THE MANSA COURT
New York · Founded MMXXVI
A private members club in the old tradition.
In the court of kings.
The Court
The Mansa Court is a private members club in New York. It exists for those who hold the occasion above the purchase, and company above audience. Its calendar is deliberate, its rooms are quiet, and its pleasures are the older ones: the shoot, the course, the paddock, the box, the long table and more.
The Court keeps no permanent house. It convenes where the Season takes it, at private fields and borrowed rooms, at tables set for the evening and struck by morning. A society is its people, not its address. The Court is private even where the occasion is not.
The Name
Mansa is the Mandinka word for king. It was borne by the rulers of the Mali Empire, and most famously by Mansa Musa, who crossed the Sahara on pilgrimage in the fourteenth century. He did not cross it alone. His court went with him, thousands strong, and left so much gold in Cairo that its price there was said to have fallen for years.
A court is not the king. A court is the company he keeps: the counsellors, the artists, the diplomats, the ones worth having at the table. That is the older meaning, and the one the Court takes for itself.
The Court is of New York, and it travels as Musa’s court did, city to city, the same company in each. Wherever it sets a table, it keeps the old ways. Courtesy takes its name from the court.
Aula Regum. The court of kings.
“How many things by season seasoned are
To their right praise and true perfection!”
The Season
Two hundred and fifty engagements. The year as the Court keeps it.
The first Season opens on the first of January, MMXXVII. The founding cohort is first assembled at the Founding Dinner, in New York that January.
Black tie, given by the Court.
Dates are confirmed in the invitation. The calendar is a programme. An engagement may be added, moved or withdrawn as the Season requires.
January
24 Engagements
· 3 Hosted
February
17 Engagements
· 4 Hosted
March
20 Engagements
· 4 Hosted
April
19 Engagements
· 4 Hosted
May
25 Engagements
· 4 Hosted
June
23 Engagements
· 5 Hosted
July
25 Engagements
· 6 Hosted
August
16 Engagements
· 3 Hosted
September
27 Engagements
· 5 Hosted
October
19 Engagements
· 4 Hosted
November
18 Engagements
· 4 Hosted
December
17 Engagements
· 4 Hosted
At the fifty engagements the Court hosts, members reply to the invitation and the arranging is part of the engagement. The other two hundred it does not host. At those, passage and seating are sought on a member’s behalf, and for the one guest they may bring. What an engagement costs is put to the member before anything is committed. The Court arranges for its members, and for no one else.
The Argument
Then
There was a time when a year had a shape to it. The season opened, the season closed, and the same company gathered in between. What one attended said something, and one attended it in company that had been chosen rather than assembled.
Now
Little of that survives. The rooms are open now, and filling them is a matter of price rather than judgment. Access is sold rather than extended, which is why the price keeps rising and the company keeps thinning.
The Court does not intend to fix this.
It intends to sit outside it.
What it keeps is a year with a shape: engagements chosen in advance, a code that is stated plainly and held to, and the same faces across a season and then another. There is nothing novel in any of it. Societies were run this way for three centuries before anyone thought to sell membership by the month.
The Occasion
The Code
What the Court asks of those who sit at its table.
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Dress
Every engagement carries a dress code. It is stated in the invitation, and it is not negotiable. Where the Court asks for it, outfits are confirmed in advance.
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Punctuality
The Court begins when it says it will begin.
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The Camera
The Court brings its own photographer where the occasion permits. Members are asked to keep their telephones in their pockets.
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Discretion
What is said at the table stays at the table. Members are photographed. Conversations are not.
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Introductions
No one is pitched at the table. Business is conducted elsewhere, and afterwards, and never in the room.
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Guests
A member may bring one guest of twenty-one or older, where the engagement allows it, and answers for them. Proposing a name for membership is a separate matter, and the Court reviews it as it reviews any other.
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Withdrawal
A place accepted is a place held. Word of a withdrawal is expected early, as an empty seat is one denied to another.
