Do all knights have an oath of fealty? There is mention in LoM that if you don't take the flaw, you have an oath but the duties are so light it's assumed not to impact on the story. Conversely, is it true that only Knights are legally allowed to go about armed and armored?
AFAICS there are many possibilities in ArM5 to describe a character's obligations: this makes an Oath of Fealty Flaw sometimes insignificant. When e. g. a knight is serving his own family, he will have sworn to the current head of the family - but the relevant Flaw would better be Close Family Ties.
Armsmen guarding a castle, a place or a town gate will usually not be knights, but still be armed and possibly armored. A knight may be expected to attend his liege unarmed at social functions. So the right to bear arms at specific occasions is not just linked to a specific title like knight, which in different countries even means widely different things.
I want the character to be in a place where he is treated as a... social equal? Essentially he's from a noble family, but they were Normans, and they surrendered to King Phillip and got dispossessed. But he still has enough status so he can talk to nobles without being viewed as a filthy peasant, and without the question of "who gives you license to bear those arms?"
If that means he has to go haring off on services for a liege from time to time, I don't mind that, but it does make more work for the SG without adding much to the game (since it's likely none of the magi would want to get involved.) Though I suppose it could be a good hook for companion stories, if people want to make companions linked to him.
Even Frederick II's strict Constitutions of Melfi allow "milites et filios militum et burgenses", that is "knights, their sons and wealthy burghers" to individually carry arms in his South Italian kingdom. I don't expect the burghers to have sworn any oath of fealty - they just were wealthy people in good standing.
Being dispossessed is bad in such a context: the slope from ex-noble without patron to robber is steep and slippery. But the Covenant of Triamore is such a patron to a magus and dispossessed noble: by the manorial charter (Triamore p.98 box) a magus of the Covenant is the Covenant leader's knight.
Great, thanks!
Gives him a reason to come here, too.
I take it for now the covenant leader is one of the Augustans?
Given that our Magi are close to Companion power level, are we going to do Companions too?
I have an idea for a brewer that could either be a funny Grog, or a Companion Touched by a Realm. (Making Wondrous ale.) Possibly a Monk from a dissolved monastery who would be connected to Frere Sulpice. (Though I'll have to do some reading to see if that even makes sense.)
But I like the idea of Wondrous Ale, and building a brewery will help the Covenant finances. 
Also, I'm not 100% sure brewing is a craft rather than a profession.
I will wait to hear back about whether we are doing Companions and whether Brewing is a craft or profession, but tentatively based on those perhaps my companion could be the Basilian/Benedictine Frere Sulpice learned Greek from. But I'm still trying to figure out what his status would be. I think Basilians are Benedictine, and Benedictine Monasteries are independent, but they also have a vow of stability; though the vow of stability allows them to transfer to new monasteries. I'm not sure if that means he'd need to be founding a new Benedictine monastery? Or can he have become an Oblate? Strictly speaking I think monks outside of a monastery are in violation of their vows - was that the intent for that npc?
I can also do something totally different if that doesn't work.
I am learning a lot about Holy roman Empire politics in this thread!
Yes, Anaxagoras (augustan) is the official leader of the covenant.Both Anaxagoras and Ulisterius are here to justify them having the manor. A single Augustan looked too little. 3+ magi too much. Augustans are interested in the court, so it is easy to remove them if we want more agency. It will also help me work around some effects and investigate them as a tradition, something I have not done yet.
Would you want to play the interesting events of the end of the decade of 1210-1220? Sounds interesting and makes for a nice case of "Since your charter is imperial and ther eis no emperor I shall take the castle for my own use" by the duke of bravant or any of the other dudes. that situatin can certainly be the one that triggers the Augustans scampering for as much magical help as they can get, either just BEFORE the events or just AFTER the events (they do not want a repetition). If you want to play these cases we can start a pair of years before it.
Brewing produces alcoholic beverages so it is a craft, right? IIRC this was the difference. Go ahead with your brewer.
Oath of fealty: I think OneShot adressed this nicely. A knight or nobleman social status is enough to represent the lower strata of the nobility. actally in Germany nobleman might be better, since there are unfree (serf) knights, a particularity of that area.
A MAJOR story flaw is that, major. So if you take oath of fealty as a troupe we will have to work this into the saga heavily, probably making you owe fealthy to parties that are opposed to the covenant, for example. A lower version for this might be Patron, close family ties or Favors.
