April 1982 Letter of Acceptances and Returns

April 21, 1982 XVI A.S.

TO: The Members of the College of Arms

FROM: Master Wilhelm von Schlüssel, Laurel King of Arms

Greetings!

Enclosed is the April letter of Acceptances & Rejections, containing 95 acceptances and 12 rejections. The success ratio is improving. Congratulations to the West for a perfect score on their letter of Intent! My next meeting will be on Sunday, May 23, 1982, at which time I will process the following LoIs: Meridies (2/15/82), Atenveldt (2/23/82), and Middle (3/1/82). The Meridies letter was held over from the April meeting because it wasn't actually sent out until March. If an LoI is received at my office ten or more days after it is dated, I will process it by the date received.

My following meeting will be on Sunday, June 13, 1982 at which time I will process the following LoIs: Caid (3/3/82), East (3/5/82), West (3/11/82), Caid (3/16/82), An Tir (3/22/82) and Atenveldt (3/23/82). I have decided, in response to all the complaints about insufficient time to comment, to extend my backlog to a full three months' average. This means that each month I will process all letters dated on or before the first of the month two months previous. Thus, in June I will process all letters dated on or before April 1. In July I will process all letters dated on or before May 1. You will now always know what letters I will be processing. I may hold one back if it send out too late, but your comments on it will just be used the following month. This guarantees that you will have a minimum of 10 weeks to comment on each letter. That had better be enough, because it is all I will allow. For many of you, the time will be longer-up to 14 weeks for those that were dated near the first of the month. I hope that now there will be time for the Principal Heralds to be able to reply to the comments on their LoIs before I process those LoIs.

As usual, there are some changes to the mailing list. Charles Stewart has his title changed from Mural Herald to Morgenstern Herald. This title is now approved. The new correspondence herald for Atlantia is Lord Vuong Manh, Kraken Herald (Dick Eney, 5400 Gallatin St., Hyattsville, MD 20781). Triton will continue to comment as well. Next month I hope to send out a complete roster of the College of Arms, as opposed to a mailing list. Not all members of the CoA are on the mailing list, but it is handy to have their addresses too. I hereby delete Diadem from the mailing list for not commenting since December. I have received one Oaken Herald. If I receive another I will put her back on the list. I will not accept commenting only once every three months. Anyone wishing to then get back on the list will have to obtain copies of letters from their PH and send in two LoCs to show they are really active again.

I am enclosing a copy of the new compilation of the CoA guidelines. This includes everything I have said in my tenure plus some new material with regard to how things should be done in the CoA. I hope that by collecting it all in one place, it will be easier for all to follow. I also include a list of all known SCA and mundane heraldic titles (including the Society for the Restoration of Logres (SRL) and IPOC) which was typed up by Mistress Meriweather of the Four Winds, a list of SCA Orders, Titles & Awards, and a list of Mundane Orders and Awards. Please use these lists to avoid conflicts. I have received a marvelous description of the Submission & Registration Process from Aten. She is to be commended for it. I enclose a copy in case any of you wish to adapt it to your kingdom's use.

A number of people sent in corrections for the Armorial and reminders that certain submissions have been overlooked. These have all been acted on. Most of them appear in the LA&R. Those that were simply notes to the Armorial (such as delete a duplicate entry) will be done but are not in the LA&R. If you do not see something you sent in and it was a substantive change of issue, then send it to me again, as I may have missed or forgotten it.

There is some confusions about the compact with the Society for the Restoration of Logres. They will send me copies of their tentative acceptances. I will then send copies of that list to certain members of the CoA to check for conflicts. (If anyone wants to volunteer to help check them, I will be happy to send them a copy, too.) Then send me their comments. I compile all the comments and reply to Logres. Logres' CoA then makes is final decision and sends me a list of final acceptances, which I will then send out to all of you so that you can check our submissions against them to avoid having one of our submissions conflict with theirs. Eventually they will have enough acceptances to generate their own armorial. Similarly, they will check their submissions against our Ordinary and LA&Rs to avoid conflicting with us. Neither of use actually determines the fate of the other's submissions, as we are independent groups. Those checking SRL submissions should realize that only name and blazon conflicts and violations of mundane heraldic rules should be noted, as their rules and style of heraldry may differ from ours.

