ANSTHRLD - What do we need to know?

Timothy A. McDaniel tmcd at jump.net
Thu Aug 19 21:37:04 PDT 1999


Hanaper ("Dr Tiomoid M. of Angle" <tiomoid at yahoo.com>) 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.

> "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.

> 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].  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.

(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.)

> 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.  (I suppose
if we followed the medieval pattern of friars, we'd need the approval
of the local bishop^Wregional herald to preach in their territory.
Let's not.)

> Or do they cover a particular territory's groups-sans-pursuivants?

Well, if they had a fixed jurisdiction, wouldn't they be in ordinary?

Daniel de Lincolia
- -- 
                    *** NEW PERSONAL ADDRESS ***
Tim McDaniel is tmcd at jump.net; if that fail,
    tmcd at austin.ibm.com and tmcd at us.ibm.com are my work accounts.
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