He might have lost his lands if he was part of the English faction in the war and after the Battle of Bouvines (1214) his family found they had their land occupied by the victors. Bouvines (1214) is like Muret (1213): it is quite surprising that the losing side lost, and it changed some significant stuff as a consequence.
Companions: Given that in troupe play it should be rare for all the main characters to be involved in stories at once, you can create companions. These can be newcomers or you can use characters in the triamore book and give them a spin. No need to go berserk with V&F here. The people in the Light of Andorra saga have the concept of "minor companion" (5 virtues and flaws max) and it seems to work well. But I am not putting this as a limit at all, just to say that you do not need to optimize them a lot here.
I had already decided not to take Oath of Fealty, for the reasons you mention.
Regarding the Manor, the covenant is considered the "Lord" of the manor, right? So in theory has the right to maintain knights?
I think (and I can be waaaay off here) that the official status is that the lord of the manor is the Emperor. He has assigned some "knights" to it as his deputies. These "knights" are the magi.
But to simplify they will be able to have junior knights in their service as long as they can pay the expenses, that is. The covenant has 2 minor sources of income (the village and hamlets, and the library fees), so it is not a very wealthy structure so far. the maintenance of the castle eats up most of these resources according to the book.
About knights, take in mind that he count of Namur is likely to have around 5 knights himself, plus 5 squires for a grand total of 10 mounted knights. If the covenant starts developing a strong military force he will take issue about it. this is why I downgraded the grogs in the first place 
I'm not trying to do anything crazy. Just want to justify Onfroi's knightly status without tying him to something exterior and extraneous. If his liege-lord is the emperor that works pretty well, I think, if you're cool with that.
Yes, you can have him, no problem. And if another player wants another knight it wouldn't break things either
Since triamore is a weird case we can have weird stuff ourselves. Hell, we will have a faerie doctor and a guy that communes with a bunch of trees as "knights", so your case will look like a shinning beacon of propriety.
The surrounding area going berserk at your diverse arrivals is a plot hook, so in act it is a good thing that things in triamore look weird when you look at them from the outside.
@Xavi @Plot_Device actually the manorial charter specifically says that the manor is exempt from most forms of vassalage duties since itt has an imperial charter. Thus its lord is a non-hereditary nobleman and the title of lord of the manor passes on to any of the knights in the service of the previous lord.
In practice Triamore's magi, i.e. the knights in service, elect a princeps to head the covenant who then becomes lord of the manor. Technically the magi could elect a companion as the lord of the manor, but the whole point of giving the magi the manorial charter was to remove it from the hands of the local nobility.
That being said, the lord of the manor is actually required by the charter to keep knights who are able to succeed the lord. That's why the death of the magi in the original write-up prompted a recruitment drive.
I'm trying to figure out a good Celtic god who would be appropriate for singing and who would fit into the Faerie side of gods. I'm just much more aware of the Greek gods and don't know the others nearly so well. There are lots of Celtic gods. It's looking like Brigid or Brig would be good since she was supposed to have invented keening and was patroness to poets. While not for certain, Brigantia may have been her continental counterpart. So I was thinking of Brigantia. I'd also spotted that Arduinna is quite local, but doesn't seem to have had much of anything to do with singing.
Bran the Blessed
The first thing we need to decide here is, when that Imperial Charta got promulgated, and by which then living Emperor. It could not have been Frederick II in 1217.
Otto IV might have very well released the charter between 1209 and 1215, but for all his life his titles were contested - and in 1220 his victorious opponent Frederick II would just have sacked it and be done.
Henry VI, father of Frederick II, might have promulgated it between 1191 and 1197. 1192 would have been a good year for this, since Henry VI was then involved in the succession of the archbishop of Liège, where he imposed his Imperial chancellor.
If we make the manorial charter that much older, it can be Imperial, as written in Triamore. But we have the foundation of Triamore anticipated by about 15 years.
Wasn't the manorial charter given by Frederick Barberossa, Frederick II's uncle, when he was emperor?
Basilian monks are an Eastern monastic order centuries older than the Benedictines. They stick to their monasteries just like Benedictines, but are not the cliché Big-Bellied Beer-Brewing Benedictines. They are an important remnant of Greek culture in Catholic Europe, when many other links broke down following the great schism of 1054.
So you best design your monk and beer brewer independent of Frère Sulpice. If I find time, I write a few lines on the runaway Basilian in the character thread of Frère Sulpice.
Just that @Xavi wanted the foundation of Triamore to be much more recent:
Triamore - as in the book - is consistent and could be used by us.