For those interested, Morimoto Koryu has access to Japanese seals (personal, ancient formal, and mon) such as he uses on his letters. He can obtain them in Seattle. Anyone interested should write to him about it. I would like to ask that all appeals be included in LoIs so the CoA can comment on them. This does not mean minor corrections, but does include any request for a major change as well as a direct appeal of my decisions. Those members who are not PHs (except Virgule and Green Staff) should send their appeals to their PH to be included in the next LoI. I will allow for urgent appeals to violate this ("She is going to be Queen in two weeks"), but I don't want to see everything billed as urgent. Please check the L&R in which a submission is dealt with before you assume I made an error. Sometimes the misspellings are deliberate corrections on my part to errors made by the submittor. Sometimes the LoI and submission form disagrees and then I use what was on the submission form. When a submission is resubmitted under a changed name, the blazon must be repeated so it can be checked again, even if I said it seemed acceptable before. In the intervening time, a submission may have passed that now conflicts with it, and so the submission must be rechecked by the CoA. Any resubmission which does not list the blazon on the LoI will be automatically rejected.

I will be writing a letter to the newsletters explaining the last paragraph in the letter from the Board with the five proposals, and explaining the grace period and other current matters. I will send you copies. Briefly, the last paragraph was for informational purposes only. They were not proposals. The designations Squire, Protegé, and Apprentice were approved in accordance with the provisions in Corpora requiring me to approval all such titles. They are to be used as designation's (John's protégé, Sir Ralph's squire, Mistress Eleanor's apprentice), not titles. These designations are up to individual kingdom custom, but they should not be used as formal titles. Thus, Squire John, Protegé John, or Apprentice John should not be used in a formal manner, as they are not official titles. (For that matter, Esquire I not authorized, as it is a formal title, not a designation. I am willing to consider a request for Esquire, but it is not currently authorized.) The BoD is adamant that all official and unofficial titles and designations must be cleared through my office (I didn't ask for it), so each PH should send me any new title or designation for clearance as soon as it comes to their attention.

In response to several questions, if you want to use the form of address of "The Honourable" for holders of grants of arms and you wish to have something similar for peers, the period usage is "The Most Honourable." This is used for any and all peers. Remember that all peers are equal in rank (that's what "peer" means). In England, all titled nobility from Barons up to Dukes are Peers of the Realm, having equal rank (that of peer) and one seat in the House of Lords. Some have a higher dignity (such as a Duke versus a Count) because they have a title with higher precedence. They are all peers.

There are three ranks of nobility in the SCA: holders of Awards of Arms, Grants of Arms, and Patents of Arms. Within each rank there are a number of levels corresponding to different titles or memberships in Orders. These levels have difference precedence in the Order of Precedence, but they have the same rank. The Royal Peers are an anomaly because the BoD separated their titles from Patents of Arms. If they are awarded Patents of Arms, then they are in the same rank as the members of the Orders of Peerage. If they are not awarded Patents of Arms, then they have the rank of whatever rank of Arms they are given. (In Meridies, which does not give Patents of Arms to Royal Peers, their current Queen was given an Award of Arms before she was crowned so she would be armigerous when she became a Countess. In Meridies, the Peers (Laurel, Pelican, Chivalry) do in fact have a higher rank than the Royal Peers.) I do not myself understand how you can call a group which doesn't have Patents of Arms peers, yet the BoD called them Royal Peers in the Corpora. A better term would be Titled Nobility.

In response to my question, most of you felt that semé is a treatment of the field, so that is how we will consider it. This means that an SCA device which consists of a field, semé of something, plus one or more charges is automatically sufficiently different by the complete difference of charge rule from a mundane arms consisting of just that field semé of something. This is equivalent to saying that we do not worry about conflicts between mundane arms consisting only of a field or a field semé and an SCA submission which adds a major charge to that field or field semé. An exception is the arms of France Ancient (Azure, semé-de-lis Or), which may not be used as a field in the SCA. Inasmuch as only unusual cases will allow an SCA member to register a device consisting of only a field or only a field semé, I feel the complete difference rule should not apply for conflicts between these and other SCA devices. If somebody added a major charge to the arms of Raymond the Mild (Bendy pily sable and Or), I would say that is only one point and another is needed (such as; changing the sable to azure) because, as Master Raymond's arms are so distinctive and unusual, there would be a visual conflict with any device that just added a charge. The same is true for an SCA device consisting solely of a field semé. One must change one of the colors of the field or semé or the type of semé as well as add a charge.

Note also that making semé a treatment of the field means that now, if you go from Azure, a cross Or to Vert, bezanty, a cross Or, then you have only one point of difference, because that is all you can ever have for difference of the field. Adding the semé does change the outline, which will help when considering the case of conflict through identical outlines.

