[ANSTHRLD] Bends and Bendlets - can you have a single bendlet?

[tmcd at panix.com]

On Thu, 20 Sep 2007, Luciana Caterina di Borghese
<dolce.luce at gmail.com> wrote:
> Subject: [ANSTHRLD] Bends and Bendlets - can you have a single
> bendlet?

No.

CoA Glossary of Terms:

    Diminutive. (1) In names, .... (2) In armory, multiple and
    (usually) narrower variants of an ordinary are said to be
    diminutives of it. For example, two bars are diminutives of a
    fess, and two bendlets are diminutives of a bend. SCA armory does
    not use single diminutives of charges, as they were considered
    artistic variants of the single ordinary in period.

If you draw a thinner than usual bend, Laurel will register it with an
artist's note to draw the bend thicket.  If you draw it really
thinner, Laurel will return it for not being thick enough.  Example
from September 1997:

    Hamall the Quiet. Device. Or, a bendlet enarched azure between two
    ravens rising bendwise contourny wings elevated and addorsed and
    another bendwise wings elevated and addorsed sable.

        This is being returned for a redraw.  We don't register single
        diminutives of ordinaries, and this is far too narrow to be a
        bend. The ravens also need to be redrawn, since they were not
        in any recognizable heraldic position.

OK, except in rare cases, like this from June 2005:

  Emma Barfoot. Device. Sable, a foot couped and in chief a bar
  argent.

      The submitter requested that the fess be blazoned as a bar as a
      cant on her name. Single diminutives of ordinaries aren't
      normally blazoned as such. Only if there are multiple
      diminutives (e.g. three bendlets) or if the charge is otherwise
      reduced in importance (e.g. a bendlet enhanced) would the
      diminutive term be used. Because of the cant -- and the enhanced
      nature of the fess -- we have blazoned it as a bar.

I suspect that some designs could be registered with a single
diminutive under the Documented Exceptions rule -- but you'd have to
research period armorials to show that they indeed (as I gather from
modern blazons) use bendlets sinister, AND the underlying design would
have to be similar in design and complexity to the proposed
submission.

Danett de Lyncoln
-- 
Tim McDaniel; Reply-To: tmcd at panix.com