[ANSTHRLD] ILoI 8/01 comm., esp. #7, Marquet de la Hyet

Tim McDaniel tmcd at jump.net
Fri Aug 10 23:49:27 PDT 2001


ILoI 8/01, commentary by Daniel de Lincolia.

Though I am on Laurel staff, I don't make decisions (thank Ghu), and I
think I can still comment on proper procedure, and even venture a
little further.


Water Under The Bridge:

Fast-Track #1, Ciaran O'Neill, Name: I'm not at all sure, but I think
this is mixed Gaelic-English orthography, and thus a weirdness, but
not presently cause for return.  Whether an item with a weirdness
ought to be fast-tracked is a larger philosophical decision.

Fast-Track #3, Gerard du Quartier, Device: The perils of
fast-tracking.  This is an instaboing.  RfS VIII.3, "Voiding and
fimbriation may only be used with simple geometric charges placed in
the center of the design.".  A one-sided ordinary, not being in the
center of the design, cannot be fimbriated.  E.g., LoAR 6a/92:

     The statement in the LoI that "the fimbriation of only two sides
     of the canton follows the model of how we fimbriate chiefs" is
     entirely correct.  We do not fimbriate chiefs, and we do not
     fimbriate cantons.

Bordure might want to withdraw this one.

By the way, the plural is "fleurs-de-lys" (or "lis").  An "s" goes on
the noun, "fleur".

============================================================

2. Burke Kyriell MacDonald

[Badge] This would bring him up to his registration limit of 4 pieces
of armory.  The Ansteorran widget is usually blazoned "a mullet of 5
greater and 5 lesser points".


4.  Constance MacLeod

[Device] Coffins have been registered (as charges) only twice before:

Starkhafn, Barony of|8210C|b|(Fieldless) A six-sided coffin palewise
sable charged in chief with a mullet of eight points argent.

Tristram Lorenz of the Coffins|8503A|d|Sable, a pall between a
fleur-de-lys and two coffins palewise argent.

Older registrations are not necessarily evidence of current
acceptibility.  However, Laurel hasn't even considered any since 1986,
so we can't say that they're *not* acceptable.  I don't have my Pict
Dict to hand to say whether this is what's shewn there as the
SCA-standard coffin.  For what it's worth, *I* instantly recognized
them as intending to be coffins -- though that's no guarantee of
anything.


5. Ferchar mac Ailella

[Name] "Saint Gabriel's Report" is singularly unhelpful for anyone who
doesn't know what "Saint Gabriel" might be or where to find its info.
Further, the doc. supplied doesn't say what the period spelling was,
or even what the name was used as -- conceivably, it could be a place
name, say.

The report can be found at
http://www.panix.com/~gabriel/public-bin/showfinal.cgi?2332+0 .
"<Fearchar> is a late-period spelling of a name that appears several
times in Irish records between 695 and 900 as <Ferchar>", so it looks
like this is the period spelling, and the context shows that it's a
given name.

6.  Kathryn atte Unicorn

[Household name] Documenting period words, while necessary, is not
enough.  I bet "Star", "Ship", and "Enterprise" are all period.  I
suggest that the College ought to look for evidence of similar period
name *constructions*.  In particular, for the only three examples
supplied of the form "<adjective> <noun>", the adjective was a color
and the noun was a common natural animal.  I think that at most they
would support "White Unicorn" or "Gray Unicorn", but even that's a
(small) extrapolation from the evidence presented.


7.  Marquet de la Hyet

[Device appeal] It is prudent of the submitter to want the appeal to
appear on the kingdom ILoI.  However, for as long as I've been in
Ansteorra, appeals to Laurel Sovereign of Arms have always been on the
ILoI, just like any other items to go to Laurel.

- The old CoA Admin. Handbook, IV.E, says "Such officers must forward
  the appeal in a timely manner", but "timely manner" is the exact
  phrase used two and three paragraphs down for all submissions.  So
  it can't be delayed more than other submissions, and any level is
  utterly forbidden to forbid an appeal past them (q.v.), but kingdom
  doesn't have to fast-track it either.

- I would expect that ask-Sheyk Da'ud ibn Auda, twice Laurel, would
  have said something long ago if the practice weren't kosher, er,
  halal.

- With it on the ILoI, the Ansteorran College has a chance to fix
  errors, look up precedents, debate issues that maybe weren't
  considered in the original decision, and generally polish it up for
  the College of Arms.

One error to note is the submission history.  It's important to give a
correct history so that we can see that it's exactly the same as
before, we can read the exact text of the return, and so forth.  For
this one, I spent a little time flipping thru mid-2000 AGs before I
gave up and checked Griffin's on-line index (bless you, G).  In any
event, the date of return is not useful for anything but timeliness
(q.v.).  In normal times, you'd expect the decision results to be in
the next month's AG, and the ILoI to have been in the AG two months
before, but that hasn't been the case recently.  -- This one was item
#7 on the 4/01 ILoI.  I can't locate the collated commentary or the
decision, so I guess it was probably ruled on 6/01.

Timeliness: it was stated in the old rules (before May 1990) that
appeals had to be timely.  That's not stated now, except precedents
for hardship or grandfather cases, but it is possible that Laurel
might not look kindly on an appeal of a decision from, for example, 10
years back.

