To all the College of Arms and all others who may read this missive, from François Laurel King of Arms, Evan Wreath, and Margaret Pelican, greetings.

From Laurel: Layout change

Listing the status of the Letters of Intent and the dates of decision meetings has been taking more and more of the first page of the cover letter. While the status information is indeed important it is not the only communication included in the cover letter. And the unfortunate side effect of the status information growing is it is making the other communication from Laurel less obvious and more easily overlooked. For a few months, the order of the cover letter is changing to put the status table and meeting information at the end of the letter. The order of the information in the cover letter will be reviewed after the new year.

From François: Laurel office change

At the October 23 Board of Directors meeting I was appointed as Laurel Sovereign of Arms, taking over the office from Mistress Shauna of Carrick Point. Margaret Pelican and Evan Wreath have agreed to continue in office during my term.

Corpora requires every Society officer to be on probation for the first six months as a trial period. The warrant must be confirmed by the Directors at the end of the trial period in order to allow the officer to continue to hold the office. The Board of Directors did not confirm the warrant of Mistress Shauna as Laurel Queen of Arms.

I am pleased that Mistress Shauna has agreed to work as a Laurel deputy managing the files. Her help will limit the disruption from the sudden change in the office. Thank you, Shauna.

From Shauna: Laurel office change

At the Third Quarter Board Meeting, the Board of Directors of the Society chose not to confirm my warrant as Laurel Sovereign of Arms. The official letter I was sent after the meeting by the Board lists the areas where expectations were not met, and ends with the following paragraph:

We do thank you for your service, and encourage your continued activity within the heraldic community. No one doubts your heraldic abilities, your contributions or your commitment to serving the Society. However, we felt that a change was needed before the situation became even more complicated. After more direct experience at the Society level, we invite you to consider re-applying for the job of Laurel Sovereign at Arms.

I realize now that my inexperience at the Society level led to some critical mistakes. I plan to educate myself in my weak areas, and hope to try again in the future. I will be staying on to handle the physical files for the interim tenure of Master François and any transition period after that if the new appointee wishes me to help in that endeavor. This will allow for much less disruption of the submissions process.

I want to thank Master François for allowing me to put this into the June 2004 Cover Letter, and also wish to thank all those who have sent me private messages of support. I was very surprised at the many such messages I have received from all over the Society, and feel very humbled that I was allowed, for a brief time, to be in this position.

Thank you all, and I hope to continue to be of service to the best group of people that I know - heralds in the Society for Creative Anachronism.

From Laurel: A Call for Statement of Interest

In the next month or so, a formal call for applications for the office of Laurel Sovereign of Arms will be made by the Board of Directors. But until then, if you have any interest in applying for the Laurel office, either now or in a far-away future, please let me know.

Your statement of interest in the office will not be considered an application and you will not be drafted or strong-armed into applying. My purpose is to identify those who may want the job someday so that I can work you to provide a better understanding of the tasks and responsibilites of the job.

An informal note or email with a discussion of why you are interested in the office and what experience you have will help me to know where to start. Email can be sent to herald@sca.org.

From Pelican: Registerability of Russian/French names

In February 2004, the College was asked to consider whether there is sufficient evidence of significant contact between speakers of Russian and French in period to continue to allow registration of this combination with a weirdness was or whether the contact was so limited that this combination should be unregisterable under the guidelines for the registerability of lingual combinations set forth in the Cover Letter for the August 1999 LoAR. (for details, see the section "From Pelican: Call for Comments Regarding the Registerability of Names Combining Russian and French" in the Cover Letter for the November 2003 LoAR) The College was unable to demonstrate such contact. Therefore, names combining Russian and French are no longer registerable.

The registerability of names combining Russian and French has a mixed history.

Names mixing Russian and French were ruled unregisterable in 1993 (Marina la Perdu, 01/1993, R-West) for lack of "evidence of regular period contact between Russia and France". In 1996, a submission combining Russian elements with a French byname (Dasha Miloslava Broussard, 01/1996, R-Atlantia) was registered based on a persona story of "Russian girl marries French trader and adopts his surname". In 2001, a submission that was submitted as Russian and French (Jarucha Ekaterina Delamare, 04/2001, R-Caid) was redocumented in commentary as a mixture of Russian and English, though the ruling mentions French. In all of these cases, no evidence was provided supporting regular contact between Russian and French cultures.