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Standing
Membership is held, not owned. It is kept by attendance, by conduct, and by the company one brings.
The Company
The Court is not a network, and it does not trade in introductions. It puts the same people in a room together, and it does so repeatedly, over a season and then another.
What passes between them is their own affair. A word at a shoot. A name at dinner. A friendship that began because two people were seated together, which is how it has always worked and how it will always work.
The Court makes no promise of this. It makes the room.
“A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures.”
Admission
Membership is not for sale. It is granted, and then it is paid for.
The Way In
The Court is not assembled by profession. Its members are drawn from the arts, from enterprise, from public life and private, and what they hold in common is not a field but a bearing.
A name is proposed by a member, or requested directly through the Court. The Court reviews each in turn, and grants membership at its discretion. What is asked is not means but judgment: how a person dresses, how they conduct themselves, and whether the room is better for their being in it. No sum is asked of an applicant until the Court has met them in person. An offer comes after the meeting, and payment after the offer.
Membership opens with a founding cohort of twenty-five. Applications are received now, and the first Season opens on the first of January, MMXXVII. After that, the Court opens to new names as the room allows. The founding terms will not be offered again. The first twenty-five are the Court’s founders: their names open the Register, and stand there for as long as the Court keeps one. Founding members are twenty-one or older, and based in New York.
The Terms
A founding place is five thousand dollars, once, with no annual dues for as long as the founding membership is held. A place taken once the founding twenty-five are filled carries a joining fee of three thousand five hundred dollars and annual dues of two thousand five hundred dollars. Engagements are charged individually in both cases, at the same sum for every member, and the sum is stated in the invitation. A founding place holds a name in the Register of the first Season, first call where places are contested, and the right to propose names before each later Season opens to applicants.
Annual dues fall on the first of January. In the year of joining, they are charged for the months that remain.
Five arrangements a year; $150 each beyond five. What counts as one is set out in the Lexicon.
Through its arrangements, the Court seeks passage and seating on a member’s behalf, where the engagement permits it. It brings its own photographer where the occasion permits, and the photographs are sent afterwards.
Once a year the Court buys something worth keeping for its library, chosen over dinner once the members have made their case.
The Request
The Founder
The Court was founded in New York in MMXXVI by Jimi Fagbure. He named it for Mansa, the title borne by the rulers of the Mali Empire, and built it around the life he already keeps: the shoot, the polo ground, the Open, the concert hall and black tie. He meets every applicant the Court intends to admit before a place is offered or anything is paid, so that he knows each one in person and can judge the fit himself.
“I have always liked to host. Nothing has given me more pleasure than a table of friends, kept well, with the evening in no hurry. The Court is that table, kept for the whole year, among people I have chosen and who have chosen it.”
To Propose a Name
Members may put a name before the Court. A proposal carries the weight of the member who makes it, and is reviewed as any other name is reviewed.
Put a Name ForwardParticulars
Questions put to the Court.
Applying
Who is the Court for?
People who would rather be somewhere particular than somewhere impressive. Who dress for the occasion because the occasion is worth it. Who can sit at a table for three hours without reaching for a telephone or a business card. The Court is not assembled by profession or by means, and what its members have in common is a bearing rather than a field.
How old must I be?
Twenty-one or older. No one under twenty-one goes to an engagement with the Court, whether as a member or as a guest.
Must I be nominated by a member?
No. A member may propose a name, or a name may be put forward directly. Both are reviewed the same way.
What happens after I apply?
The name is put before the Committee. Those the Court wishes to meet are written to, and a meeting follows, generally over lunch or afternoon tea. A place is then offered, or it is not.
Does the Court look into a name?
It does, before any place is offered, and an applicant is told when that is being done. The Court may ask two people who know the applicant well whether they would be glad to sit beside them for an evening, and satisfies itself that the person is who they say they are. What it learns is used for the decision and not kept afterwards, and what is declined is not explained.
Who decides?
The Committee, which the Court appoints. It is small, it is not elected, and it does not publish its deliberations. It weighs each applicant against the room they would join. The Secretary answers correspondence and keeps the Register.
