September 26, 1982 A.S. XVII

TO: The Members of the College of Arms

FROM: Master Wilhelm von Schlüssel, Laurel King of Arms

Greetings:

While I have not had a formal meeting this month, I find there is enough material for a letter anyway. Enclosed is a short LOA&R dealing with a number of corrections sent in to me. Enclosed also is a questionnaire concerning next year's heraldic symposium. Triton's proposals, while just barely in time before the deadline, were too late for me to receive any feedback before this year's symposium. Therefore I propose to treat next year's bids in the same way that I have seen convention bids handled. I invite those members of the competing bid committees who will be attending this year's symposium to come prepared to present your bids and answer questions from those attending the symposium. This presentation will occur Monday morning, October 4, thereby enabling the attendees to make use of their experiences at this year's symposium to ask questions and make suggestions for next year's. I am sending out the enclosed questionnaire to find out which of the three bids is the most popular. I will also pass out the questionnaire at the symposium. I need to receive the completed questionnaires back no later than October 15, 1982, if I am to tabulate them in time to announce the winning bid in the LOA&R covering the symposium College of Arms meeting. While this is not a democratic vote, I will weight the results very heavily when I choose the winning bid, so please send in your questionnaire.

I am also taking this opportunity to ask about items in general concerning symposia. I am interested in knowing just what your favorite topics are for symposium panels, what else you would or would not like to see done, etc. This is your chance to be heard. The questionnaires will be kept confidential, so don't hold your punches. Inasmuch as the SCA is constantly growing, we have to plan ahead. I want to get the symposia on a firm footing. Eventually I would like to see bids submitted two years in advance so that all of the feedback can occur earlier and the winning bid announced at the previous year's symposium. To this end, I am now open to bids for the 1984 Heraldic Symposium. Since both 1982 and 1983 will see the symposium on the East Coast, I would welcome bids from other areas which have not yet hosted a heraldic: convention, e.g., An Tir, Caid, Ansteorra, or the Middle. I would like to see the sites move around the country to give everyone a chance to attend one. I do not forsee a formal rotation plan, however, since the main criterion shall be that the best bid will win.

My regular October meeting will be on October 30, 1982 (Saturday) At which time I will process these Lois: Atlantia (6/21); Caid (6/22), West (6/23), Middle (6/23), Atenveldt (6/26), Ansteorra (7/2), Middle (7/21), and Caid (7/22), eight in all. The following meeting will be on November 21, 1982 (Sunday), at which time I will process: West (7/31), Atenveldt (7/31), Middle (8/1), East (8/5), Caid (8/12), West (8/12), and Meridies (8/19), seven in all. We are getting close to having one LoI per kingdom per month.

Both Meridies and the Middle are making efforts to catch up their backlog. The East still needs to send me the 40+ branch names I asked for. The following persons are overdue for LoCs: Black Lion (3 months since last LoC), Beacon (3 months), Star (5 months), Vox Leonis (3 months), Blue Tyger (3 months). A number of you have gone two months since your last LoCs. Now that the busy summer is over, please everybody get back on schedule and start commenting again. For those of you (most of you, in fact) who are on schedule, many thanks!

I would like to make public apology to Aten and Green Staff (former Aten) for any implication that they or their subordinates were at fault in the matter of Irminsul's submission. This was not the case. I was sloppy in my comment on her hardship appeal. What I should have said was, "She has been patiently trying to submit this for seven years, and in the first several years local heralds lost or misplaced the submissions." Instead, I incorrectly stated, ". . . and the heralds kept fouling up." This was inaccurate. After Master Baldwin became Aten, and while Mistress Rhonwen has been Aten, the Aten heralds have cleaned up and maintained their act quite well. Again, I am sorry for making any implication that the current Aten heralds were at fault for what actually happened years earlier. I will attempt to be much more careful in the future about how I phrase things. I can only plead that, in processing 120 submissions a month, I am necessarily constrained in the length of explanation I can give each decision without publishing a monthly novella.

Virgule's fervent objection to a recent rejection of the device for Katrin of the Hidden Orchard makes it clear that I need to clarify the College's stance on religion. Katrin's device was rejected primarily because it was bad heraldry, being overly complex and not in period style. I also made the secondary point that a number of heralds had found the overly blatant Christian symbolism offensive, so that Katrin could know to tone it down a little as well as put it in period form. I have been trying to be fair and even-handed on this sort of thing. After all of the complaints about rejecting pagan-devices, I guess a complaint about rejecting an overly Christian device does indicate that at least we are getting flak from both sides.

