So, what sort of rights do apprentices have under Hermetic law? I know of the one season of training per year, but how do they enforce those rights?
Ahahahahahahahahahaha.... Give me a moment.... Ahahahahahahahahahaha....Ahahahahahahahahahaha....Ahahahahahahahahahaha....
Legal rights? Apprentices are property. They have NO rights. The one season per year is not a right for the apprentice, it is a duty of the master.
+1 BlackLiger
No rights, BUT
Apprentices are due a season of magical training per year - this is a requirement placed on the master. Some masters are sociopathic and egomaniacal about it, others are actually trying to produce a useful member of their House.
The apprentice is traditionally tested for Gauntlet after 15 years of training and service, but this is an uncodified matter, not a requirement or right, and there are cases where an apprentice has failed once or twice, with another year of service and training following.
Producing and Gauntletting an apprentice that is not up to a basic standard in Magic Theory and other abilities is a punishable Low Crime - they have produced a Mage already deprived of magical power.
The apprentice has no personal or property rights. Tytalus abuses apprentices even by medieval standards, and there's nothing to be done about it, nor even much sentiment that there should be anything done. Killing an apprentice is frowned on - but it has required a pattern of murder before punitive (and personal) action has been taken, and that action, Wizard's War, has been outside Tribunal forum.
Within the Oath / core Code? None.
Within the peripheral code? That entirely depends on the tribunal and the saga.
Certainly the Order frowns on a magus 'keeping' a lab-servant - but under the traditional model this is resolved either by a member of House Bonisagus stepping in, or the claiming of the apprentice as spoils of wizard's war.
Which brings up something that is alluded to but not explicitly stated: the idea that if an apprentice is taken during wizard's war, they can become the full property of the taker even if the original magus isn't dead when the wizard's war expires.
Assuming this is true, it puts a fair amount of power into the hands of a politically savvy apprentice; a gauntlet'd ally can declare wizard's war and the apprentice themselves can be an active participant in the escape attempt.
Keeping in mind that politically savvy and apprentice rarely go together, especially in an organization where petty feuds typically last centuries...
Bear in mind that the idea of legal rights for subjects, restricting the permissible actions of the strong, is a new-fangled and radical idea in 1220. Magna Carta was only signed five years ago, and the Pope promptly annulled it as detracting from royal dignity.
So, no, apprentices don't have legal rights, but neither does anyone else.
The closest thing they have to rights is this: they are valuable, and by damaging them, you are removing that resource from another magus who might exploit it better.
Well, somewhat new, and somewhat old and forgotten, right? The Roman Empire had some rights written into law a millennium earlier.
But yes, what everyone's saying. Terrible being an apprentice, except that it's better than nearly any other option, especially considering you end up better off than nearly everyone else afterward (assuming your master doesn't kill you).
...and then you have the Thebean tribunal.
... where they have the right to choose their master, and get paid for that with tokens.
But that's about it, if I recall correctly.
What more could one want? The freedoms and comforts of an apprentice are chosen by their master, so being able to choose a good master is equivalent to choosing a nice selection of rights for yourself. It's not true freedom by any modern definition and it's somewhat hit-or-miss since children aren't usually great judges of character, but if it works out it can match even a modern childhood's positives in a number of ways, never mind comparing it to the childhood of the rest of 1220 Europe's humans.
In the Theban Tribunal, apprentices have a right to not be abused (unless they're dumb enough to accept a Tytalus parens, in which case the Book of Instruction is permitted by tradition). What abuse means is subject to the Tribunal, but in general, Theban citizens are benevolent towards apprentices because Thebans expect to work together in general.
Elsewhere, an apprentice has no rights, except the right to the Quaesitores' Gauntlet after being failed three times by their parens (I'd call that a right of the apprentice, personally, and it's part of Hermetic customary law). A season of training a year, not damaging an apprentice's Gift through badly opening the Arts, and similar things are duties of the parens to the Order as a whole.