I have received a copy of the Laws of Atlantia, which are the first I have seen that address the problem of Patents of Arms for all Royal Peers in accordance with the Corpora. The provision states: Royal Peerages earned in the Kingdom of Atlantia shall be accompanied by Patents of Arms. People earning such peerages shall be assumed to fulfill the basic requirements for elevation to the peerage, until a Court of Chivalry should find otherwise. I have checked with the Chairman of the BoD and this is acceptable, although it would be better if the words for elevation to the peerage were replaced with the words "for Patents of Arms." Other kingdoms should take note of this first approved usage. The Laws of Caid, the East, and Meridies do not have a section granting Patents of Arms to Royal Peers, so Royal Peers in those kingdoms apparently do not receive Patents. Those Laws are approved. If they wish Royal Peers to receive Patents, they will have to add a provision to their Laws.

The Laws of the Middle do not give Patents of Arms to all Royal Peers. They do give Patents of Arms to members of the Order of the Rose. The wording is: Membership in the Order of the Rose shall confer a Patent of Arms in the Middle Kingdom. Candidates for the Order shall have held the office of Queen for at least one full reign and meet the general requirements for Patents of Arms as stated in Corpora. Members of the Order ,in consultation with the Princess, shall determine if a candidate meets these requirements. This law is approved. The Laws of An Tir are not in accordance with Corpora, having made the granting of Patents of Arms to Royal Peers automatic. I do not have current copies of the Laws of Ansteorra, the West, or Atenveldt.

The SCA Co-Chronicler, Master Bertram, informs me that the reprinting of the Caerthan Symposium has been put out to bid and he hopes to have it reprinted by summer. I asked him to get it printed ASAP because people are waiting for copies. He has offered to get the proceedings for all future symposia printed up in sufficient numbers to handle immediate and future orders. The proceedings would be a regular SCA Stock Clerk item. I also told him of the idea of a pamphlet in the pamphlet series dealing with names. This would be a guide to how to create, spell, and pronounce a Society name in the most common languages and cultures of our period. He was enthusiastic about the idea. If any of you would like to help contribute to this pamphlet, write to him and tell him so (c/o Dave Schroeder, 71 Courtney Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15202).

Speaking about symposia, I would like to invite all of you to consider sending in a bid for the 1983 Heraldic Symposium. All bids are due in my hands two weeks before the 1982 Heraldic Symposium, which is to say on or before September 17, 1982. I am rather unhappy about the way this year's symposium has been handled, and so I am laying down some guidelines. The bid shall be fore a date between April 1 and November 1, with priority given to dates that do not conflict with major kingdom events in any kingdom. A particularly good date would be the weekend before or after Pennsic or World Con. (The East might wish to make a bid for holding the 1983 Symposium in Baltimore next to the 1983 World Con weekend, which is in Baltimore that year.) Atlantia is already preparing a bid for April to coincide with the visit of John Brooke-Little, Norroy King of Arms.

The site for the symposium should be convenient to a major airport and should be in an area worth sight seeing in. There should sufficient variety of nearby restaurants to provide sites for dinner parties. Arrangements should be made to board attendees. There were 50 heralds at the 1981 Symposium. Given growth, this could mean finding places for 100 visitors. Provision should be made for food on site, either by having nearby restaurants within walking distance or by having prepared food on site for sale. The site should include a room able to hold all the attendees at once plus several smaller rooms for seminars and discussion groups. Audio-visual equipment should be on hand, as well as chalkboards, tables, and sufficient chairs. A revel should be planned for one of the evenings. Provisions should be made for assisting visitors in sightseeing.

The bid should include the names and addresses of the members of the bid committee, an organizational description of who will handle which functions, a description of the experience of each member with regard to organizing conventions and SCA events, the proposed dates of the symposium, the proposed site (or sites) of the symposium, a description of the site and the region the site is in, and a description of the availability of public transportation, local drivers, airports, restaurants, etc. The reason for all of this is so we can be sure that the winning bid committee is actually prepared to put on a good symposium. The bids will be discussed at the 1982 Symposium in Meridies, and I will make my decision based on feedback from everybody. Two weeks before the symposium I will send out copies of the bids, if this has not already been done by the bidders, and those members of the CoA not attending the symposium will have until the week after the symposium to send their opinions to me. Based on all of the feedback and the bids, I will make my decision in the latter part of October and then announce the result. It will then be up to the bid committee to put out periodic reports on the symposium and to run it. Once a committee has been granted the bid, it is up to them to run the symposium. I will not be involved in it, save as a consultant. It would be well to include in the bid the expected cost for attending the symposium, listing the symposium fee, cost of the proceedings, cost of food and lodgings, and possible cost of local transportation. I realize that it may not be possible to satisfy all of the requirements listed above, but these are the considerations I will be using in selecting the bid. I have been on seven convention committees and the requirements above are what are used all the time for convention bids.