(By the way, Laurel level has split the office duties: Mari nic Bryan
is Pelican Queen of Arms for names, and Zenobia Naphthali is the Queen
of Arms for armory.  Laurel King of Arms, Francois la Flamme, will
rule only on appeals from them.  Thus, "Laurel might not look kindly"
here has to be understood as synecdoche for "Laurel level", or
metynomy for "the armory or names Queen of Arms".  -- If you don't
know those words, look them up.  To bastardize Browning, a man's reach
should exceed his vocabulary, or what's a metaphor?)


Appeals are difficult.  Most appeals fail, mostly because they are not
supported.  However, by definition, there's a submitter who's
dissatisfied enough with a decision to want to make a federal case out
of it.  A return of an appeal makes the situation worse, so it
behooves us to know the process and be careful.  This is the most
recent Admin Handbook text to hand (I think it hasn't changed
significantly):

     E. Right of Appeal - A submitter shall have the right to appeal
     any return to the administrative level immediately above that at
     which the submission was returned.  All appeals must be supported
     by new documentation or other proof that the original submission
     was returned in error or by compelling evidence that the
     submission was not properly considered at the time of return.
     Appeals must be submitted through the appropriate heraldic
     officers specified for such actions by the submitter's kingdom of
     residence.  Such officers must forward the appeal in a timely
     manner, with or without recommendations, to the appropriate
     level.  Once all avenues of appeal within the heraldic hierarchy
     have been exhausted, appeal may be made directly to the Board of
     Directors.

Note the "new documentation or ... not properly considered".  This
case isn't a new documentation case, because no evidence was presented
of similar period designs (though some commenter might find some,
which would help).

The arguments presented by the client are not really usable as
written.  However, one part can be rephrased to be valid.

"The client maintains it is blazonable and therefore registerable.".
Um, no.  "Argent, a lion argent" is blazonable.  "Lozengy vair and
checky gules and Or, semy of fleams and flames counterchanged" is
blazonable.  "[Fieldless] A helm atop an escutcheon sustained by two
lions respectant guardant argent" is blazonable.  None is remotely
registerable, due to style grounds.  (The converse of a true statement
is not necessarily a true statement.  "If it's period style, it's
blazonable" (itself false: Mortimer) would not support "If it's
blazonable, it's period style".)

"... our kingdom does not have the experience to make such a return
with complete confidence ...".  I raised an eyebrow at this.  I could
show this to just three Ansteorrans and get 30 years' armorial
experience eyeballing it -- Da'ud, Tadhg, and me, and Da'ud is the
second-longest continuous member of the SCA CoA.

Fortunately for the client, you don't have to consider it an
experience issue.  What you really want here is as old, famous, and
frequently used as "non scriptum, non est".  It's the traditional
statement used for many years on Letters of Intent for such issues.

"'Tis a judgement call for Laurel, I'm afraid."

(Bordure: if you use this, please use the exact spelling, drop the
double quotes, keep one leading single quote.  Tradition, e.g. the
6/92 LoAR Cover Letter.  It's almost iambic pentameter.)

There are some things that are intrinsically judgment calls, where you
can't point to a clear rule or precedent.  Most notably: RfS X.5
visual conflict, for example, or names that sound similar but not
quite identical, or pictorial heraldry.  There's really no substitute
to ask the College of Arms to all throw in their two cents, and Laurel
to hold it up in front of their meeting and ask "Opinions?".

(There are some senior heralds that say that kingdoms ought *never* to
return judgment calls, and that opinion doesn't raise eyebrows.  Other
senior heralds say that kingdoms still have the right to do so, and
they would better serve their clients to make such returns quickly for
egregious cases.)

Oh, and as noted above, "Laurel" himself won't consider it, unless
it's returned by Zenobia and it's appealed again.

A better-worded statement for the LoI might look like this (assuming
that the submission history is right).

    This item was returned by kingdom in June 2001 for modern style,
    appearing to be "abstract or op-art design".  The client believes
    that it is not, and would like the College of Arms to consider it.
    [If someone finds period evidence, insert it here.]
    The Ansteorran College [supports|does not support|neither supports
    nor opposes] the appeal.

    'Tis a judgment call for Laurel, I'm afraid.

What will Zenobia do?  Well, it really 'tis a judgment call for
Zenobia, I'm afraid.  I can make no prediction.


8.  Namron

[Badge] I thought "white tornado" was the trademark of Ajax Cleaner,
(TM) Colgate-Palmolive?

RfS VIII.5, Fieldless Style: "Since there is no field in such a
design, it may not use charges that rely on the edges of the field to
define their shape, such as bordures and orles, nor to cut off their
ends, such as ordinaries or charges throughout."  Blazoning it "a pile
wavy couped" shows that it's not throughout, but I'm not completely
100.00% sure that that would get it past the prohibition.
Fortunately, it doesn't matter here, because Bordure should point out
on the LoI that the motif is grandfathered to the barony, 8/80:
"(Fieldless) A pile wavy Or.  (For the Order of the Heart of the Sable
Storm)".



Daniel "inexperienced, my Aunt Fanny Jane" de Lincolia
--
Tim McDaniel (home); Reply-To: tmcd at jump.net;
if that fail, my work address is tmcd at us.ibm.com.
 "To join the Clueless Club, send a followup to this message quoting every-
 thing up to and including this sig!" -- Jukka.Korpela at hut.fi (Jukka Korpela)




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