Society for Creative Anachronism
College of Arms
For the November 2019 meetings, printed January 24, 2020
To all the College of Arms and all others who may read this missive, from Juliana Laurel, Alys Pelican, and Cormac Wreath, greetings.
From Pelican: Although I know that they have already been praised by Laurel for their commentary work, I cannot stress enough how much I rely on the hard work of Lillia Crampette, Alisoun Metron Ariston and Jeanne Marie Noir Licorne each and every month. You great ladies are my rocks and I cannot say thank you loudly or often enough.
Wreath is an unpaid position, currently requiring approximately 20 hours a week. Some knowledge of period heraldry is useful; knowledge of SCA heraldry is essential. The position requires considerable tact and patience, research and reasoning ability, a clear understanding of the Standards for Evaluation of Names and Armory and past Laurel rulings, the ability to write clearly and succinctly, the ability to work within tight deadlines and coordinate closely with Pelican, Laurel and other staff to produce a Laurel Letter of Acceptance and Return monthly, computer literacy and word processing skills, reliable e-mail and telephone access, and time and ability to travel. Given the current structure of the office, a high-speed internet connection is required.
Resumés must be sent electronically to Laurel at [email protected]. Resumés must be received by April 1, 2020, with an expected start date of summer 2020, to be determined with the Laurel staff.
This month, we addressed a conflict call against a household name that had been referenced in connection with a badge registration in 1984, but apparently not "registered" at that time. The College's treatment of household names has not been consistent over time. There was a period in time when household names were not registered as distinct items but merely referenced in related armory registrations. This practice creates ambiguity when later household name submissions potentially conflict with merely "referenced" items. To resolve this ambiguity, both for this month's submission and for future submissions, as of the date of this Letter, all "referenced" household names prior to January 1987 are hereby considered to be registered. We ask Morsulus to update the database accordingly.
This month we were presented with the question of whether Úlfrún Bergsdóttir conflicts with the registered Úlfrún Biornsdóttir. Under PN3C2 as currently written, the two names conflict. PN3C2 states: "If a vowel and the consonant or group of consonants on one side of this vowel is different between the two names, we consider a syllable to be substantially changed." Further PN3C2 gives the following example:
Margerie Clutter is not substantially different in sound from Margery Catter, because the given names sound identical and, although the first syllables of the bynames are different, the cl and c groups of consonants share a sound and the other consonant group is identical.
During the Pelican decision meeting, there was a lengthy discussion of whether this result made sense. Therefore, we are pending the name for discussion of whether PN3C2 should be changed to allow a single syllable to be clear of conflict if both the vowel and any part of the consonant cluster on either side of the vowel is different. Please comment on this proposal under the item for Úlfrún Bergsdóttir in this month's Letter of Pend and Discussion.
Several requests have been made in commentary recently to prohibit reliance on data from ancestry.com and other genealogical sites such as findmypast. Other commenters have requested that we treat data from ancestry.com as presumptively acceptable, similar to how we treat names from the FamilySearch Historical Records. Neither of these suggestions is being adopted.
Certain batches of the FamilySearch Historical Records are treated as presumptively good documentation because they are compiled via a refereed extraction program. Batches compiled in this way (and thus presumptively acceptable as documentation) are those beginning with B, C, J, K, M (except M17 and M18), or P. Batches beginning with I are acceptable only on a case-by-case basis and depend on whether or not the individual microfilm extracted is a period record or not. Batches that are all digits, begin with M17 or M18, D, F, H, L, or T are not acceptable. Batch numbers not listed here are evaluated on a case by case basis.
The website ancestry.com currently uses a similar referred extract action program. Because that program started at a later date than that used by FamilySearch, more of the names appearing in ancestry.com's indices are questionable. Therefore, extracted names from ancestry.com are not acceptable documentation. However, ancestry.com remains useful because many of the indices refer directly to images of primary source period documents.
Scanned images of primary sources are acceptable documentation, even if they are accessed through sites such as ancestry.com or findmypast. Images from post-period sources are evaluated in the same way as any other source, such as academic articles, and may be acceptable on a case-by-case basis.
