ANSTHRLD - What do we need to know?

Dr Tiomoid M. of Angle tiomoid at yahoo.com
Fri Aug 20 05:56:25 PDT 1999


- --- "Timothy A. McDaniel" <tmcd at jump.net> wrote:

> > > I assumed that "pursuivant" was a job title rather than a state
> > > of being.
> > 
> > Well, it's not your fault -- we've been using it as if it were
> > both.
> 
> Since I got active here late in Dathi's tenure, I only recall seeing
> it as a job title.

(Oh, I'm sorry -- am I showing my age again?)

> > "Fitzalan Pursuivant Extraordinary" is a job title.
> 
> Ah.  A name has to go with it, then; nobody in period would have
> written "Know ye that I John Blow Pursuivant Extraordinary", but
> rather "John Blow Windsor PE", "Thistle Herald", whatever.

Precisely.

> > on the other hand, Lord Star has a good point that "Pursuivant
> > Extraordinary" has a lot of connotative historical baggage in the
> > SCA in general and in Ansteorra in particular, and it may thereby
> > be tainted for our purposes.
> 
> I say hand the baggage over to the bomb squad -- let them take it to
> a deserted field and blow it up harmlessly.  "We are not bound by our
> past mistakes" and "We can do better" [I presume].

Well, *I* feel that way, and apparently *you* feel that way, but a lot
of people (a lot of *very significant people*) don't feel that way.
(Can we take them out into the same field and blow them up too?
Please?)

> We're winning
> against "-ocrat" and even against "autocrat"; "charter" (versus
> "scroll") isn't entirely hopeless; et cetera.  "Pursuivant
> Extraordinary", to my relatively-new eyes, is rare enough in
> Ansteorra that we can do "the right thing" ... when we discover 
> what it is ... or at least a righter thing.

Ah'm fur it....

> (By the way: the SCA College of Arms no longer does "Lord / Lady
> <heraldic title>".  Unlike Lord Lyon, none of our heralds get to try
> miscreants, or get people charged with treason if they diss us while
> we're wearing a tabard, or anything cool like that.  Since that
> change, territorial names are now registerable as titles.)

*sigh* I rather liked that usage. Oh, well. I hope nobody is too
terribly offended if I still use it...?

> > Do PE/PaLs wander the Earth like Kane in "Kung Fu", doing good,
> > righting wrongs, and expunging ugly armory?
> 
> That's what I was figuring.  That's what I'd like to do.

Oh, well, if we're doing what we'd LIKE to do -- I have a little
list....

> > Or do they cover a particular territory's groups-sans-pursuivants?
> 
> Well, if they had a fixed jurisdiction, wouldn't they be in ordinary?

And I see nothing wrong with that. Where the need arises, let's
establish a deputy regional herald (or two, or three), and check some
of the unused titles out of the arsenal for that purpose. 


Tadhg, Hanaper

===
Tiomoid M. of Angle  JD MBA
No, I do not suffer fools gladly.
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