August 24, 1982 A.S. XVII

TO: The Members of the College of Arms

FROM: Master Wilhelm von Schlüssel, Laurel King of Arms

Greetings: Enclosed is this month's LoA&R. There were 119 acceptances and 33 rejections, a total of 152 actions. My next meeting will take place on October 3, 1982, at the Meridies Heraldry Symposium. At that time I will process the following LoIs: An Tir (6/18), Ansteorra (6/20), and Meridies (7/1). The LOA&R for that meeting will come out two weeks later. The following meeting will be on Saturday, October 30, at which time I will process the following LoIs: Caid (6/22), West (6/23), Middle (6/23), Atlantia (6/21), Atenveldt (6/26), Ansteorra (7/2), Middle (7/21), and Caid (7/22). I have not yet received the submission forms from Aten for the Atenveldt 6/26 LoI.

I need to have copies of the warrants for all members of the College of Arms so I can make sure that members' warrants have not expired. (The new warrants have expiration dates.) I need copies of the warrants for Greenwood HE, Triton PH, Beacon PH, and copies of the warrants for all Principality and Regional Heralds and for anyone else on the mailing list that I did not appoint myself. Actually, all I really need for all but the PHs is the date of expiration of their warrants, so the PHs can just send me a list of expiration dates. I do need copies of the warrants for the three offices listed above. I urge each PH to keep a list of the expiration dates of the warrants of the heralds in the kingdom, so you will know when it is time to re-warrant somebody. An easy way to do this is to write the expiration dates on the roster of all heralds in the kingdom.

I am removing Aryana Silknfyre from the mailing list for lack of commenting. Everyone else is doing OK. I would like to see another LoI from An Tir and Meridies. Mistress Cynthia, Laurel Secretary, asks that I remind all of you that Xerox is the trademarked name of a corporation and not a verb or common noun. One makes photocopies, not "xeroxes," nor does one "xerox" something. As we are trying to protect names in the SCA, we extend the same courtesy to mundane trademarks.

I really like the new Eastern Order of Precedence's idea of indicating which persons have registered their name with the College. I would like to recommend that the other kingdoms consider this. One could use a # to indicate name registration only and a @ to indicate both name and arms registered. An alphabetical listing of all armigers in the kingdom so annotated would give you a handy list of those who have and have not registered. The latter can then be urged to do so. The OP should list those names that are registered as they are registered. If someone wants to change the listing on the OP, s/he should send in a name change to the College. I would like to remind all PHs to ensure that copies of the most current OP from their kingdom be sent immediately to Mistress Rebecca of Twywn, c/o Rebecca LeDock, 1820 Hickory Road, Chamblee, GA 30341. After the Symposium, she will combine these into an SCA-wide OP.

There is a problem I see in the desire of PHs to reply to comments in others' LoCs made on their own LoIs. Replying to each LoC in succession is fine for the people whose LoCs they are, but it doesn't do me or anyone else much good unless we wish to hunt through the various LoCs to see what is being answered. In my case, it is particularly unuseful in processing an LoI because a given submission may have replies scattered throughout five pages. Trying to locate them all takes too much time to make the process worthwhile. I would therefore like to propose that the PH write a Letter of Reply for each of his/her LoIs, going through the submissions one by one in alphabetical order and answering all comments made on that submission in all LoCs that need to be answered before I rule on the submission.

Those replies not necessary for consideration by Laurel (such as replies to comments on other issues or on other persons' LoIs) would not be included. Thus the Letter of Reply would be shorter than the Letter of Comments on Comments (LoC2 ). If the Principal Herald chooses to type up both the LoR and the LoC2, then the pH would only have to send the LoR to me. The LoR could be used in place of the LoC2, with copies sent to everyone. The two could even be combined by first doing the LoR on each of the pending LoIs from that PH's kingdom, in chronological order, and then going on to comments on comments on other topics. If the PH wishes to combine these with the LoC as well, then the order should be as follows: sort the reply sections and comment sections chronologically (this will generally mean the replies come first) and then list the comments on comments chronologically by the date of the LoC being commented on. Note that Morgenstern's recent LoC2 would have been much shorter, as it was almost all replies and he wound up repeating himself several times. I understand that this method will involve some more work, due to the collation of replies into one section, but this extra work will be well worth the effort.

