Now that I am done laughing my ass off.
1) I was kind of kidding and I am sorry that I offended people so badly. I should have included a smiley.
2) The basis for some of my joking comments from the latter post, were based unfortunately somewhat on reality. As Gavin pointed out, there was a time when a large contingent of our fencers, not the majority fortunately, but a lot of them, were openly breaking both the East Kingdom rules and the SCA rules and guidelines for participation. Some took it to extremes and were playing 17th and 18th century characters, they wanted to use rubber band guns to 'shoot' each other, many were complaining about any contact at all. Worse, some liked the then new idea of the white scarf and wanted to be knights/peers with the white scarves being used like knight's belts and master's baldrics. And a lot of them were not polite and reasonable, they were obnoxious and demanding. Not to mention the post period pirate types as well as the English Civil War types Gavin mentioned.
Fencing has improved somewhat over the years, with the implementation of heavier blades (schlagers), more force, less modern Olympic style foil work, better and more period clothing, less drawn out acting, etc.
Some heavies participate in fencing, I think that has had some benefit. Once more fencers start fighting in garb appropriate to the period and with weapons that act like what was used for fencing in most of the SCA period (early rapiers were basically hilted broadswords, not modern fencing foils), it will get better.
3) I like fencing. Both Olympic and historical. But I do laugh at the way it is often done in the SCA. Last year I bought equipment for my daughter and myself and took professional electrified fencing. While it was very divorced from actual combat, much more so than heavy weapons combat is, I found it fun, good exercise and at higher levels often quite difficult.
4) I am not a against a peerage for fencers, provided they don't call themselves knights, they wear clothing and use weapons appropriate to pre-17th century combattants and they don't act like bad Shakespearean tradgedy actors with the long, labored "acting out of wounds" that at times gets to the point of idiocy.
5) I agree that some heavy weapons combattants also break the rules, wear ahistorical armour and act like jerks. I am not suggesting they be given a pass on that. Not at all. But the topic was fencing, not what is wrong with heavy weapons combat.
6) Combat Archery. I hate it the way it used to be practiced in the SCA. Nuclear arrows, horribly unrealistic implementations, bad attitudes on the part of many CA archers (I can shoot you, but you can't hit back), archer's weapons and ammo being exempted from the basic safety rules SCA heavies have to comply with, light archers who are unencumbered by armour but you have to 'kill' them by running up to within 10' and 'calling' them dead while they try to run away, etc. I want to give my opponent the opportunity to strike at me and to receive my best effort to strike him back. Hard to do when they are 200' away behind a line of shields Most importantly, for the most part it does not fit well into the SCA's social structure and the fact that our environment is supposed to be European Nobles doing what European Nobles did in Medieval/Early Renn Western Europe (some will argue against the Western Part), to have archers for the most part you have to have lower social classes. Now I will admit combat archery has improved quite a bit in the last decade. But until I get my horse, I'm probably not going to like CA much, though it is much safer and more tolerable than it used to be. I've been in other groups with different structures, there CA worked just fine.
If you want to be called a fighter? Fighters in the SCA are to act in a knightly and chivalrous manner. Hard to do that if you are using a bow to shoot at knights and nobles. Most knights and nobles in Western Europe during the Medieval chivalric era did not do that. There are some exceptions that have come up recently, possibly Polish and Norweigan nights. But they appear very much to be the exception to the rule. Also hard to act knightly and chivalrously if you use a bow, then run away instead of fighting your opponent hand to hand when he closes with you. I guess you could call it a strategic retreat, but hard to win renown that way.
So I consider most archers combattants, not fighters. Though now that we have mostly done away with 'light' archers, most archers are armoured such that they can engage in hand to hand combat and some do; then you can call them fighters.
Also a lot of us belong to the 'we don't really do wars' we do large melees with nobles playing at war. So combat archery while fun, may be inappropriate, at least the way we tend to do it. I'll admit SCA rules are conflicting, confusing and poorly written.
But to be a fighter in the SCA, to me means that you really want to fight. Not take potshots at people from a distance.
Agincourt? Crecy and the like? Sure bows were very effective. But the knights were not using them. And they were effective mainly for denial of terrain, taking down horses, harrassing and directing the opposing forces, taking out the poorly armoured combattants, interfering with command and control. And the archers did a lot more damage with the packed in French when they attacked them with other weapons.
7) Siege Weapons. I like them. But talk of knighting somebody for firing a trebuchet well, makes me, well, a little crazy. Might as well knight the sappers and the guys that fill the moat. It isn't fighting hand to hand. Siege weapons are medieval artillery. Which is OK and of course it works in war. But we use them basically as big handguns against knights and nobles. And you need different social classes to man them. Once again, in other groups with different constructs, it makes more sense.
Period lace is fine.Anyway, sorry if I upset anybody. I was mostly kidding.
im too fat anf too slow for all that mess. i would probably just try to tackle them and lay on them until they passed out. 
