[ANSTHRLD] Award Question

Tim McDaniel tmcd at panix.com
Sun Jul 13 22:11:05 PDT 2003


On Sun, 13 Jul 2003, Joseph Percer <jpercer at stx.rr.com> wrote:
> I have a question for you precedence & court heralds out there... What
> exactly is an Augmentation...

In the spirit of "teach a man to fish and you can hand him a can of
worms and let him deal with it", this is one of the terms defined in
the SCA CoA Glossary of Terms, one of the links off
<http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/regs.html> (along with the Rules
for Submission and CoA Admin Handbook).

    Augmenation of Arms. (Also, Augmentation.) The addition of a
    charge or charges to a registered device granted by the Crown of a
    kingdom. An augmentation is not registered as a change of armory,
    and the underlying armory can be changed while keeping the
    augmentation the same (assuming no style problems result). Both
    the unaugmented and augmented armory will be checked separately
    for conflict. Augmentations are usually registered by the College
    of Arms in the form "[Blazon of device], and as an augmentation,
    [blazon of augmentation]".

Rules for Submission VIII.7 has some extra information.

    7. Augmentations of Honor - An augmentation of honor must be
       compatible with period armorial style.

       An augmentation is an honor bestowed by the crown, taking the
       form of an addition or alteration to the honorees device. While
       the right to an augmentation is bestowed by the crown, its form
       is subject to the normal registration process. The augmentation
       must itself follow the armory rules; if it has the appearance
       of being independent armory, for example a charged escutcheon
       or canton, then it is independently subject to the normal rules
       of armorial conflict. The augmentation may, however, on a case
       by case basis break the rules in relation to the original
       armory. For example, Sable, on a chief argent a lion passant
       maintaining, in augmentation, an escutcheon gules charged with
       a cross throughout argent is acceptable even though it breaks
       RfS VIII.1.c.ii, Layer Limit. Gules, a lion argent, and in
       augmentation a canton argent charged with a tower Or is not
       acceptable, as the augmentation internally breaks RfS VIII.2,
       Armorial Contrast. Since an augmentation is an earned honor, it
       may in some cases violate RfS XI.3, Marshaling, or RfS XI.4,
       Arms of Pretense and Augmentations of Honor. Arms in their
       augmented form are subject to the normal rules of conflict.

The kings of France sometimes gave a charge of the form "azure
semy-de-lys Or" or "azure three fleurs-de-lys Or" as an augmentation.
The kings of Scotland sometimes gave "a tressure fleury-counterfleury"
as an augmentation.  One of the more famous augmentations in England:

    Howard, Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of England|9412L|a|Gules, a
    bend between six crosses crosslet fitchy argent, for augmentation,
    on the bend in chief an escutcheon Or charged with a demi-lion its
    mouth pierced by an arrow within a double tressure flory
    counter-flory gules.

The augmentation is the arms of Scotland with half the lion cut off
and an arrow thru its mouth.  A previous Lord Howard won a crushing
victory (of course) over a Scottish army at Flodden in 1513.  The BBC
describes it at
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/timelines/scotland/flodden.shtml>:

    Flodden was possibly the greatest defeat in Scottish
    history. Although James IV had married an English wife and made a
    Treaty of Perpetual Peace with England, he remained very friendly
    with France. When England attacked France in 1513, James IV
    supported France by invading England.

    At first the war went well as the Scots captured English
    strongholds. Then the Earl of Surrey's English army arrived at
    Flodden. The Scots had the best position, on top of a hill.

    The English bombarded it until they forced the Scots to attack
    downhill. As they did so, the Scots formations broke up and the
    English slaughtered them. James IV and many Scottish nobles were
    killed.

(James I through V all died by violence, two of them murdered.)

Daniel de Lincolia
-- 
Tim McDaniel (home); Reply-To: tmcd at panix.com; work is tmcd at us.ibm.com.



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