[ANSTHRLD] Fimbriation Question

[tmcd at jump.net]

A faster way to see a cross barby is to just look at the GIF:
http://www.geocities.co.jp/Hollywood/5004/m159c.gif

A rule-of-thumb heuristic for whether something is simple enough to
fimbriate is mentioned in the original November 1992 cover letter
precedent (though the illustrations are not in either version stored
on the Laurel Web site under http://www.sca.org/heraldry/loar/1992/11/ ):

    The arguments presented in [the] submission provide a rule of
    thumb we can use.  We consider voiding to have the same visual
    weight as adding a tertiary charge --- i.e. Sable, a cross Or
    voided gules and Sable, a cross Or charged with another gules are
    interchangeable blazons, yielding the same emblazon.  This view is
    supported by period heraldic treatises: e.g.  Guillim's _Display
    of Heraldrie_, 1632, in discussing chevrons voided, says ``if you
    say voided onely, it is ever understood that the field sheweth
    thorow the middle part of the charge voided.  If the middle part
    of this chevron were of a different metall, colour, or furre from
    the Field, then should you Blazon it thus: A Chevron engrailed Or,
    surmounted of another, of such or such colour.''

    We can use the equivalence between voiding and adding tertiaries
    to determine when voiding is acceptable: if the voided charge can
    be reblazoned as On a [charge], another --- that is, if the inner
    line and the outer line of the voided charge are geometrically
    similar --- then it's simple enough to void.

    For instance, in the illustrations below, figure A could equally
    well be blazoned a delf voided or a delf charged with a delf;
    either blazon is correct for that picture.  Figures B and C, on
    the other hand, are definitely a griffin's head voided and a
    griffin's head charged with another, respectively; the emblazons
    are quite dissimilar, and the inner line of figure B is not the
    shape of a griffin's head.  The delf voided, then, is acceptable,
    but the griffin's head voided is not.

The illustrations were here.  It looked like he'd slapped the original
charge down on a photocopier, set reduction to 90%, cut out the copy,
and pasted it on top of the original.  For the griffin head, figure C,
the points of the beak of the upper griffin extended into the gap in
the open beak of the underneath griffin, the ears didn't line up, et
cetera.

    By this guideline, mullets, hearts and triangles are all simple
    enough to be voided or fimbriated.  This is only a rule of thumb,
    of course, not an ironclad law, but it helps us decide a thorny
    question, it's consistent with how we (and some period heralds)
    view voiding, and it eliminates the need to collect reams of case
    law.  I shall be employing it henceforth.  (15 January, 1992 Cover
    Letter (November, 1992 LoAR), pp. 2-3)

The only way a cross barby could be charged with another is if the
charging cross has different proportions than the original -- the arms
would have to be longer in propotion to the width and to the heads to
keep the heads from extending off the sides of the original cross.

While it would take a Laurel-level decision to be sure, and I have no
such authority, I believe that a cross barby is too complex to
fimbriate.  For example, in Jaelle's tenure, the goutte was ruled too
complicated to fimbriate (August 1996 cover letter).

Daniel de Lincolia
--
Tim McDaniel is tmcd at jump.net; if that fail,
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