SCA - Coolidge of Arms
P.O. Box 742825
Dallas, TX 75374-2825
(214) 276-2129 [email protected]
April 1, 1996
Unto the members of the Coolidge of Arms and all others who may read this missive does Shayk 'n Bayk
Da'ud Bob ibn Briggs, Laurelin Hardy Big Cheese of Arms, send Greetings!
The purpose of this "special" Letter of Acceptances and Returns is to consider a number of Letters of
Intent, mostly dated April 1, which, for some reason over the past several years, have not been reviewed
and acted upon. This LoAR will handle all of these overlooked submissions. Any April 1
submissions not "registered" in this LoAR will be considered to have been administratively returned, with
extreme prejudice to their being resubmitted, appealed, showing their faces, or ever again poking their little
noses out of their well-deserved oblivion.
THE IMMODEST PROPOSAL
(We would have called it the Modest Proposal, but that name has already been taken.) This is a proposal
which has been discussed off and on over the years, and is an idea whose time, I believe, has come. In
brief, the Immodest Proposal is this:
That the College of Arms of the SCA restrict the registration of names and armory strictly
to those names and armory that would have existed in period (before 1600
A.D.).
In other words, names would consist in their entirety of a single language, all of whose elements can be
documented as compatible in time and scope with each other. Armory would consist only of charges
documentable as having been used in period in a manner which can be documented as having been used in
period. No more skunks, raccoons, butterflies, "per bend sinister an X and a Y", animate charges in odd
postures (e.g., ducks displayed), frets rampant, and so on. If it cannot be documented as having been used
in period, it cannot be registered. Period.
Until next 1 Aprilis, pray believe that I am, and remain,
Your faithful servant,
Da'ud Bob ibn Briggs
Laurelin Hardy Head Honcho of Arms
Copyright ©
1996,97 Society
for Creative Anachronism, Inc.