I would like to remind everybody that, when someone sends in a submission with documentation, copies of this documentation must be sent on to Laurel. You need not send copies to the CoA, but if you have it in writing, send a copy to me. It is much better to photocopy a reference than to quote from one if a new policy decision or a decision on a new charge or name is involved. I would also like to make it clear that a word cannot be called made-up if it is already an existing word. If somebody tells you a name is made-up, but it already exists as a name or as a word, then its existing status and meaning are what count, because that is what others will take it to mean when they see it. One must be careful in making up a name in one language, because you might wind up with a word in another language, in which case the latter takes precedence. A word or name can be considered made-up only if it has no previous existence or meaning. If you make up a name by combining words so that the sum of the translations of the words is the translation of the compound word, then you are OK, because it means what you say it means. Be careful, because in some languages you cannot just string words together to form a name. All made-up names must still be compatible with period name usage for some language. This language must be specified so we can see that the name is indeed compatible.

There seems to still be some confusion on mon. The College registers the formal form of mon, which is black on white or white on black. This is what will go in the Armorial and what will appear on all scrolls. This is the proper Japanese system. When the individual uses the mon as a seal, the proper method is to use red ink on white paper. When the individual uses the mon on clothing or on any other object, the individual is free to use any light/dark or dark/light combination, so long as only two colors are used. For example, although the formal registration is sable on argent, the mon's owner can display it on his/her kimono as black on yellow, red on yellow, white on blue, etc. A battle flag should be in the formal mode. Livery colors determine the color of the kimono. The College will only register one form of the mon and thus will either protect light on dark or dark on light, but not both. This does not change the fact that everyone can use the counterchange of their arms; it just means that we no longer protect the counterchange.

The College has long held that a person should not register his/her own mundane arms as SCA arms because s/he is registering the SCA arms under the SCA name, not the mundane name. There was also the old tradition that one's mundane arms could only be defended with steel, which wasn't allowed in the SCA. I do not hold with the latter, but there is some truth in the former. It occurs to me, though, that, if a person were to register an SCA name using the same surname or a translation of that surname, it would then be reasonable to use the mundane arms which the person owns and hence has the right to use.

For many people the SCA is a subculture, not a fantasy, and their SCA arms are considered to be their own arms, in or out of SCA events. I have seen that other heraldic offices do recognize the legitimacy of each others' arms, although they do require that the individual claiming arms from another armorial jurisdiction register those arms and pay a fee. I feel that we should not forbid somebody to use his/her own mundane arms as SCA arms so long as the same surname is used and so long as the arms are registered in the usual way, and proper documentation is submitted to support the mundane claim to those arms. This documentation should consist of a properly signed and sealed document from a legitimate Office of Arms declaring that the person has the right to those arms. The Laurel Sovereign of Arms would be the ultimate authority on whether the documentation was sufficient. If a person wishes to use a different surname, then I feel that different arms should be used. What do you think? (No policy is yet changed on this matter.)

I would like to announce that Duke Siegfried von Höflichkeit is once again on the Board of Directors and that he has been appointed as Liaison to the College of Arms. This means that he will be our voice on the Board and that he will keep me informed on all matters before the Board that involve the College. His Grace has informed me that, as a sign of his patronage to the College, he is establishing an endowment fund to provide copies of Papworth's Ordinary to those PHs, Principality, and Regional Heralds whose offices do not have a copy. He will be providing a copy of Papworth's every other month. The first recipient will be the Beacon Principal Herald, as Meridies doesn't have any copies, official or personal. All other kingdoms at least have personal copies available. The next recipients will be Oertha, Trimaris, and the Sun, in that order. Three cheers for His Grace's generosity!!

