SCA - College of Arms
P.O. Box 742825
Dallas, TX 75374-2825
(214) 276-2129
October 26, 1994

Unto the members of the College of Arms and all others who may read this missive does Shayk Da'ud ibn Auda, Laurel King of Arms, send Greetings!

The October Laurel meeting was held on Saturday, October 8, 1994, and considered the following letters of intent: West (6/8), Calontir (6/12), Meridies (6/15), Caid (6/16), Middle (6/16), An Tir (6/19), Atlantia (6/20), Trimaris (6/20), Outlands (6/20), Drachenwald (6/27), and East (6/28). Original commentary on these LoIs should have been in the College's hands no later than August 31, 1994. Responses and rebuttals to commentary should have been in the College's hands no later than September 30, 1994.

The November Laurel meeting is scheduled for Saturday, November 19, 1994 [please note the corrected date], to consider the following letters of intent: Middle (7/13), Atlantia (7/17), Calontir (7/18), West (7/19), An Tir (7/21), East (7/22), Caid (7/23), Meridies (7/25), and Outlands (7/29). Original commentary on these LoIs should have been in the College's hands no later than September 30, 1994. Responses and rebuttals to commentary should have been in the College's hands no later than October 31, 1994.

The December Laurel meeting is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, December 17, 1994, to consider the following letters of intent: East (8/5), Outlands (8/11), West (8/11), An Tir (8/13), Caid (8/20), Calontir (8/21), Trimaris (8/25), Meridies (8/25), and Atlantia (8/27). Original commentary on these LoIs should have been in the College's hands no later than October 31, 1994. Responses and rebuttals to commentary must be in the College's hands no later than November 31, 1994.

The January 1995 Laurel meeting is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, January 14, 1995, to consider Letters of Intent dated and mailed in September 1994. Original commentary on these LoIs must be in the College's hands no later than November 30, 1994. Responses and rebuttals to commentary must be in the College's hands no later than December 31, 1994.

Not all Letters of Intent may be considered when they are originally scheduled on this Cover Letter. Date of mailing of the LoI, date of receipt of the Laurel packet, or other factors may delay consideration of certain Letters of Intent.

ROSTER CHANGES AND CORRECTIONS

Brigantia has a new address. It is Thomas de Castellon (Thomas F. Zadlo), 314 West Fifth Street, Lansdale, PA 19446. His phone number remains the same at (215) 362-1808.

A HAPPY ANNOUNCEMENT

Crescent has given birth to daughter Tareyn Rose Martin on October 19, 1994. According to the posting I saw, "Mother and daughter are doing fine. Lord Alexandre de Toulon has the happy glow of bemusement indicative of new fathers everywhere." [Nothing like having two more hands to help with the filing, eh, Lady Caitrin? J]

RULES CHANGES (or, What! Not Again?!!)

In the recent name rules revision, in Rule for Submission V.1.b.ii (Number of Name Phrases), the existence of a few anciently-registered names consisting of just a single element was overlooked. To restore the intended usage, this Rule is being modified to read: "ii. Number of Name Phrases - A personal name containing at most two name phrases does not conflict with any personal name containing a different number name phrases." The subtext remains the same.

The consensus of the College being that we should drop the unhistorical practice of the form of address "Lord [Heraldic title]" and "Lady [Heraldic title]", the use of placenames for heraldic titles need no longer be prohibited on the grounds that "Lord/Lady [placename]" could be considered a claim to "landedness".[1] As a consequence, the subtext of Rule for Submission III.2.b.iii (Heraldic Titles) is hereby replaced with the following sentence:

These are generally drawn from surnames (Chandos Herald, Percy Herald), place-names (Windsor Herald, Calais Pursuivant, Sicily Herald), names of heraldic charges (Crosslet Herald, Estoile Volant Pursuivant, Noir Lyon Pursuivant), names of orders of chivalry (Garter King of Arms), and mottos (Ich Dien Pursuivant, Esperance Pursuivant).

SOURCES AGAIN

Enclosed (if I haven't forgotten to include it! J) is the most recent price list from Free Trumpet Press West. As always, you are encouraged to copy and distribute as widely as possible.

Of special note is the publication of Paul Wickenden of Thanet's book of period Russian names. I recommend it highly to those of you interested in such.

JOB OPENING (or, Final Call!)

This is probably the last chance I will have to remind you that my warrant expires at the end of June 1995, and that if you are interested in applying for this position, you need to send a resume and letter so applying to the Board of Directors (with a courtesy copy to me) by December 1, 1994. As I have said before, if you have any questions about what the job entails, the size of the files, or any other queries you might have about the position, please feel free to ask me. (There has been some interest expressed by individuals who are not interested in taking on the entire job by themselves; if you would be interested in being part of a "team" to run the office, again, please feel free to contact me regarding what options have been discussed and with whom.)

A PHILOSOPHIC ISSUE

Harpy brought up a point well worth our consideration in her commentary on the submission of Bjorn Urho of the Pines. Her statement in full is:

Without meaning to pick on this submission in particular ... this is an example of what I was talking about with regard to the lingua anglica allowance in my last letter. By putting of the Pines into English and combining it with a non-English name, the submission entirely sidesteps the question of whether of the Pines would be a reasonable byname in either English or Finnish (or Swedish). It makes no logical sense to ask whether it is a reasonable period English byname because the context of the name is obviously not English. It only makes sense to ask if it is a grammatical English phrase. But the question of how it fits into Finnish (or Swedish) naming practices is also ignored. In this case, some sort of toponym involving pines seems inherently reasonable, but what if the submission had been Bjorn Urho of the Dancing Duck? What standards would we hold it to, and how?

Currently, the only reference I find in the RfS to what has been called the lingua franca allowance is found in RfS. III.1.a. (Linguistic Consistency), where the subtext notes that: "In the case of place names and other name elements frequently used in English in their original form, an English article or preposition may be used. For example, of Aachen might be used instead of the purely German von Aachen."

We are left then with precedent rather than rule for the continued application of the lingua franca anglica allowance. Given the increasingly international makeup of the Society, is it time to drop the allowance partially or completely? Or should we continue to allow phrases which do not sound too out of place in English (which remains the primary language of the Society), such as "of Baghdad", "the Wanderer" appended to an otherwise Mongol, Norse, etc. name, or, as above, "of the Pines" appended to an otherwise Norse/Finnish name? I would appreciate your thoughts on this issue.

MISCELLANY (or, You Think Our Alternate Titles Sound Strange?)

In a letter to "The Daily Telegraph" a journalist described how he had to pass details of a senior Royal Navy officer to the Japanese authorities. This officer was a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath.

This caused some problems in translation and after some delay, the interpreter came up with "The Very Important Samurai Of The Large Receptacle In Which One Washed Onself."

From The Heraldry Gazette, September 1994, p. 2

Until next month, I remain, as ever,

Your faithful servant,

Da'ud ibn Auda

Laurel King of Arms

[1] How should heralds properly be addressed then, you ask? By their title, unadorned with any other designation of rank or degree: the holder of this office is simply "Laurel"; Marta as tu Mika Misliwy is "Brickbat"; Owen ap Morgan is "Green Crown". This follows mundane practice, where, for example, the story is repeated about the Lyon King of Arms calling one of his staff on the telephone and greeting him with "Lyon here, is that you, Unicorn?"