How long until I hear?
The Secretary writes to every applicant within four weeks.
If I am not selected, may I apply again?
Yes, in a future Season. A decision reflects the room as it stands, not a judgment held permanently.
May I come to an engagement before I apply?
No. The Court is its members, and a room with prospective members in it is a different room. A person who wants to know what the Court is like should read this page, look at the calendar, and apply.
Belonging
What is asked of a member?
Attendance, chiefly. A member who has not been out with the Court across a whole Season is written to and asked whether the place is still wanted. It is a question rather than a judgment, and it is asked of everyone.
Must I come to every engagement?
No. Nobody could, and the calendar is not built for it. A member keeps the engagements that are theirs, which for most people is a handful in a Season and for some is a great many more. What the Court asks is that a member is seen at some of them. A place held and never used is a place denied to someone else.
What happens after I join?
A member is written to with the Season’s calendar and asked which engagements interest them. Invitations follow for those, each stating the date, the dress and the sum. Between invitations the Court is quiet. It does not send newsletters, and a member hears from it when there is something to say.
Is the Court useful for business?
Not in the way the question is usually meant. Nobody is introduced, pitched or brokered. What comes of knowing people is theirs to arrange, elsewhere and afterwards. Those who join for the room tend to find it. Those who join for the pipeline tend not to stay.
May I bring a guest to an engagement?
One guest, where the engagement allows it. A guest is twenty-one or older, and observes the same code as members, dress included.
Money
What does membership cost?
A founding place carries a one-time fee of five thousand dollars, with no annual dues for as long as the founding membership is held. A place taken once the founding twenty-five are filled carries a joining fee of three thousand five hundred dollars and annual dues of two thousand five hundred dollars, due each first of January. In the year a member joins, dues are charged only for the months left in that year. Engagements are charged individually in every case, save the Founding Dinner, which is given by the Court.
What does an engagement cost?
It depends on the engagement. The sum is put to members before anything is committed, and it covers the place itself and the Court’s part in securing it. What the Court arranges around the day is a separate matter, set out below.
What if an engagement is beyond my means?
Then it is not the engagement for that Season. Nothing on the calendar is required, and a member keeps what suits them. The sum is stated before anything is committed, and a member who declines is not asked why.
Why are engagements not included in the dues?
Because a fee that covered two hundred and fifty engagements would be a fee for two hundred and forty a member never goes to. The Court would rather each member pay for the year they actually keep. What a membership holds is the place and the arranging. The founders hold both without dues.
What concierge does the Court provide?
The Court’s arrangements are for the two hundred engagements it does not host. At those, it seeks passage and seating on a member’s behalf, and arranges the day around them: getting there, where to stay, and the table afterwards. Five such arrangements a year belong to every membership, founding places included, and each one beyond the fifth is a hundred and fifty dollars. What an engagement costs is put to the member before anything is committed. At the fifty engagements the Court hosts, the arranging is part of the engagement, and counts against none of the five. What counts as one arrangement is set out in the Lexicon.
How do I go to an engagement the Court does not host?
Ask. The Court approaches the host, and where the engagement allows it, a place is found.
The Day
Must I have shot, ridden or sailed before?
No. Instruction is provided at every engagement that calls for it. What is asked is willingness, not proficiency.
Where does the Court meet?
Nowhere permanently. Each engagement has its own address, given when the invitation is sent.
Is the Court only for New York?
It is kept in New York, and its own engagements are mostly there, but the calendar is not. Its founders are based in New York; later members may live elsewhere, and a member in Paris or Dubai keeps the engagements nearest them and travels for the rest.
What is the dress code?
It differs by engagement and comes with the invitation. Where the Court asks for confirmation, a photograph of the intended dress is sent a week in advance.
The Court’s vocabulary is set out in the Lexicon.
The Antechamber
Applications are received now. Those not yet ready to apply may leave their card, and are written to first when the Season opens in January.