[ANSTHRLD] Zodiacus weighs in on this week's award discussions

[Tim McDaniel]

On Fri, 10 Sep 2004, Alden Drake <alden_drake at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Any and all awards, be they existing, or made up on the spot, are
> completely within the authority of the Crown to give as they please.

I'd say that that's false, though Corpora is (as usual) unclear and
badly-written.

    The names and insignia of these awards and orders must be ratified
    by the Laurel Sovereign of Arms.

is stated both for armigerous and non-armigerous awards.  The
badly-written parts are that it's not clear whether it's retrospective
or pre-approval, and what is done when Laurel returns the name.

> Does it make it awkward/more difficult to change (if neccessary)
> after the fact?

And that's the damned problem!  It's not just "making the banner
before it's registered", which we all know is a sure portent of doom.
We've recently discovered that we had little notion of period order
names, and that almost all of the made-up names we'd registered are
not period style -- so if King Y and Queen X make up a name on their
own, I'll put down $5 at 5-to-1 odds, sight unseen, that it's not
period style.

And isn't it really stupid to make the constitution and design the
insignia and, especially, engrave the original name in everyone's
minds before clearing it all?

And I've yet to get an explanation of reasons why a king and queen
would want to be secret about the creation of an award.

> Yes, there is a minimalist trend towards awards in Ansteorra,

There *was*, and the awards pretty much made send, but it's been
almost totally blown away, so now we have more awards and orders than
the British Empire circa 1900 (when the Indian and Irish orders were
about).

Danihel "The White Scarf Considered Harmful" de Lindonio
-- 
Tim McDaniel; Reply-To: tmcd at panix.com