January 28, 1983 A.S. XVII

TO: The Members of the College of Arms

FROM: Master Wilhelm von Schlüssel, Laurel King of Arms Greetings:

Enclosed is the LOA&R for my January 16th meeting. There are 97 acceptances and 29 rejections, for a total of 126 actions. By February 6, 1983, 1 will need all LoCs on the following LoIs: Meridies/Trimaris (10/8), Meridies/Trimaris (10/9), Meridies/Trimaris (10/18), An Tir (11/3), Meridies/Trimaris (11/7), Caid (11/11), Middle (11/15), and Ansteorra (11/20). By March 6, 1983, I will need all LoCs on the following LoIs: Meridies (10/26), West (11/4), Atenveldt (11/20), Atlantia (11/22) East 11/25), Caid (12/13), and An Tir (12/15) . By April 9, 1983, I will need all the LoCs on the following LoIs: West (12/12), Atenveldt (12/18), Atenveldt (12/23), Middle (1/5), and any other LoI dated in January that I receive before February 5th. These are all of the LoIs I have received at this time. Please note how many LoIs were sent out well after their date of writing, causing them to show up a month later. Please try to get your LoIs out faster, or else date them for when you think they will actually be mailed.

I am enclosing a new roster. There have been a number of changes. The new Vesper Principal Herald is Master Eric Foxworthy. Mistress Aelfwynn is now on my staff as Baton Vert Herald and will continue commenting. Please note the new address for Triton. Let me remind all those who send out LoIs that copies of the LoI must go to everybody on the mailing list, even if you have never heard from them. All Principal Heralds or their representatives who send out LoCs must send copies to everyone on the mailing list. The same goes for my staff. Everyone else is required, at a minimum, to send copies of their LoC to me and to each kingdom on whose LoI they have commented. I would like to encourage this last group to consider sending a few more copies out so that they always send a copy to each kingdom, whether or not they commented on an LoI from that kingdom. This will provide more feedback within the College and let the Principal Heralds know that the rest of you are commenting. I hereby remove from the mailing list, for not commenting, Schwarzdrachen, Archive, and Pennon. I grant a one-month extension to Trillium and Ensign. Nobody else is in trouble, although I will send private reminders to a number who have gone two months without commenting.

Several of you have commented on the new submission form I sent out. The space for "birthdate" can be treated as optional if you have a submittor who objects to it, but let me explain why it is there. Many of the forms in the files are the old Great Book of Arms forms, which did not even ask for the mundane name. Since many people move around, the address and even the kingdom are not reliable after a few years. A number of times people move to another kingdom and submit a new name and device without telling the heralds they had submitted before. Since the kingdom doesn't have a record for them (that's in another kingdom), this isn't caught. The result is a new submission that seems to conflict with the old one, except that it is actually a simple name change and device change by the same person and should be passed., On the other hand, the submission could be from an entirely new person whose name conflicts or is very similar. Several times the birthdate is the only bit of data that we can use to differentiate two such submissions, since the old form did ask for the birthdate. That is why we still ask for it. The birthdate is confidential. If people object to giving their age, they could just give the month and day. If they object to giving the day because that would give away their horoscope, they can give the month and year. An arbitrary number or the birthdate of their persona is useless to us.

I have been convinced that the question on highest rank held would be better replaced with a line asking whether the submittor is using any restricted charges and, if so, with what justification. If the heralds make sure that all such charges and practices are noted on the form, then the space on highest rank can be deleted. I never intended any indication that rank gives one an edge on submissions.

There still seems to be some confusion on my statement regarding patents of arms. A person holds arms either by Award, Grant, or Patent. In addition, s/he may acquire membership in various orders and may receive various titles. These are entirely separate conditions, except that certain titles and memberships carry with them a minimum level for holding arms. Thus, the title of Court Baron or Court Baroness or membership in an order that carries with it the right to an Award of Arms all have a minimum level of holding arms by Award of Arms. If they are received by a person who is already armigerous, then the level of holding arms is unaffected. If the recipient is not already armigerous, then s/he receives an Award of Arms and now holds arms by Award. Membership in an order that carries with it a Grant of Arms for those not already at that level means that, if the person were previously non-armigerous or held arms only by an Award, then s/he would now receive a Grant of Arms and hold arms by Grant. If the person already held a Grant of Arms or a Patent of Arms, then the membership would not affect the member's armigerous status.

Someone who holds arms by Patent (i.e., has received a Patent of Arms) has reached the top of the line for level of arms. No further award, title, or membership can change this level of holding arms by Patent. Thus, a person who becomes a knight is given a Patent of Arms because the orders of the peerage carry with them the minimum level of holding arms by Patent. If the person later is admitted to the Order of the Laurel, his/her level of holding arms is not changed, because s/he already held arms by Patent. This means that s/he does not get a second Patent of Arms. Should this individual later be made a Court Baron/ess, s/he would not get an Award of Arms, because arms are already held by Patent. Should s/he be admitted to an order that carries a Grant of Arms, s/he would not receive the Grant of Arms, because arms are already held by Patent, a higher level. S/he would simply become a member of the order. If this individual were to resign the knighthood, then s/he would still hold arms by Patent because of membership in the Order of the Laurel. The date of seniority in the peerage would change from that of the knighthood to that of membership in the Order of the Laurel. Should this person then also resign the Laurel, then s/he would hold arms by Grant by virtue of the membership in the grant-bearing order. Now s/he would have a Grant of Arms, with its date being the date of admission to the grant-bearing order.