To clarify matters, the College does not have any restriction against the use of religious symbols or symbolism in devices other than the requirement that such use not to so excessive or blatant or infamous as to become offensive to others. I in fact encourage people to use a tactful amount of religious symbolism if they are religious, since this was very much in period. The SCA has gone too far in some areas in avoiding religion in the fear of violating the Corpora's provision that the SCA shall not promote or discriminate against any one religion. This provision was meant to prevent abuses of either persecuting one religion or imposing another on unwilling members. It was not intended to forbid the practice of religion per se. Religion was a very major part of the period we are trying to re-create. I would like to see more use of religion and religious in the SCA, so long as we are careful not to overdo it and offend people. The key here is moderation, and avoidance of excess. If, as Virgule says, some areas condone such activities as mock marriages, then these areas need to realize that this is wrong. I certainly do not condone such activities. I will continue to try to be even-handed on religious symbols, intervening only when excessive symbolism has crossed the boundary into offensive usage. I myself am Christian, and so I certainly do not have anti-Christian feelings. I hope this makes things clear.

A question was raised on the title of Viceroy. This is not, as has been suggested, an equivalent title to Baron to be used for a ceremonial head of a province or shire, or even of a barony. A Viceroy is a legitimate term meaning the Crown's Royal Representative. A Baron, by Corpora, has only a ceremonial role in his barony. He cannot give Awards of Arms or make legal proclamations. A Baron is not a Viceroy. A Prince can do these and so the Princes of the principalities are automatically the Crown's Viceroys for those principalities. If a King should so desire, he can delegate his authority for such matters as Awards of Arms, warrants, and proclamations to a Baron, thereby making the Baron a Viceroy. Such a delegation only lasts for the reign of that King unless renewed by the next Sovereign. The person is then both Baron and Viceroy.

The example I can think of occurred when Duke Paul of Bellatrix was King of the West a few years back and King Paul appointed Baron Gerhard Kendal of Westmoreland to be his Viceroy of the Barony of Lions Gate. The next King did not renew the appointment, and so the status of Viceroy lasted for only one reign. Shires and provinces are not supposed to have ceremonial heads. That is what baronial status is for. There are a number of alternate titles for Baron and barony if a group eligible for baronial status wants to have ceremonial noble without being called a barony.

An example of a possible use for Viceroy would be to appoint the Baron or Baroness of a far distant barony (say, Hawaii, Australia, Spain, etc.) to be a Viceroy so as to allow local members to achieve recognition more easily. On the subject of distant lands, the Steward has reserved to herself the head seneschal's duties with regard to the groups in Australia and New Zealand. Later on they can be assigned to either the West or Caid. In the meantime, they will deal directly with the corporate officers. I have appointed Master Conrad von Regensburg, Crescent Herald, to be my representative to deal with them in all heraldic matters. This does not mean that they belong to Caid. Rather, I am doing this because Master Conrad was already in touch with them and is willing to do the job.

I would like to remind everybody that the question of household names is still under discussion. No permanent ruling has yet been made. As I see it, there are three basic alternatives: 1) We could stop registering household names entirely, registering badges as "household badge." This gets us away from regulating household names but doesn't solve the question of the use by others of major household names. 2) We could list household names, apply the basic rules on branch names to them, but not protect them against conflict. That is what the College has been doing for years. This is sort of a worst-of-two-worlds process. 3) We can register household names, applying all of the branch name rules, and protect them from conflict, and thereby require that they not conflict. This solves the problem of conflicts, but puts the College in the position of regulating household names, which is unpopular and rather far from the main role of the College. We need to do something and we need to make it very clear what we are doing. We cannot please everybody. I still desire everyone's opinions on this subject. For alternative #3, I recommend that you look at Vesper's letter of August 15, 1982, which has a good set of proposals for points of difference on household names.

We are also still debating the extent to which we wish to avoid having SCA branch names conflict with mundane place names. We clearly do not want a Barony of London or a Shire of Windsor. On the other hand, it gets to be rather hard to avoid conflicts with all of the present and past places in all of the world, and it is also hard to check for such conflicts. Where do we draw the line?

I am still at work editing the Names Book. I have received about half of the chapters from various contributors. I hope that once it is in print, we will be able to use it as a standard reference on names. Until then, we do not have such a reference to cite or for others to use, so I am extending the grace period on names indefinitely until the Names Book is in print. The grace period applies only to the question of whether or not the name or the words in the name are in period or are consistent with period practice. This means that in these areas the benefit of the doubt goes to the submittor. The other rules are unaffected.

Pray believe my Lords and my Ladies that I remain,

Your servant

Master Wilhelm von Schlüssel

Laurel King of Arms

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