Unto the members of the College of Arms,
from Baldwin of Erebor, Laurel King of Arms.
My lords and ladies,
Enclosed herewith is the letter of acceptances
and returns for the Laurel meeting of August 25th. Submissions
were processed at this meeting for Ansteorra (5/8), Atenveldt
(5/16), Caid (5/16), An Tir (5/23), West (5/26), East (5/28),
and East (5/30). There were 192 items approved, 16 returned,
and 2 pending, for a 91% approval rate.
Schedule
The October meeting has been scheduled for
the 20th. Letters to be processed at this meeting are Middle
(7/4) [heraldic titles], Atenveldt (7/5) [two letters], West (7/10)
[appeal], Caid (7/11), Middle (7/15), Atlantia (7/26), East (7/27),
East (7/28), West (7/28), and East (7/29). Letters of comment
for this meeting should arrive not later than October 12.
The November meeting has been scheduled
for the 10th. Letters of intent will be reviewed from Ansteorra
(8/1), Ansteorra (8/5), Caid (8/7), West (8/18), and Ansteorra
(8/31). Letters of comment for this meeting should arrive
no later than November 2.
The tentative date for the December meeting
is the 15th. This is subject to change depending on local event
and work schedules.
Personnel
The phone number given for Asterisk Herald
in the August 25th edition of the College of Arms roster is incorrect;
it should be (405) 2480427. 'Please remove Lord Vergil
William de Comyn from the list of commenting heralds.
Blazonry
A comment of Baron Alfgar's sent me haring
off through my references for ways of blazoning a field parted
along the lines of a pall or a pall inverted. I was looking in
particular for the origin of the expression tierced in point,
which has been in use in SCA heraldry for a number of years.
The standard English term for a field divided
along the lines of a pall, derived directly from the French, is
tierced in pairle (tiercé en pairle). According
to J. P. BrookeLittle, "This way of dividing the field
is comparatively recent, which is perhaps why this rather clumsy
term has been imported from the continent rather than employing
a new but obvious term, 'per pall'." ( An Heraldic Alphabet,
p. 204) Julian Franklyn's Shield and Crest also mentions
"party per pall" as a possibility.
The inverted form appears to have been more
common, if the number of alternative forms of blazon is any guide.
The most common term is tierced in pairle reversed, from
the French tiercé en pairle renversé. (In
mundane armory, reversed means 'upsidedown'.) A couple
of the sources I consulted gave per chevron and in chief per
pale as a possibility, as well as enté in point,
and Julian Franklyn offers per graft, a form not mentioned
in my other references. (Enté in point may or may
not be curved; my sources seem to disagree.)
I was unable to substantiate the SCA usage
tierced in point. I suspect it is a hybrid, produced by
crossing tierced in pairle with enté in point.
Based on the information I was able to find,
I have drawn the following inferences. (Please note that the research
was too superficial for these to represent "conclusive"
proof of anything.)
1) Although the pall is period, it seems
to have been largely unknown in English armory until comparatively
recent times.
2) Dividing a field into three pieces
including per pall appears to be an import from Continental
armory.
3) Some writers, especially those with a
Scottish bias, regard this as a form of marshalling. Woodward,
it should be noted, considers it a field division.
I was particularly intrigued by the definition
given for enté in the OED: the past participle of
the French verb enter 'to graft', "Said of an emblazonment
in which one coat of arms is engrafted or impaled in another."
This would explain both Franklyn's use of the term "per graft"
and the connection with marshalling; and it gives us a graphic
translation for enté in point 'grafted in
point' i.e., with another coat grafted into the position
occupied by the charge we know as a "point pointed."
This supports the complaint that "Per pall with a different
charge in each section looks like a form of marshalling."
As the result of the foregoing, I have decided
to stop using tierced in point in blazon. Per pall,
per pall inverted, tierced in pairle, and tierced in
pairle inverted are all acceptable. Per graft seems
to be confined to the writings of Julian Franklyn, and the exact
meaning of enté in point is unclear; both definitions
are difficult to find, and the terms are not intuitively obvious.
I feel therefore that they should not be used.
Policy changes
Starting with letters of intent dated on or after December 1, 1985, I propose to return any submission consisting of a field divided per pall or per pall inverted, and containing nonidentical charges in each of the three sections, as being too complex. This particular combination has previously been disallowed for badges (5 Jan 85, p. 21); the change would be to extend the proscription to apply to devices as well.
I would also like to suggest, as a rule
of thumb, that the use of three or more nonidentical charges
in what would conventionally be considered a "group"
may also cause a submission to be returned as too complex. This
would allow, say, "Vert, a chevron argent between two suns
and a rose Or," but would disallow "Or, a sun, a rose,
and an ankh all purpure."
Book review
While browsing through the reference section
of a local discount bookstore the other day, I ran across a copy
of The New American Dictionary of First Names by Leslie
Dunkling and William Gosling. I assumed from the cover that it
was Yet Another Execrable BabyName Book; then I flipped
through it, and was pleasantly surprised. Much of the material
is based on original statistical research on the popularity of
specific names at different times; this is supplemented by etymological
and historical information drawn from the best sources known to
the authors.
The ninepage Introduction includes
a brief survey of notable works on English given names, discusses
the approach taken by the authors in compiling the book, and concludes
with a very good synopsis of the process one goes through in trying
to document a given name (the page is titled "If the name
you're looking for isn't in this dictionary ...").
The book is in a single alphabet, with the
headwords being the most common form of each name. (There
are also a number of crossreferences.) The entries include
gender, source language or culture, etymology, variants (including
pet forms and diminutives), periods of usage, and notable examples
drawn from history and literature. I will have to leave it to
a more experienced linguist to evaluate the technical quality
of the book, but the entries I've looked at appear to be accurate.
The focus of the book is on recent English
and American usage, which reduces its usefulness to us; it won't
replace Withycombe, or Reaney, or the better refer-ences on names
for a given culture. But it contains a great deal of information
on periods of usage, it is careful to note when a modern given
name started out as a surname or place name, and its $4.95 price
places it within the reach of even the most impoverished local
herald. If the quality of the material turns out to be as high
on closer analysis as it does at first glance, the book could
turn out to be a very good investment.
The edition I picked up was published in
the United States by Signet, and bears an October 1985 imprint
and a 1983 copyright date. The same book has been published previously
as The Facts on File Dictionary of First Names and in England
as Everyman's Dictionary of First Names.
Bibliography
Like rosters and consumer electronics, bibliographies
are fated to be out of date as soon as they're released.
Laurel office
Eowyn Amberdrake (Melinda Sherbring). Medieval monster mix and match.
Tournaments Illuminated 76: 2931,
Fall 1985.
D. Simon Evans. A Grammar of Middle
Welsh. The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1976. (donated
by AG; copy]
A. C. FoxDavies. A Complete Guide
to Heraldry. Revised by J. P. Brooke-Little. Bonanza Books,
1985. Reprint of 1969 edition.
Personal library
Gerard J. Brault. Early Blazon: Heraldic
Terminology in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries with Special
Reference to Arthurian Literature. Oxford University Press,
1972.
Leslie Dunkling and William Gosling. The
New American Dictionary of First Names. Signet/New American
Library, 1985. Published previously as The Facts on File Dictionary
of First Names and Everyman's Dictionary of First Names.
Bruno Bernard Helm. Heraldry in the
Catholic Church: Its Origin, Customs and Laws. Van Duren
and Humanities Press, 1978.
I pray you believe me to be, my lords and
ladies,
Your servant,
Baldwin of Erebor
Laurel King of Arms
enclosures