonization in the late 19th century, dialects varied from village to village, and it's the missionaries who decided on where one language group started and another ended, as I understand it.
How to square all that gritty history with a campaign where Common exists? I think about Common as being the language of an old Empire (in Greyhawk, the Great Kingdom) and of educated people in other areas (much like how French was used by the nobility in medieval England and 19th century Russia). And to that it's use a lingua franca (common language of trade), and it begins to make sense.
Think of Common as English now, French in the past, or Latin, if you prefer . . .
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