Thus you can see that once you have an Award of Arms, you cannot receive another. Once you have a Grant of Arms, you cannot receive another Grant or an Award of Arms. Once you have a Patent of Arms, you cannot receive either an Award, Grant, or additional Patent. You can receive many times over the right to these, should you lose the first one, but you only hold arms at a single level and only once at a time. You can acquire all sorts of titles and memberships in orders, but your level of holding arms is either that of Award, Grant, or Patent. This is equivalent to saying that, once you have been admitted to a particular order, you cannot be admitted to that order a second time, unless you first resign your membership, because you already belong to the order.

I would like to remind all of you that I would like to receive your suggested guidelines on heraldic practice by the end of February. These are intended to be positive as well as negative guidelines. Put down what should be done as well as what should not be done. Tell me if there is anything that should be actually forbidden that is not now forbidden. I want to know all of your opinions so I can judge how we are doing and what to finally write down in a set of guidelines on good and poor heraldic practices for distribution to the populace. I am particularly interested in guidelines on good heraldic style.

Virgule has made a very good suggestion; namely, that we not allow a device that is an exact mirror image of a mundane arms. This is because the mundane arms were often displayed in the mirror-imaged form in order that the charges would face forwards. Thus Azure, a lion rampant argent would be borne correctly if shown on a shield held by a mounted knight's left arm when the knight is riding to dexter. If the knight were shown riding to sinister, then the shield could be shown held in the right arm and now the arms would be Azure, a lion rampant to sinister, so as to have the lion still facing in the same direction as the knight, i.e., forwards to sinister.

If we were to adopt such a rule, it would be a special-case rule stating that, when a submission is an exact mirror image of a mundane submission, then it conflicts. There is the question of whether or not this rule should be enforced on badges as well as arms and devices. I personally feel it should, what with all of the secondary-persona badges and household badges we have that are displayed as if they were normal arms. Note that most of the time our requirement, of one major and one minor point of difference already takes care of this problem. Turning the lion from dexter to sinister is one major point of difference. Since another minor point of difference is needed, the mirror-image symmetry is automatically broken. However, when you have multiple charges, you can construct cases where this would not be the case. For example, consider the SCA device, Per pale azure and gules, a lion rampant to sinister between in fess two increscents Or, and the mundane arms Per pale gules and azure, a lion rampant between in fess two decrescents Or. They could be said to have a point for the field, a point for the lion's position, and a point for the difference of position of the crescents. Actually, they are exact mirror-images, and by the proposed rule they would conflict. I therefore ask the College: Shall we adopt Virgule's suggested rule?

While you are writing down your guidelines, I would also like to check your opinions on whether or not the College should register tinctureless badges at all, since they are used differently from arms, devices, and tinctured badges. I am somewhat uncomfortable about registering scribal marks, maker's marks, and other such non-heraldic, tinctureless badges in the same system as arms and devices, and then having to check them against each other. As I see it, we could continue as we have been doing, or not register tinctureless badges at all, or else set up a separate registry for tinctureless marks. What do you think about this in the long run? Please note that I intend no immediate action on this but rather am just interested in the feelings of the College.

Several people have asked for guidelines on the offensiveness rule. I am not sure that this can be adequately defined, since it is a catch-all rule put there to prevent really bad submissions that don't specifically violate other rules but would nevertheless be offensive. This rule is very seldom invoked; maybe only a few times a year. I am, however, interested in suggestions on how we could give guidelines for this rule. What classes of practices can you think of that would be categorically offensive? Can you give any guidelines an how far is too far or how much is too much? I agree that it would be nice to have some guidelines on this rule in the guidelines for the populace. I don't think I should just set them according to my personal preferences, so I am asking you.

Master Edmund Renfield informs me that the last hardware problems are solved and that now it is just a matter of completing and debugging the program on his Apple II. He hopes to have a preliminary Ordinary & Armorial available before the Symposium. We will send copies to all Principal Heralds for them to check for errors. (With 2,000 new entries, there are bound to be errors.) Then we will correct all of the errors, check for errors on the corrections, and then print up the Ordinary & Armorial en masse for sale. Thereafter, Master Edmund Renfield will be able to keep the Ordinary updated monthly and provide quarterly supplementary ordinaries, with the whole thing being reprinted every year. He will also be able to provide the program and data file on floppies (it will take several floppies) to those who want their own copy for their Apple II. (You'll have to have a hard disk to run the program.) Just now, I have no idea how much the Ordinary. & Armorial will cost.

I have been asked about the use of the ecclesiastical titles such as Bishop. It seems that some bishops in period were titular bishops and did not have real sees to oversee, but rather were given a defunct see. This was often the case for the administrators of the church in Rome. Thus one can argue that bishops are not always territorial. Similarly, in some countries the title of bishop is not a title of nobility. So the question becomes: is a title forbidden if it ever was noble or territorial, or is it only forbidden if it always was noble or territorial? I will be asking the Board this question, and I will let you know what they decide.