For those individuals who would like to own personal copies of Papworth's, it may be obtained by sending a postal money order to Lord Allyn O'Dubhda, Albion Pursuivant, made out to his mundane name: Alan S. Dowd. His address is FOCCEUR Box 12, FPO New York 09510. The cost is £40 plus $1.25 insurance and $1.55 book rate postage (at least three weeks) or $5.27 Postal Air Lift (about two weeks). Check your newspaper for the current exchange rate of. the pound. (Right now these come to about $71 to $75.) He will then purchase the copies from the Heraldry Today bookstore in London, which has almost 400 copies. If too many of you order copies in the same month, there may be a delay while the bookstore orders copies from its warehouse, where most copies are stored. Lord Allyn is most kind to offer to perform this service.

I would like to propose that we restrict the use of multiple languages in a name to languages from countries that interacted significantly in our period. It is fairly easy to understand somebody using both German and French when he says he was born near the border of the two countries. One can also agree that it is reasonable for a son of a Viking raider or settler to use a Norse name and a Celtic name, as there was considerable interaction between the two cultures. On the other hand, I have no sympathy for a name using Aztec and Russian, as this did not happen in our period. I would similarly restrict Sindarin names to only mix with the other languages in the Lord of the Rings, which is to say only with English or Anglo-Saxon. Somebody using the maximum of three languages is already straining probability without also using languages from widely separated countries. What do you think of this proposal?

I am still interested in comments on registering household names. I like Vesper's six-part suggestion and I will use it in the interim while we are discussing the question. I wish to have this question settled by the time the Ordinary comes out. Master Renfield has now solved the major problem that had held him up for so long (a system flaw in Apple-SOFT) and I am hoping that he will be able to generate preliminary copies before the Symposium. As I have given him over 600 corrections, and others have sent him more, and as there is over a year's worth of new entries, there are bound to be errors in the first printing. Rather than print up a flawed Ordinary, I instead will distribute preliminary copies to the PHs so that they can 1) have them to use and 2) check them for new errors. When I have received the new corrections from the PHs and they have been properly entered, then Master Renfield can generate an official version. This is what we will then print up in large quantities. In fact, I plan to ask the Board to authorize the Chronicler to print it as a regular stock item for the SCA Stock Clerk's office. The preliminary copies will give us a rough page count so we will be able to announce a price and accept orders.

There are a number of other heraldic publications in the works. 1) The Board has authorized the Chronicler to reprint the 1981 Caerthan Heraldry Symposium Proceedings as a Stock Clerk item. 2) 1 expect that the Chronicler and the committee for this year's Symposium will cooperate to have this year's proceedings printed as a Stock Clerk item. 3) I am currently editing a pamphlet for the Pamphlet Series on SCA Names. This will be a complete reference on names, with the rules for names, the procedures, and sections on many of the major languages in use in our period, giving instructions on proper naming practices and constructions in those languages. 4) I am also rewriting my Herald's Handbook. I am hopeful that both 3 and 4 can be out by the end of 1982. 5) There is also Vert and Or, the heraldic quarterly. This should be quite a year for heraldic publications.

Enclosed is a new and improved information sheet I have devised. It solves several problems that have come up with previous forms. Each kingdom PH should white-out the central upper box and type in the appropriate kingdom address. The reverse of the sheet can be used for a set of instructions on filling out the form. The Middle could place their Great Book of Arms questions (honors held, dates received, etc.) on the back as well. I urge (but do not require) that you adopt this form, as all of the new questions are useful. The line for Laurel Status is for the PH to fill in when I act on the submission. I have photo-reduced the form. If anyone wants a full-sized copy, let me know.

Pray believe, my Lords and my Ladies, that I remain

Your servant,

Master Wilhelm von Schliissel Laurel King of Arms

wvs:CFC

Enclosures--Info form

LOA&R