In researching this issue, The College found only one mention of contact between these cultures. Nebuly describes his findings, which are typical to the information found by others in the College:

I have no good histories of either France or Russia, except what appears in larger volumes of mine covering the whole of Europe. However, I do own a rather lengthy, detailed, and recently published history of the Ukraine by Magocsi. Ukrainian and Russian were essentially the same language during SCA period, and as the westernmost portion of a region in which political boundaries were shifting and often ill-defined, a Ukrainian history can suitably stand in place of a Russian one for the purpose of seeking evidence of period cross-cultural contact. Using the index to Magocsi's book as a guide, I thus examined all pages in the book with reference to France through the chapters covering the 18th century.

Though the book itself is nearly 800 pages long, with considerable attention given to events in SCA period, France receives almost no mention prior to the Napoleonic period. With only two exceptions, period France is mentioned in Magocsi solely as an arena for events happening more generally in the whole of Europe, as for example in the discussion of Viking attacks, the Catholic Reformation, and other pan-European events. The earliest specific mention of a Ukrainian traveling to France and returning to Eastern Europe is on p. 274 (ibid.), where Kyrylo Rozumovs'kyi is described as "an eighteenth-century intellectual dilettante par excellence," in part because of his education in France, Italy, and Germany. As this is an 18th century event, it is well after the date needed to support the kind of cultural contact needed for the issue at hand. The only other example of contact given by Magocsi is a mention on pp.75-76 that Anna (daughter to Iaroslav the Wise, "grand prince and undisputed sovereign of all Rus', from Novgorod to Tmutorkan") was married to King Henry I of France in the early 11th century. Iaroslav apparently had an aggresive policy of marital diplomacy with several countries. However, his efforts to establish a strong centralized Russian state collapsed upon his death (Davies, p. 334), so any possible connection between Kievan Rus' and France would have died with him.

A single example in an extensive regional history of period contact, limited to a single royal marriage with no lasting dynasty on the Russian end is not significant cultural contact. Significant cultural contact would require evidence ongoing and extensive contact in one or more of the following areas: direct trade, diplomacy, travel, colonization, or other cultural contact. RfS III.1 says "Languages should be used together only if there was substantial contact between the cultures that spoke those languages." Because substantial contact between French and Russian cultures is lacking, French/Russian names can no longer be registered. Any French/Russian names considered after December, 2004 will be returned.

From Wreath: Alternate Blazons and Conflicts

This month we registered ...on a pale argent fimbriated vert, a peacock feather proper despite a possible conflict with ...on a pale vert three fangs palewise Or. The argument was made that both pieces of armory could be considered as ...a pale vert charged with <stuff>. However, in order for the new submission to fit this interpretation, it would be blazoned as ...on a pale vert a pale argent charged with a peacock feather proper. That would be four layers, which is unregisterable. Since the unregisterable blazon is the only blazon under which the conflict exists, this is not a conflict.

However, there are other circumstances do exist where there is a conflict with already registered armory due to reblazoning the registered armory. Last month, for example, we returned ...on a compass star argent a Maltese cross azure...for conflict with ...within a sun throughout argent, eclipsed azure, a goshawk displayed argent, giving no CD between the two excerpted parts. In this case the already registered armory would today be blazoned as ...on a sun throughout argent, a roundel azure charged with a goshawk displayed argent, emphasizing that the goshawk can be considered a quaternary charge and thus ignored completely when checking for conflict.

The main difference between these two cases is that in the "no conflict" example it was the new armory to which the problematic reblazon applied, while in the "yes conflict" example it was the old armory that had the unregisterable reblazon.

From Laurel: Outlands Heraldic Title Designator Changes

You will note in the acceptances section changes of designator for several of the Outland's heraldic titles. The request for the change was not put a LoI as a specific numbered item but was included in the body of the letter. The Administrative Handbook, section VI, "Requests for Correction and Change of Registered Items" is unfortunately vague on how changes such as the designator of a branch or in this case the degree of a heraldic title are to be requested.

The advantage of listing each administrative request as a numbered item on an LoI is that the processing of submissions is optimized to handle the numbered items, and is likely to miss requests not made through that process. The unfortunate consequence is the delay in making and publishing the action. We will accept these requests for change but do request and recommend that future such requests be made as numbered items on a LoI.

From Laurel: Electronic Policies revisited revisited

The cover letter of the May 2004 LoAR in discussing the "Timely Notification of Submitters" as defined by Section V.A.2 of the Administrative Handbook included an allowance for using email notification to meet the requirements. The policy allowing email notification is reversed. Email is not sufficient for final notification of acceptance or return of a submission.

Society Pages

It is with sadness that we acknowledge the passing of Duke Gyrth Oldcastle of Ravenspur. Duke Gyrth was Conch Herald of Atlantia and a former Brigantia Principal Herald of the East. He will be missed.