Extracted data from other genealogical sites, for which we have no information on their extraction methodology or organization, are not acceptable name documentation. User-submitted records from FamilySearch, ancestry.com or other genealogical sites are not acceptable documentation unless they have links to scanned primary source documents. Even in that case, the scanned documents themselves, not the record on the website, is the documentation.
We thank Jeanne Marie Noir Licorne for her assistance with this item.
In her July 2, 2019 Letter, Palimpsest proposed a series of equivalent titles in the Anglo-Norman dialect, based on research work done by Maister Iago ab Adam. We hereby accept the following as official alternate titles and direct Palimpsest to update the List of Alternate Titles (under both the English and French language groups) accordingly.
Daunt and variants for Award or Grant of Arms (male)
Donna and variants for Award or Grant of Arms (female)
Seigneur and variants for Award or Grant of Arms (male)
Seignouresse and variants for Award or Grant of Arms (female)
Baron and variants for Barony (male)
Baron(n)esse and variants for Barony (female)
Prince and variants for Coronet (male)
Princess(e) and variants for Coronet (female)
Conte for County (male)
Contesse for County (female)
Erle for County (male)
Duc for Duchy (male)
Duc(h)esse for Duchy (female)
Rei and Roi for Crown (male)
Rei(g)ne and Royne for Crown (female)
Chival(i)er for Knight (male)
Chivailieresse and Dame for Knight (female)
Mestre and variants for Peerage Order (male)
Me(i)stresse and Dame for Peerage Order (female)
Visconte and variants for Viscounty (male)
Vicontesse for Viscounty (female)
Although the present individual name submission forms contain check boxes for the gender of the submitter, heralds and submitters should know that we do not need that information to process a name submission. If submitters would rather not provide that information, they do not have to do so.
For the purposes of grammar and name construction, however, it's very helpful to know the desired gender of the name being submitted (which does not have to match the gender of the submitter). The current options are for male, female and "don't care." If the submitter explicitly desires a gender neutral name (as opposed to "doesn't care") please so state in the body of the documentation and we will do our best to document such a form.
This month we registered the Arabic name M{a-}lik ibn {Dj_}inn{i-} al-{Sh_}ayb{a-}n{i-}. The Encyclopedia of Islam transliteration scheme required the creation of Da'ud notation for two new characters.
{Dj_} is "Dj" with an underline that indicates that these represent one Arabic letter. In other transliterations, it is {Gv}. {dj_} is the lower case version of the same character.
{Sh_} is "Sh" with an underline that indicates that these represent one Arabic letter. In other transliterations, it is {Sv}. {sh_} is the lower case version of the same character.
As with other letters that are not in Latin-1, the fully Da'ud encoded form will be shown in the Ordinary and Armorial.
For the past few years, we have received submissions that do not meet the stringent guidelines that current precedent sets for erased body parts; namely that there be between three and eight jags, and that they take up 1/6 to 1/3 the overall height of the charge. We have usually declined to invoke said precedent as a grounds for return, as the intent of the submitter is clear and there is no DC for couped vs. erased.
To bring precedent into line with policy, we will explicitly state that while the guidelines laid out in the November 2001 Cover Letter are good to follow, they are not required. We also explicitly invoke the January 2011 precedent which states: "We will not be returning armory which is clearly meant to be erased unless the number of jags is overwhelming or the jags are too small to be clearly seen as erased." [Algar MacBlane, 1/2011 LoAR, A-An Tir]
On December 6, 2019, Aurore de Flandres, longtime baronial herald for the Barony of 1000 Eyes and at-large Artemisian Herald, passed away. She will be missed.
On January 4, 2020, at their final court Their Majesties Wilhelm and Tsyra made Godfrey Spelman of Hexham, Moucheture Pursuivant, a companion of the Order of the Dolphin of Caid. The Dolphin is Caid's AoA level award for service.
Please send information about happenings to major heralds and major happenings to all heralds to Laurel, so that it can be published here.
Letters of Intent, Comment, Response, Correction, et cetera are to be posted to the OSCAR online system. No paper copies need be sent. All submission forms plus documentation, including petitions, must be posted to the OSCAR online system. While black-and-white emblazons must be included in the Letter of Intent, only colored armory forms need to be posted in the forms area.