Speaking of the Board, enclosed is a copy of a mailing from Duke Siegfried von Höflichkeit concerning the grand survey of the membership the Board plans to undertake soon. Please read it and send your comments and suggested questions to him. This is our chance to ask the populace those constant questions such as, "Do we want to allow fantasy names?" or "Are we limited to Europe, or is the whole world available?" or "Is there an early time cut-off for the SCA?" There is also an announcement from the Board on what they have and have not done and what they will and will not be doing. It would seem that sanity prevails and that we can all breathe more easily. This should put to rest a lot of rumors that have been circulating recently.

In response to a question from Triton: Yes, a king can grant a charged canton as an Augmentation of Arms. That is why we reserve charged cantons. The king grants the right to an augmentation and suggests what the elements should be. The heralds then rule on the exact form. For example, you should not place a metal canton on a metal field. You should not place an Augmentation on arms in such a way as to destroy the design of the arms. The recipient has a voice in how the augmentation looks. I therefore caution against a surprise granting of an Augmentation other than the simple grant of the right, and recommend that the form of Augmentation be worked out later.

In reading through a number of books on names in preparation for putting out the Names Pamphlet, I have discovered that, by and large, flower names are out of period as given names, although they were used as surnames. Most flower names came into use in the 18th and 19th centuries. I therefore find myself forced to rule against flower names on the ground that they are out of period. Please see the Acceptances, p. 6, for the Kingdom of the West in the case of Alina de Montague for a more complete discussion.

In my readings for the Names Pamphlet I also came across another interesting item. John Field's Discovering Place-Names, p. 3, states: "Blencogo appears to be one of a great number of composite names which contain elements from two languages." It would seem – in England, at least – that it was common for place names to combine languages in a single-word name. Does anyone know if this is unique to England (a definite cultural melting pot), or was it common throughout Europe? If the latter, then we should probably make an exception (in the rule forbidding the combination of languages in a single word) for place names. It does appear that it is still improper to combine languages in given names or other types of bynames.

Albion writes to tell me that the cost of Papworth's has gone up. It is now £45. The postage and insurance is $7, so the total is about $81 now. Anyone wishing to order a copy through him should do so in the next few months while this price is still good.

The recipient of the Duke Siegfried Papworth Fund this month is the office of the Solar Herald. The March recipient will be the Triskele Herald (Principality of Trimaris). Huzzah! for His Grace's generosity.

I have completed and you will find enclosed a copy of the Supplement to the Rules for Submissions. As it says, this is a compilation of all of the additions, deletions, changes, and clarifications we have made to the Rules since they were sent to T.I. to be printed. I have added more examples to help clarify some questions, and I have incorporated the major "discourage" ideas I have seen repeatedly stated. I also include a statement on the temporal and geographical focus or scope of the SCA. Please note that these are only guidelines and imply no new rules, although they do help explain where some of our other rules come from. Since the Board will be polling the populace on the questions of temporal and geographic scope of the SCA, it is quite possible that the Board will change what I have written. For now, this is how I see our main temporal and Geographic focus.

A number of people complained that the degree of protection offered mon was too great, making mon unfairly better protected than normal devices. I have therefore modified the difference requirements slightly (see pp. 6 and 7 of the Supplement) to result in a more equitable arrangement that still allows those who wish to to adopt Japanese personas and use a mon in the Japanese style. Since Japan is the only country outside the scope of the SCA that used heraldry, it seems reasonable to allow them to use their system, just as we allow Polish personas to use Polish heraldry. The mon must still fit within our basic system and must be blazonable.

When the Ordinary & Armorial is finally reprinted for publication, I will include with it an updated version of the Rules for Submissions, incorporating this Supplement and any changes we make between now and then. If you have any complaints or suggestions about phrasings in this Supplement, please let me know before the Symposium. I hope that, by gathering all policy into one Supplement, it will be easier for all of us to know what the Rules are and to follow and enforce them.

You will note that, in the Supplement, I have decided to allow the actual registration of cadenced versions of a parent's arms by the children. This is so that we can be closer to period practice. Making use of the "discouraged" category, I discourage such registration in the case of young children. They may use such cadenced versions without registering them. The early registration of such cadenced arms for the children by the parents may inhibit the child's later freedom of choice on his/her own device. However, once a child has reached the age where s/he can make an informed decision to bear his/her parent's arms with a mark of cadency while the parent lives, I see no reason not to allow it. The parent must give permission and the child should be prepared, if s/he is not the heir, to change the cadenced version to a differenced version when the parent dies. As the College cannot, according to Corpora, compel such a change, it will be up to the child to initiate the change. This change is found in the Supplement as Section IX.S., pp. 4-5.

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

Your servant,

Master Wilhelm von Schlüssel
Laurel King of Arms

wvs:cfcvs

Encls:

  1. LOA&R
  2. Roster
  3. Duke Siegfried mailing
  4. Supplement to Rules for Submissions

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