Carolingians, Bostonians, and fun with authority

Over the past few years, I've wound up in a fair number of conversations with folks from out-Barony, who were having trouble grasping the apparent Carolingian mentality, and in particular the way we respond to authority -- by turns quite lawful and yet quite contrary.

It just occurred to me that this post about Bostonians, from my friend siderea last week, actually provides a pretty nice summation of how, typically, we tick. It's well worth reading, especially if Carolingians (or for that matter, Bostonians) seem weird to you. (As always, you can learn an awful lot about an SCA branch by understanding the mundane world around it.) And it goes a long ways to explaining why we tend to be so helpful towards some royalty, and such an unspeakable pain in the butt to others...