January 27, 1981 XV

TO: The Members of the College of Arms

FROM: Wilhelm von Schlüssel, O.L., Pel., O.L.M., Q.O.G., Laurel King of Arms

Greetings:

Enclosed is the Letter of Acceptances and Rejections for January. Out of the 121 submissions processed, 88 were accepted and 33 rejected. My next meeting will be on Sunday, February 22, 1981. The backlog now stands at the first part of November. At the February meeting I will process the letters from the month of November and from the first half of December. Please have any comments on those letters in to me before the meeting. I still need current rosters, lists of orders and awards at all levels, orders of precedence, and a list of heraldic titles from everybody. Those who have not sent in any of these are requested to do so now. As soon as I have all of the rosters, I can send out the heraldic questionnaire. As soon as I have the lists of awards and orders, I can send out a collated list for the whole SCA. The same applies to a complete list of heraldic titles in use in the SCA. The roster often does not suffice for the list of heraldic titles, since some of them do not list the titles, and sometimes there are vacant titles not on the roster.

For any submission, be it a name change, device, badge, appeal, correction, etc., I must have at least one form in the packet with the letter of intent, unless it is simply a spelling correction. This is so my secretary can go through the forms and pull the appropriate files. For a name change, an information form suffices. For a revision of a device or badge, say to overcome a conflict, a new picture sheet will suffice. Whenever a device or badge is changed, I require a new colored picture sheet. I want everybody, especially the East, to use the new forms or equivalent forms. The extra information is necessary. Please make sure that the section on the name is filled in. When sending me a submission, please indicate whether or not that person has ever had a submission reach the Laurel level before and, if so, whether any of them has ever passed, or if they have all been rejected, so I know if I have an existing file and if it is in the passed section or the reject section. If a person has a single item passed, his file is in the passed section. It takes little of your time, but when I have to process over 100 submissions a month, it takes a lot of my time to look all through my files to see if each person has an existing file.

It is now January and so I want a copy of each Principal Herald's financial report to their Kingdom Chancellor of the Exchequer. You are still responsible for getting a financial report in to your Kingdom Chancellor, for inclusion in his/her report to the Society Chancellor of the Exchequer.

There have been some changes and additions to the roster of the College of Arms. The new Brigantia, Stephen of Silverwing, lives at 299 Fellsway East, Apt. 2, Malden, MA 02148. (There were some typos in the last listing.) The Solar Herald seems to have moved, as her copy of last month's letter was returned by the Post Office. What is her current address? The correct address for the White Stag Herald is Anton Højen, c/o Alan Peterson, 471 N. 7th Street, Tooele, UT 84074. Styrbjørg Ulfhedhnar has resigned. The new members are: Arwyn Antarae, Falcon Herald for the Region of Calontir, Middle Kingdom Sue Mattingly, 5544-A Milentz, St. Louis, MO 63109 Donalbain MacTague, Pentamer Herald for the Region of Pentamer, Middle Kingdom Randy McCall, 4011 Whitney, Windsor, Ontario N9A 2C7 CANADA January 27, 1981 XV Eadwine de Bocce Sele, Midlands Herald for the Region of the Midlands, Middle Kingdom Michale Matheis, 2490 Leslie Lane, #4-A, Hanover Park, IL 60103 Baldwin of Erebor, Green Staff Herald for the College of Arms Derek Foster, 555 Paularino Ave., #S-205, Costa Mesa, CA 92626; (714) 546-4921 (Master Baldwin is not new to the College, but he is new to my staff.)

I would appreciate having the phone numbers as well as the addresses for the members of the College. Now every Principality and Regional Herald is on the list except for Sea-Wolf for the Mists and Sable Swan for Cynagua, who do not choose to be on it. Next month I will pull off the list anyone who has not commented in the previous three months. I enclose a copy of the roster in a form suitable for copying onto mailing labels. (I may have to drop somebody, since the page is full.) Please note that Master Renfield Wanderscribe, Clarion King of Arms; Master Conrad von Regensburg, Crescent Principal Herald; Master Daemon de Folo, Dragon Principal Herald; and Lord Macsen Fidelis, Sable Swan Herald; are on my list but do not receive letters of intent or comment. I ask that whenever someone sends a letter of comment to me that they also send copies of that letter to those whose letters are being commented on. Inasmuch as the roster is rather large now, I do not require members who are not Kingdom Heralds to send copies to everybody on the list, although it would be nice to do so. I do require the Principal Heralds or their representatives to send copies of their letters of intent and letters of comment to the whole roster. (The Principal Heralds have budgets; the others often do not.) Has anyone the address for Keridwen of Montrose?

I would like to take the opportunity to thank the Kraken Herald, Lady Styrbjørg Ulfedhnar, for her scholarship and efforts on behalf of the College. She has been a great help and I am very sorry to lose her. I wish her well in her other endeavors.

