[ANSTHRLD] Heraldic Regalia

[tmcd at panix.com]

"Jay Rudin" <rudin at ev1.net> wrote:
> You are confusing two things -- who hired the herald, and whom the
> herald is trying to please.  If I go up to the customer service desk
> at a book store, the person there should be trying to assist me, but
> she wears a "Barnes & Noble" nametag, not a "Jay Rudin" nametag.

As usual, you cut to the heart of the matter.  Many thanks.

> [Ivo:]
>> If a shire has a function and the King arrives to hold court
>> (without a herald) and the shire herald is drafted to act as herald
>> (unlikely),
>
> Unfortunately, this is indeed unlikely these days.  It used to quite
> common for the local shire herald to herald for the visiting Crown.

Unfortunate indeed.  In some sense, it's nice for the crown to pack a
herald, because the herald is experienced, knows how to work with the
crown, knows how to work the court, et cetera.  But how will anyone
else get trained?  What happens the day Modius (or whoever) gets a
sore throat?

> Well, places don't have court.  Nobles and Crowns have court.

A shire isn't just a place, I'd say, but also a group of people.  A
shire can have populace meetings; why not a meeting that happens to be
at their own event?  And the seneschal would be the natural person to
run it, just like a normal populace meeting.  And since it's outdoors
or a big hall, someone loud really should be next to them to project
information, so it would be natural to grab some lunk of a herald to
do it.  And, of course, the event steward should be called forward to
make announcements (you have to make announcements, after all) and to
thank people (public word fame is good).  And people should be called
forward to get their prizes -- the contests were public, after all, so
the announcements of the winners and the awards should be.  And it
would be only polite to cheer them with a proper medieval cheer, for
example, "Vivat".  And it would be only loyal to cheer the crown and
the kingdom at the end -- can't be disloyal, after all.

In real England, though, a shire had a shire reeve, and that "sheriff"
was required by law to hold courts.  That seemed natural in the early
days of the East, but the Board of Directors came down on it and
suppressed the attempts and the title (except for grandfathering the
Sheriff of Smoking Rocks, Yosef Alaric of the Baliset).  Given that
silly SCAness, it's probably best to avoid the Worship Words "court",
someone holding "court", and "awards", but I would suggest conducting
a public populace meeting that bears a startling though ENTIRELY
COINCIDENTAL resemblance to most of a court.

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