[ANSTHRLD] Badge & Tabard

[tmcd@panix.com]

As to making the group's tabard using only the group arms (exactly as
they are, with the laurel wreath): "me too".  Please don't use the
heralds' badge.  Please make it as a real tabard, with the real front
and back and the real tabard-style sleeves.  There is no period
evidence for the strange suggestions made here, for omitting the
sleeves or making them different from that.

As Tec said, two straight trumpets in saltire are reserved for
heraldic offices, but you can't register a badge for a lower-level
office when a badge exists at a higher level.  (So the only
submissions that can have two straight trumpets in saltire are
principal heralds' seals.)  Adding elements to a design does not make
reserved charges any less reserved.  If you're not a baron or up,
you're not entitled to put a coronet on your armory, no matter what
else you put around it.

The notion of a badge for all heralds is non-period as well (though
there's SCA tradition for it).  I try to avoid it anywhere.  If your
group has a badge for the populace, I'd mark the box with it and write
beside it "Pursuivant for Seawinds" (or whatever your title might be).

In period, as has been stated, the tabard was often worn athwart
(rotated ninety degrees) for pursuivants and straight-on for capital-H
Heralds.  You generally don't see it in the SCA because the
pursuivants have just as much need to use their hands as the heralds.
I've never seen a problem for a pursuivant or even a non-warranted
lowercase-h herald to wear their tabards the normal way.

It's also not a problem to not wear a tabard at all.  If you're
projecting loudly and announcing something, they'd better listen
regardless of what you're wearing, or not.

I think all the heralds on a field holding the lists for a group
should be wearing that group's arms on their tabards (if there are
enough tabards, of course).  They're all acting as heralds for the
group.  This can be a project for your group if they feel so
inclined.

Daniel de Lincolia
--
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com; tmcd at us.ibm.com is my work address