September 16, 1980

 

To: All Members of the College of Arms

From: Wilhelm von Schlüssel, OL, OP, OLM, QOG, Laurel King of Arms

Greetings:

Here is the Letter of Acceptances and Rejections for September. This brings the College up to the middle of July. Brigantia did not send copies of his June Letter of Intent to the College, and so I am doing so. You will find a copy of his letter enclosed. I am setting this at a Sept. 16 date now, and so it will considered at my November meeting. The next meeting will be October 19, 1980 at which time I will process through the middle of August, 1980. Included also with this letter is the latest College of Arms Roster. I now have a Secretary, namely Mistress Cynthia Fitz Colline. Like Clarion she is a member of the College but does not receive letters.

Star informs me that the Middle has instituted a companion order to the Order of the Willow, known as the Order of the Oak. The Barony of the Steppes has had an Order of the Oak as their service award for some time, namely since 1976. This means that the Middle will have to alter their Order. Adding a tincture to the name would suffice, such as the Order of the Green Oak. The East already has the Order of the White Oak. As you can see we have a problem with Orders. Therefore once again I ask each Principal Herald to put into their next Letter of Intent a list of all Kingdom, Principality and Local Orders in their kingdom, along with the abbreviations. I will then compile a combined listing to check for conflicts, and send out copies. Each time a King wants a new Order then the Principal Herald need only check this list to see what names are taken. I may put the list in the Armorial. I require each Principal Herald to submit the names of new Orders to the College of Arms for approval, even if there is no badge associated with the order. We must avoid such conflicts in the future. In the same vein, I ask each Principal Herald to send me a list of all titles of Pursuivants and Heralds in that kingdom, so I can make a list of heraldic titles in use. New titles should then be submitted to the College for review. You need only list the titles. You don't have to say who holds them or what the duties are. Similarly you need not say what the Orders are for, although it would be a good idea to identify the branch that admits members.

Note to Beacon: I didn't get any forms for the Brotherhood of the H.A.M.M.S. Send me a set of forms for them. They have a name that is too long but can be abbreviated suitably. Master Renfield informs me that he is willing to abbreviate names for inclusion in the armorial if they are too long, so we could relax the limitation on name size if we were willing to accept abbreviation in the Armorial. The full name would still be used for other official uses. There would still have to be some limitation, as the abbreviated name still has to fit within the fifty character limit. Therefore I put it to a vote of the College: Shall we allow such abbreviation and thereby relax the restriction on name length?

I would like each kingdom to send me a current copy of their Order of Precedence, or as current a copy as is in print, if they have not done so in the last three months. I am missing several kingdoms' Orders of Precedence. Will everyone who has not done so please cast their vote on the question of allowing names and place names and languages from fiction? Until next month I remain,

 

Your Servant

 

Wilhelm von Schlüssel, Laurel King of Arms