[Ravensfort] just a forward from Ansteorra's list

Lord Malcolm De Crauford sdwsca at gmail.com
Tue Jun 9 22:36:17 PDT 2009


just a forward from Ansteorra's list

Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 17:11:26 -0500
From: Stefan li Rous <StefanliRous at austin.rr.com>
Subject: [Ansteorra] Pentagrams now allowed in SCA heraldry
To: Ansteorra mail list SCA <ansteorra at Ansteorra.ORG>
Message-ID: <E1DA9000-3675-4ACF-9155-BB6259CAB9DF at austin.rr.com>
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This is just out from the SCA College of Heralds via the Lochac list.

So this shows that the College can be prevailed upon to change
erroneous past rulings or perhaps that the SCA continues to evolve.

Stefan

Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 17:01:47 +1000
From: Paul Sleigh <bat at flurf.net>
Subject: [Lochac] Pentacles Are Registerable
To: Shambles <lochac at sca.org.au>

Posted just now by Tamsyn Northover to the Blazons mailing list, hot
off the presses from the March Letter of Acceptances and Returns
(LOaR).  Summary: the College of Arms have decided there's nothing
offensive about pentacles, regardless of what Jack Chick may think, so
you can register them in your heraldry.

Next time someone tells you the Heralds are all bastards who make up
rules to hurt people and never listen to sense, remind them of this.

: Bat :

"Ailis Linne. Badge. (Fieldless) A mullet of five points voided and
interlaced within and conjoined to an annulet azure.
There is a long history of rulings regarding the unregisterability of
mullets voided and interlaced (also known as pentacles or pentagrams),
beginning as early as 1973 by Ioseph of Locksley and including rulings
or correspondence in 1976, 1978, 1979, 1990, 1994, and 1996. The ruling
in 1990 was appealed to the Board of Directors, as reflected and
discussed on the April 1991 Cover Letter. As specified in that Cover
Letter, the primary argument against the registerability of this charge
was that "the device was not returned for its specific religious content
as perceived by the submitter and her co-religionists, but for the
specific anti-religious content as perceived by a far larger number of
people, both within and without the SCA." The 1996 ruling was an appeal
of a return from 1994, and after considering the various arguments, the
then Laurel King of Arms, Da'ud ibn Auda, felt "compelled to uphold the
prior precedents disallowing the registration of mullets of five points
voided and interlaced, whether within and conjoined to an annulet or
standing by themselves. [Based on the evidence presented, s]uch charges
still are perceived by a significant portion of the population as [a]
"satanic symbol", and hence cannot be registered by the College."

The current submission presents extensive documentation showing that the
pentacle or pentagram is no longer perceived as a specifically satanic
symbol. Instead, it has become more closely recognized as a symbol of
the Wiccan religion. For example, the US military services have
acknowledged the Wiccan religion in their Chaplain's handbook since at
least 1990, and, more recently, the association of the pentacle with the
Wiccan religion was acknowledged by the US government when the pentacle
became the Wiccan religious symbol allowed on the government-furnished
headstones of fallen US soldiers.

We received a large amount of commentary on this submission from the
College, and the consensus was overwhelmingly in favor of dropping the
ban on this charge. We hereby overturn the ruling from 1996, and allow
the registration of mullets voided and interlaced, both inverted and
not, and both conjoined to annulets and not, so long as the overall
design in which this charge is used does not otherwise violate RfS IX.2
Offensive Religious Symbolism."

--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****
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