Roster Changes

The office Laurel Sovereign of Arms changed as of 23 October 2004, François la Flamme ..., currently on the roster as Herald Extraordinary, is changed to Laurel King of Arms and is added to the mailing list. The former Laurel Queen of Arms, Shauna of Carrick Point ... remains on the roster and mailing list as Laurel staff.

Please correct the entry for Margherita Alessia .... Margharetia Alessia should be listed under Laurel staff as Laurel Exchequer. As exchequer she does not require copies of the LoIs and LoCs so is removed from the mailing list but remains on the roster. All checks and money orders should be sent to her.

Gyrth Oldcastle of Ravenspur ..., former Conch Herald (Atlantia), is removed from the roster.

We welcome Haakon Bjornsson to the office of Triskele Principal Herald (Trimaris). Haakon Bjornsson ... is added to the roster and mailing list. The former Triskele, Sebastian Halyburton ... is removed from the roster and mailing list.

Send What to Whom

For all Letters of Intent, Comment, Response, Correction, et cetera, send one paper copy directly to each of the Sovereigns of Arms, Laurel, Pelican and Wreath at their mailing addresses as shown on the College of Arms mailing List.

Send Laurel office copies of all submissions-related paper, including

• Letters of Intent, Comment, Response, Correction, et cetera (note: such paper copies are in addition to the personal copies for Laurel and Wreath mentioned above)

• Submission packets (one copy of each name form plus documentation, including petitions; two colored copies of each armory form plus two copies of any associated documentation, including petitions)

to the SCA College of Arms, PO Box 31755, Billings, MT 59107-1755.

Send the required electronic copies of all submissions-related files to submissions@sca.org. This applies to all LoIs, LoCs, LoRs, et cetera.

Cheques or money orders for submissions, payable to "SCA Inc.-College of Arms" are to be sent directly to the Society Chancellor of the Exchequer who is temporarily acting as Laurel's chancellor of the exchequer.

Send roster changes and corrections to Laurel. College of Arms members may also request a copy of the current roster from Laurel.

For subscriptions to the paper copy of the LoAR, please contact Laurel, above. The cost for an LoAR subscription is $25 a year. Please make all checks or money orders payable to "SCA Inc.-College of Arms". For subscriptions to the electronic copy of the LoAR, please contact Laurel at herald@sca.org. The electronic copy is available free of charge.

For all administrative matters, or for questions about whom to send to, please contact Laurel.

Scheduling and Status Information

The June Wreath meeting was held on June 12 and the June Pelican meeting was held on June 13. They held the traditional Known World Heraldic Symposium road-show meeting on June 27.

The July Wreath meeting was held on July 10. The July Pelican meeting was held on July 25.

The August Pelican and Wreath meetings were held as a series of mini-meetings at Pennsic.

Wreath and Pelican held a joint meeting in the greater Washington D.C. area on September 25-26, with Wreath holding another meeting in advance on September 11.

The October meetings for both Wreath and Pelican were held the last weekend of October.

The November Pelican meeting was held November 20. The November Wreath meeting was held on November 13, with a continuation scheduled for November 26.

The December Pelican meeting will be held December 18. The December Wreath meeting is tentatively scheduled for December 18 and/or 27.

The January Pelican meeting is scheduled for January 15. The January Wreath meeting is tentatively scheduled for January 29, with a possible road show at University of Atlantia on February 5.

The February Pelican meeting is tentatively scheduled for February 19. The February Wreath meeting is tentatively scheduled for February 27, with a possible road show at East Kingdom Heraldic Collegium on February 26.

The following is a table showing the status of Letters of Intent, Laurel Letters of Pend and Discussion, and Letters of Intent to Protect. The header rows are the dates of the meetings that will consider them, the dates when primary commentary is due, and the dates when responses to primary commentary are due. The key follows.

Month day: the date on the Letter of Intent, Letter of Pend and Discussion, or Letter of Intent to Protect.
(Month day): for administrative reasons, this LoI has not yet been scheduled.
[P Month day]: postmarked on that bracketed date, so the LoI is redated or postponed.
"-": no LoI is scheduled for that meeting from that kingdom.
?: tentative.

Not all letters of intent may be considered when they are originally scheduled on this cover letter. The date of mailing of the LoI, date of receipt of the Laurel packet, or other factors may delay consideration of certain letters of intent. Additionally, some letters of intent received may not have been scheduled because the administrative requirements (receipt of the forms packet, receipt of the necessary fees, et cetera) have not yet been met.

REMINDER: Until all administrative requirements are met, the letter may not be scheduled.

Pray know that I remain

In service

François la Flamme
Laurel Principal King of Arms

Created at 2004-12-07T23:50:52