[ANSTHRLD] Request for information re arms and award of arms

[tmcd at panix.com]

On Mon, 18 Apr 2005, Caius Fabius <caius_fabius at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I have been away from Heraldry for several (MANY (more than 10))
> years.  I understand there have been some important changes in SCA
> Heraldry consultation, conflicts resolution and research, acceptable
> name sources and so on.  Is there a quick and dirty list somewhere?

Hmmm ...  Depends how much you remember.

I assume you last worked under the New Rules, with CD counting in
armory, right?  If all you remember are Major Points and minor points
(pre-May 1990), I'm afraid you almost have to start over from scratch.
(Well, if someone hasn't conflict-checked in just a couple-three
years, though, they've gotten rusty enough that they pretty much have
to start over anyway.)

In the "conflict with the real world" field, the big change is that we
conflict-check against little non-SCA armory (the "Modest Proposal").
National arms, national flags, some famous arms, some famous men's
arms, some famous designs (the Jolly Roger, for example) ... but
they're all listed in the Armorial and Ordinary, and there's only 233
flags and 363 non-flag entries at present.  Real-world name conflict
rules have loosened some: we're now not so insistent that everybody
with his own article in a general encyclopedia deserves protection.

More about armory, in order of decreasing usefulness ...  Some of the
CD-counting rules have simplified.  The X.2 (complete difference for
substantial type change in simple cases) and X.4.j.ii (CD for
substantial type change fortertiary charges) you may remember used to
have three or four enumerated cases, but now they're trivial.

Changes that are fairly unimportant in practice: "Documented
Exceptions" are possible: items *may* be registered on a case-by-case
basis that violate style rules of RfS VIII (for armory) or RfS III
(for names) if you find enough period examples of comparable
complexity and appearance.  But most people fail at this, because they
don't understand "comparable": "Gules, a bend sable" does not justify
"Sable, a chevron embattled purpure between three lions vert and on a
chief Or a crossbow reversed gules". ...  "Brown animals proper" can
be done under certain circumstances.  ...  The field-only armory rules
have been generalized, but it opens up only a little more heraldic
space in practice at the price of some extra complexity.

On names: we are a LOT tighter with name authenticity than even a few
years before, not to mention 10 years ago.  Fortunately, reliable name
sources have exploded in the same time period.  Hanks and Hodges, and
Yonge, used to be considered great sources.  Nowadays, they may be a
place to get a lead on where to look, but DO NOT NOT NOT include them
in documentation.  In general, you need to find sources that have
period spellings dated to period (which H&H and Yonge were not), and
use those period spellings or reasonable interpolations of them.

Furthermore, you have to justify the name construction.  The big
example I can think of: Order/Award of the <random-adjective>
<random-noun> used to fly thru without question.  Now there's the
Project Ordennamen Web page that lists every known period order (all
200ish of them), and your proposed order/award had better fit a
pattern there.  For personal names, it's also tighter: fewer
linguistic combinations are permitted, and excessive temporal
disparity can shove a name towards return too.

The great new name source is the Academy of Saint Gabriel, on the Web.
They do arms, but their main focus is names.  They provide written and
public consultations with clients.  Even more, they have a library.
Since they are almost all SCA heralds or ex-SCA heralds, the articles
are oriented towards use by SCA participants and use in SCA name
documentation: period spellings, period spelling variations, period
dates, exhaustive lists.  They've really helped with names outside the
British Isles, where solid English-language sources used to be few.
The Index to the 1292 Census of Paris has really helped period French
name docs, for example, and indices of the on-line Castasto (sp?  a
Florentine tax roll) has helped period Italian name docs.

I'd say that heraldic communication has improved, with Ansteorran
Gazettes and Laurel Letters of Acceptance and Return Webbed, the
Ansteorran Heraldic Submission Tracker, and e-mail lists.  You can
consider the SCA Heralds' mailing list to learn a fair amount.

Danyll de Linccolne
-- 
Tim McDaniel; Reply-To: tmcd at panix.com