ANST - principalities, populace, and percentages

[Tim McDaniel]

On Wed, 18 Feb 1998, Dennis and/or Dory Grace
<amazing at mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
> So, if we were to do this thing, what would folks like to
> see for arms?

Now ARMORY I can talk about with more confidence.  The rest
is muttering about coats of arms; PLEASE skip this if you
don't like reading about it!


The most common colors in period arms were red, blue, black,
white, and yellow.  Purple and green are registerable, but
were rare in period (more or less so in different areas), so
I'd advise avoiding them.

I have heard of no evidence of stars with greater and lesser
points in period armory.  (Compass roses apparently existed,
if I read the _Pictorial Dictionary of Heraldry in the SCA_
correctly, but it wasn't used in arms.) -- Yes, I'd dearly
love to nuke the kingdom arms and start over with just gold
and black, and that's just one of the reasons.

There is a stupid SCA requirement that all branch arms have
to have a laurel wreath of some color in them.
Principalities are allowed to have a crown / coronet, but
kingdoms are (stupidly) required to have them, so it's best
to design them in from the start rather than try to find a
corner for it later.

I say it's stupid because we try to educate people away from
"My Life On My Arms", yet we *require* barcoding in official
SCA armory.  Also, it complexes designs more than most in
period.  At least in early times, there tended to be only
one or two types of non-geometric objects on a shield.

A fair number of medieval arms had no objects at all, just
geometric divisions of the field.  Half one color and half
another.  Alternating stripes, vertical or horizontal.  Vair
and vairy.  Checkerboard patterns.  Unfortunately, the
wreath and crown requirements cause problems for this
notion, like conflict (with, say, the West, the East, and
the Society).

> What about something like a lion rampant with a star in
> base? Or a lion rampant holding a star? Or a star with a
> lion upon it?

You're in some luck.  Lions were the #1 most popular beast
in medieval arms.  Stars were fairly common too.  That means
you can have a rare treatment and still get something that
looks medieval.

A lion in one place with a star in another is getting
non-unified.  You can get a "slot machine" effect, like you
pulled the Coat of Arms lever, the dials spun, and these
were the three objects that came up.  (Three or more
different types of charge in the same group is cause for
return in the SCA for non-period style.)

A lion sitting and holding something in both paws is known
to be period.  There's a Known World Heraldic Symposium
article on it.  An object on a lion, or vice versa, is at
best rare in period.

Just one sample idea that looks rather late-period but
decent style is "Sable, a lion sejant erect maintaining a
mullet, on a chief or a crown between two laurel wreaths
gules".  That's a black shield, a golden lion sitting in
profile and holding in both paws a golden star.  A golden
band covers the top third of the shield.  On it is a red
crown between two red laurel wreaths.  I haven't checked
this for conflict, tho.

There are lots of permutations possible.  A few examples:
Have the lion WEAR the crown (VERY much nicer and more
period, but it may run afoul of a SCA heraldic rule).  Make
it a gold field with black charges (so there's no comments
about "your lion is *yellow*" or "gold star for effort").
Drop the star as adding complexity, or make it a starry
field.  Move either or both of the crown(s) and wreath(s)
down off the chief.  There are thousands of possibilities
close to these.

I've got to get to bed for an early meeting to-morrow.
Consider it the mercy of the Lord that I'm stopping here.

Daniel de Lincolia
-- 
Tim McDaniel; Reply-To: tmcd at crl.com; if that fail, tmcd at austin.ibm.com
is work address.  tmcd at tmcd.austin.tx.us is wrong tool.  Never use this.
============================================================================
Go to http://www.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.