[ANSTHRLD] Submission Check please..

[Tim McDaniel]

Tim McDaniel <tmcd at panix.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Feb 2012, Ld. Albin Oil De Larrun <albin_oil_de_larrun at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>> If we changed it to a European crane, could it be "artistically"
>> redrawn as one of the others on his shield?
>
> I'll be pedantic about terminology.
>
> "Could": lacking heraldry police, it could be "artistically" redrawn as
> Darth Vader's helm affronty, and the bend redrawn as two bars nebuly, and
> the field could add semy of Volkswagen Beetles ancient.
>
> "Should" is a different question.  I am a proponent of "register
> what you drew and draw what you registered", if for no other reason
> than why the dickens should you bother paying money and taking
> everyone's time with a design that you're not going to use?  The
> reason for the precedent is that no evidence has yet been presented
> showing it in Western European heraldry, and Laurel asserted that it
> is not identifiable in those terms.  Japan is not within the domain
> of the SCA.

On Wed, 29 Feb 2012, Scott Carledge <scat at cfl.rr.com> wrote:
> I believe that late medieval Japan IS covered by the SCA.  What do
> you have saying otherwise?

Thank you for pointing out my imprecision, especially in an article
touching on precision in terminology.

The SCA By-Laws say "The SCA shall be dedicated primarily to the
promotion of research and re-creation in the field of pre-17th century
Western culture", and the Article of Incorporation can be read as
being narrower.  <http://www.sca.org/docs/pdf/govdocs.pdf>

But the SCA heraldic Rules for Submission begin

     1. Compatibility. - All names and armory shall be compatible with
     the period and domain of the Society.

     The Society for Creative Anachronism studies pre-Seventeenth
     Century Western Culture. The period of the Society has been
     defined to extend until 1600 A. D. Its domain includes Europe and
     areas that had contact with Europe during this period. Usages
     documented to have occurred regularly prior to that date within
     that domain shall be automatically considered compatible unless
     they have been specifically declared incompatible by these rules,
     Laurel precedent, or a policy statement of the Board of
     Directors. ...

There was contact between 16th C Japan and Europe.  (Even if you read
it in the narrowest possible interpretation, as specifically requiring
Japanese to have visited Europe, that nevertheless happened near the
very end of period.)  So very late medieval Japan was in the domain of
the Society as defined in the RfS, albeit at best secondary in the
By-Laws.

Still, to be registered, all charges must be blazonable in the
Western-style heraldry in use in the SCA, and Japanese cranes (so far
as we've been told) are not registerable so depicted.

Dankyn de Linccolne
-- 
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com