Cheques or money orders for submissions, payable to "SCA Inc.-College of Arms" are to be sent to Trent Le Clair, 928 Frazier Dr, Walla Walla WA 99362
Send roster changes and corrections to Laurel. College of Arms members may also request a copy of the current roster from Laurel.
For a paper copy of a LoAR, please contact Laurel, at the address above. The cost for one LoAR is $3. Please make all checks or money orders payable to "SCA Inc.-College of Arms". The electronic copy of the LoAR is available free of charge. To subscribe to the mailings of the electronic copy, please see the bottom of http://heraldry.sca.org/heraldry/lists.html#lists for more instructions.
For all administrative matters, please contact Laurel.
Items listed below in square brackets have not been scheduled yet. For information about future scheduling, please review the status table located on the Web at http://oscar.sca.org/index.php?action=137.
The November Laurel decisions were made at the Pelican meeting held on Sunday, November 10, 2019 and the Wreath meeting held on Sunday, November 17, 2019. These meetings considered the following letters of intent: Calontir (07 Aug, 2019), Æthelmearc (12 Aug, 2019), Caid (22 Aug, 2019), Atlantia (24 Aug, 2019), Ealdormere (25 Aug, 2019), Palimpsest LoItUP (27 Aug, 2019), Artemisia (28 Aug, 2019), East (29 Aug, 2019), Drachenwald (30 Aug, 2019), Northshield (30 Aug, 2019), An Tir (31 Aug, 2019), Atenveldt (31 Aug, 2019), Laurel (31 Aug, 2019), Laurel LoPaD (31 Aug, 2019), Meridies (31 Aug, 2019), and Outlands (31 Aug, 2019). All commentary, responses, and rebuttals should have been entered into OSCAR by Thursday, October 31, 2019.
The December Laurel decisions were made at the Pelican meeting held on Sunday, December 15, 2019 and the Wreath meeting held on Sunday, December 8, 2019. These meetings considered the following letters of intent: Avacal (03 Sep, 2019), Calontir (09 Sep, 2019), West (20 Sep, 2019), Ealdormere (23 Sep, 2019), Ealdormere (25 Sep, 2019), Northshield (27 Sep, 2019), Avacal (28 Sep, 2019), Drachenwald (29 Sep, 2019), An Tir (30 Sep, 2019), Ansteorra (30 Sep, 2019), Atenveldt (30 Sep, 2019), Atlantia (30 Sep, 2019), Caid (30 Sep, 2019), East (30 Sep, 2019), Gleann Abhann (30 Sep, 2019), Meridies (30 Sep, 2019), Outlands (30 Sep, 2019), Trimaris (30 Sep, 2019), Laurel LoPaD (18 Oct, 2019) (redraws), and Laurel LoPaD (31 Oct, 2019) (redraws). All commentary, responses, and rebuttals should have been entered into OSCAR by Saturday, November 30, 2019.
The January Laurel decisions were made at the Pelican meeting held on Sunday, January 12, 2020 and the Wreath meeting held on Sunday, January 19, 2020. These meetings considered the following letters of intent: Lochac (31 Aug, 2019) (pushed due to packet not uploaded), Calontir (05 Oct, 2019), Middle (05 Oct, 2019), Æthelmearc (13 Oct, 2019), Æthelmearc (14 Oct, 2019), Palimpsest Rules Letter (15 Oct, 2019), An Tir (22 Oct, 2019), Atenveldt (25 Oct, 2019), Ealdormere (27 Oct, 2019), Artemisia (28 Oct, 2019), West (28 Oct, 2019), Outlands (29 Oct, 2019), Drachenwald (30 Oct, 2019), Ansteorra (31 Oct, 2019), Atlantia (31 Oct, 2019), Caid (31 Oct, 2019), East (31 Oct, 2019), Meridies (31 Oct, 2019), Northshield (31 Oct, 2019), Laurel LoPaD (01 Nov, 2019), and Laurel LoPaD (30 Nov, 2019) (redraws). All commentary, responses, and rebuttals should have been entered into OSCAR by Tuesday, December 31, 2019.
Not all letters of intent may be considered when they are originally scheduled on this cover letter. The date of posting 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,
Juliana de Luna
Laurel Queen of Arms
Created at 2020-01-24T18:12:24