ANSTHRLD - Question

[Timothy A. McDaniel]

Cyniric hlafard Cyniwarding / "Richard Culver" <rbculver at hotmail.com>:
> I thought your opinion was law.

*phhhhffffftttttthhhhhh*.  I'm flattered, but it has dangerous
implications.

> Essentially I am looking for a more Teutonic, "primative" look and
> like the colors red, white, and black.

Maybe "Gules, on a plate a cross gammadion saltirewise sable."?
Works well on a round shield.

Seriously, I think "Teutonic" tends to be a linguistic term nowadays.
Certainly by the time of the adoption of heraldry per se, Germany and
England (while Teutonic in origin) were separated and got noticably
different styles of armory, so I can't use one term to lump them
together.  Germanic is great -- it's a style not seen as much in the
SCA as others -- but Germanic heraldry, like all heraldry, is later
than you.

However, do your arms designs perhaps fit modern notions of
primitiveness in particular?  I don't recall many spearheads, I don't
even recall offhand what a Norse sunwheel or Norse sun cross might be,
and your designs are mostly rotationally symmetric (not that that
didn't happen, but it was rare).  Do you have evidence of Old North
Germanic (or whatever the correct term might be -- sorry about that)
art or designs?

I've heard of various philosophies for pre-heraldic personae:
- My persona wouldn't have know about heraldry.  I won't use it.
- My persona is ___, but I've moved to this place called Ansteorra, so
  I'll do this "heraldry" thing just like most people here.  This is
  the "when in Rome, shoot off Roman candles" theory.
- My persona is ___, so I'll do heraldry that somewhat resembles
  designs on shields from my persona's time and place.  I guess your
  only source would be the Bayeux Tapestry, or are there excavations
  that can help?
  Alternately, armory that somewhat resembles artistic designs from my
  persona's time and place.  The problem here is that heraldry did not
  completely match artistic conventions even in the same place and
  time -- there were things done in heraldry that weren't done in
  other art, and things done in art that were never carried into
  heraldry.
Anyone else have other philosophies?

For regional style, especially Germanic, may I commend to you
Gwenllian ferch Maredudd, at wendye2 at admin.stedwards.edu ?  But if you
go for philosophy #3, you'll probably have to present research about
what things looked like, to jump-start the consultation.

Daniel de Lincolia
-- 
Tim McDaniel is tmcd at jump.net; if that fail,
    tmcd at us.ibm.com is my work account.
"To join the Clueless Club, send a followup to this message quoting everything
up to and including this sig!" -- Jukka.Korpela at hut.fi (Jukka Korpela)
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