To correct a statement I made in passing a while ago, there is NO early cutoff to the Society's period. The period of the Society is from 1600 back to the origin of humanity. The period of the College is the same. This period spans some 500 years of heraldry, from the rise of armory about 1100 to the cutoff at 1600. The College bases its practices on English heraldry of this period, although usages from other areas (the Continent, Japan, etc.) can be used on a case-by-case basis. Anything that came into being after 1600 is out of period and may not be used. The College is attempting to emulate the simplicity and style of the armory practiced by the English College at the time of the formation of the College of Arms in England in 1485, although heraldic usages that came into being from that point until the cutoff in 1600 are also allowed unless they are judged to be in violation of this style. Examples of practices so ruled out are marshalling, the use of "of the second," violations of the Rule of Tincture for chiefs and bordures, and landscapes as arms. We are trying to recreate the highest points of English heraldry, leaving out the bad points. As we learn more about how armory was practiced in our period, and what the style actually was in 1485, we will from time to time have to change our rules to conform to our new information. It is for this reason that we are not bound by what we have done before. I welcome anyone's researches into early heraldry, as the time I spend doing the routine paperwork for this office leaves little time for serious research. I rely on you to help me out with your own researches. The College should encourage and generate more scholarship. To this end, I urge everybody to send a paper to the Heraldic Symposium being organized at the end of August in Denver, Colorado. Send them to the Corona Herald.

There were some problems with the alphabetization of the folders in the enclosed Letter. The acceptances for Atenveldt and Ansteorra appear in two sections.

I have learned that the surname for the imperial clan in Japan is Yamato. I therefore restrict its use as a surname in the SCA, along with that of Taira, a clan which briefly achieved the shogunate. In order to have a complete list of royal surnames that should be restricted, I ask you all to list those surnames which you think should be so restricted. The rule is that the surname of a royal family or clan, membership in which means one has a claim to the throne, however tenuous, is not to be used in the SCA. An example is Yngling, the royal house of Norway. Please look up the royal surnames for as many royal houses as you can find throughout the world in the period of the SCA and let me know of these surnames. We can then debate which should be restricted and then compile a list so that there will be no question later on as to which names are restricted. Please also check my translations of SCA titles.

I would also appreciate it if some of you could compile a list of those charges which are so linked to a specific honor or order or royal house that they should be restricted in the SCA. Examples are the Red Hand of Ulster, the Tudor Rose, the laurel wreath, and a white belt. We ought to try to compile a list of these so that people can be forewarned about them.

Several months ago I polled the College on the use of names from fantasy. The consensus was that individuals should still be allowed to make use of them so long as the names did not violate any other rules, and so long as the culture of the fantasy source was compatible with the cultures in our period. There was a lot of discussion on the seriousness of the problem of trying to be authentic when people were using names from fantasy. It is my opinion, then, that it would be a good idea to not allow territorial branches, guilds, or other organizations to use names from fantasy, but still to allow individuals to do so. While an individual may decide that he/she really wants to have such a name, and to heck with authenticity, in the case of a group name, to allow the use of names from fantasy could cause other individuals who do prefer authenticity to have to choose whether to belong to a group with a name from fantasy or not. The actual choice of the name was not made by that individual, but he/she is affected by it. What do you think?

Kraken has told me that the College should be stressing more education than it has. I agree. We have been spending a lot of time in the necessary work of hammering out the rules and in putting the College's act together. You all have been getting your individual Colleges of Heralds in working order. However, it does seem like a lot could be done in the way of educating the populace in the art of armory and the practices of heraldry. I would like to encourage all of you to write articles for T.I. and for your local newsletters on heraldry and to sponsor heraldry classes at events and kingdom universities. To those of you who have done so, my congratulations, and to those of you who have not, please try to do so. I welcome any suggestions on how my office can advance the cause of education in the SCA. I will be revising my Herald's Handbook this year to act as a Society-wide handbook, with each Kingdom Principal Herald who wishes to in charge of writing the section that deals with local kingdom practices and ceremonies. There will thus be editions for each kingdom. Sales of this handbook to the populace should help educate them on heraldry. Let me remind you that I am always open to any suggestions on any subject. If somebody amasses documentation or good arguments that show I was wrong in a ruling, I will happily change that ruling (happily, because I have learned something new). I sometimes tend to be a little headstrong or overly enthusiastic and rule before I have sufficiently thought out a matter. Feel free to tell me I'm wrong.

You are all members of the College of Arms and, thus, the welfare of the College is up to you, too.

Pray believe, my lords and ladies, that I remain

Your servant,

Wilhelm von Schlüssel,

O.L., Pel., O.L.M., Q.O.G.

Laurel King of Arms

WvS:cfc

Enclosures: roster

Letter of Acceptances and Rejections