[ANSTHRLD] Appendix H sources

[Ronald Blackman]

This was originally written by a herald in Middle Kingdom, but is good
information that everyone should know.

 

Eirik Halfdanarson

 

Greetings,

 

There have been a number of submissions lately that portray a
misunderstanding of what a source being in Appendix H of the Administrative
Handbook of the College of Arms of the SCA means.  

http://heraldry.sca.org/laurel/admin.html#APPENDIXH

 

What is Appendix H?  It is a list of sources that the Laurel Sovereign at
Arms does not require copies to be sent to the Laurel level along with a
submission.  That is it.  It is a group of heraldic sources that the Laurel
office has available.  For the sake of simplifying the submission process
the Middle Kingdom also does not require photocopies 

of these sources.   Many of these sources are given standard short forms 

that can be used in place of full citations.

 

What Appendix H is not?  It is not a group of sources that guarantee that
the item used will pass.  That still depends on what the source says about
the name/armory element and how the element is used in the submission.  From
the beginning of Appendix H:  "This is a list of "standard books" that do
not require photocopies to be sent to Laurel. 

Note that the fact that a name element or armorial motif appears in these
sources is no guarantee of registerability."

 

What it REALLY IS NOT is a group of sources that you do not need to
summarize what they say in the documentation.  It is actually more important
that the submitter or consulting herald completely summarizes what the
Appendix H source has to say in the documentation than the non-Appendix H
source that they sent copies of.  Since the Escutcheon Herald does not have
a complete set of Appendix H sources he cannot summarize it for you.  If you
do not tell what the source says, he cannot put it down on the Internal
Letter of Intent and thus the commenters that do not happen to have that
source cannot make informed 

comments on the submission.   At this point the submitter is trusting 

some member of the CoA to go above and beyond and look up what the source
says and complete the documentation for them, which often happens 

but cannot be counted on.   I have a large number of Appendix H source 

between my personal library and the Rouge Scarpe library but not all.

 

It is very common to get submissions using Appendix H sources that do not
tell what the source says about the item.  That puts the item at risk of
being returned.  Heck, Escutcheon recently got a submission that just said
the elements were "from an Appendix H source"...that was it; no author,
title, edition, or page, let alone what it said about the elements (which of
course meant it had to be returned.)

 

In Service to Crown, College, and Client I remain,

 

Meister Konrad Mailander, Rouge Scarpe Herald