[ANSTHRLD] A "Cross" question...

[Timothy A. McDaniel]

Cahira <cahira_of_bonwicke at yahoo.com>:
> There is a cross that the Barony of Bonwicke tried to register
> several years ago (I don't know exactly when), and I was told that
> that cross is unregisterable.

Never believe anyone's word, especially a submitter's, about the cause
for a return.  NEVER.  There is no substitute for reading the original
text of the return. [1]

The last registration I see was Thora Wolframsdochter (2/98), "Argent,
a cat sejant between in pale two Norse sun-crosses, a sinister tierce
raguly sable."  It was registered without comment on her armory, and I
know of no reason why it would have been banned since.

Perhaps the person speaking to you was using out-of-date precedent.
The 1/93 LoAR has (Kenneth MacQuarrie of Tobermory, East), "The Norse
sun cross had at one time been treated as an alphanumeric symbol (that
of the planet Earth), and so unacceptable for use in SCA devices.
Under the current Rules, such symbols are now acceptable; indeed, a
Norse sun cross was registered to Etain MacDhomhnuill on the LoAR of
April 90."

It might be this return (gotten by looking at my index of submissions
on the Ansteorran Web page, under branch Bonwicke, clicking on the
link to see the URL):

http://www.sca.org/heraldry/loar/1994/04/lar.html , the page
for the April 1994 LoAR:

    Bonwicke, Barony of.  Badge for Order of the Western Cross of
    Bonwicke.  [Fieldless] A Norse sun cross per pale indented Or and
    gules.

    Conflict with Shimazu (Hawley's Mon, p. 65), A Norse sun cross.
    There is only the fieldless CD.  Additionally, as noted by
    Couronne Rouge, precedent still disallows armory consisting of a
    single letter or abstract symbol.

So the problem was not with Norse sun crosses per se in general.
There was a real-world conflict, but that was pre-Modest Proposal, so
I can't imagine it being a conflict now.

The second independent reason for return is "disallows armory
consisting of a single letter or abstract symbol".  The most recent
precedent I have (others might be in the official Jaelle or the draft
Elsbeth) is from August 1994, with two very similar pieces of armory
(a sun cross argent and one sable, in this case):

    Precedent still disallows armory consisting of a single letter or
    abstract symbol which, as the astrological symbol for Earth, this
    is. (Da'ud ibn Auda, LoAR August 1994, p. 18)

So what's an "abstract symbol" and why the precedent?  I'm not
entirely sure.  It's probably derived from this:

    'The College does not register monograms, or any armory consisting
    solely of an alphanumeric symbol.  (LoAR of Aug 84, p.5)' Anyone
    has the right to use [that symbol] without regard to conflict; it
    can't be considered the private property of the [submitter].
    (Order of the Bough of Meridies (Kingdom of Meridies), July, 1993,
    pg. 15)

Apparently an astrological symbol is considered an "abstract symbol"
for reasons of this precedent, which is why a Norse sun cross in
particular gets dinged and a fret (for just one example) gets allowed.

If there was anything else on the armory, a Norse sun cross appears
registerable.


[1] OK, that's a LITTLE strong.  If you're talking to an SCA armory
expert, I would believe them when they state a reason for an armory
return; I would believe a name expert about a name return.  That's no
more than 40 people in the entire Society.

Daniel "submitters lie" 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)