In answer to several requests, I will try to be more consistent in applying the rules. If you catch me not doing so, feel free to tell me about it. I read and consider everything sent to me.

Master Renfield has received his hard disk and is now at work on the new Ordinary. It will have the capacity to have cross-references for all of the household names and alternate persona names, so these will be properly protected. Because of this, all household names, aliases, and alternate persona names will have to conform to the name rules. I am minded to allow each member of the SCA to register one alias under his/her primary name. This could be a nickname, a name of an alternate persona, or a variant of his/her SCA name. Thus, Master Ioseph could register Ioseph the Rhymer under his official name of Ioseph of Locksley, as the former is a variant by which he is often known. Only one such sub-name would be allowed. These would be protected in the same manner as household names. What do you think?

This brings us to household names. What rules should we use for them? How should we consider conflicts with them? Clearly, nobody should be able to register the exact same household name without permission from the owner of the firs household name. Going beyond exact conflict, how close is too close? If we have a registered household name of House Treetop, then clearly only a member of that household should be able to register a name like John of House Treetop, but what about John of Treetop? If John of Treetop is already registered, can somebody register House Treetop? It seems clear to me that nobody should use the name of a city, state, or region as a household name. What do you think?

As the response has been favorable, I have decided to allow groups with royal charters to register a device. If they receive an Award of Arms, their device shall become their arms. An Award of Arms shall be considered a Royal Charter, as shall an Augmentation of Arms. A Royal Charter consists of a document signed by the King and Queen and witnessed by the Principal Herald stating that the group is recognized and chartered by the Crown. The exact conditions of the charter are up to the individual kingdom and the groups involved, as are the wordings of the charters. To qualify for registering a device or for converting a previously registered badge into a device, the group must enclose a photocopy of the charter. Remember that, like the arms of a branch, the device or arms of a group may only be displayed by the head or ruling body of the group. If an emblem is desired that can be displayed by all of its members; then the group should register a badge. Like a group badge, a group device must have the name and address of a group representative attached when submitted.

Some of you have asked what I want for quarterly reports. Those of you who already prepare such reports for the Crown need only send me copies. Those who do not should send me a short (1 or 2 pages) report on the state of the kingdom College of Heralds and heraldic happenings in general in the kingdom. How are your titled Heralds doing? How many heralds are there in the College? How many submissions have you processed? What are your current problems? Have you done anything unusual or new? Are there are projects you are working on? These should give you the idea. I want to be kept informed of how things are heraldically in your kingdom. You can win some brownie points by giving a copy of these quarterly reports to the Crown. These reports are due in by the last day of January, April, July, and October. The January quarterly report should include a financial report, as it constitutes the annual report. The April reports are now due.

For your information, the BoD received the letters from the populace on the titles proposals but deferred action until the May meeting. A statistical compilation showed that the populace responding favored the first two proposals (Minister and Order of Chivalry), was divided on the second two (Barons, Marquess), and opposed the fifth (Laureate). I expect the first two to pass, the last two to fail, and the third to be partially acted on. The BoD decided to take no action on the current Queen of the East, Arastorm, who is not and has not been a member of the SCA since before the Crown Lists. They had considered stripping her of her title as Queen on the grounds that, having not been a member, she could not legally have been Queen and that, therefore, of course, she was not a Countess or peer. However, they decided that the Corpora was silent on the steps to be taken if the requirements listed in the Corpora were violated, so they chose to allow Queen Arastorm to remain so and become a Countess. The BoD is now going to amend Corpora to put enforcement provisions into it. Warn your various Crowns to be very careful about checking to see that the entrants in the Crown Lists are members of the SCA and that their consorts are too so this doesn't happen in your kingdom.

On the bright side, the Board has decided to sponsor a bi-decennial celebration in 1986 and will be inviting bids from groups wishing to host the week-long festival.

Pray believe, my Lords and my Ladies, that I remain

Your servant,

Master Wilhelm von Schlüssel

Laurel King of Arms

WvS:CFC

Enclosures: 1) LA&R

2) Administrative Guidelines for the College of Arms

3) Heraldic Titles

4) Mundane Orders

5) SCA Orders, Awards and Titles

6) Atenveldt Submission and Registration Process