P.O. Box 1646
Dallas, TX 75221-1646
March 20, 1991

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

The attached Letter of Acceptances and Returns covers the following Letters of Intent considered at the Laurel meeting held Saturday, March 16, 1991, and considered the following letters of intent dated in December, 1990: Meridies (12/15), Ansteorra (12/20), Middle (12/20), West (12/21) and Calontir (12/31).

The April Laurel meeting is scheduled for Saturday, April 27, 1991, and will consider the following letters of intent: An Tir (dated 12/6 but mailed in January), Caid (1/7), Atlantia (1/10), Middle (1/15), Atenveldt (1/16), Outlands (1/20), Atlantia (1/27), and Calontir (1/31).

The May Laurel meeting is scheduled for Saturday, May 18, 1991, and will consider the following letters of intent dated in February, 1991: Ansteorra (2/10), Middle (2/15), Meridies (2/24), and Calontir (2/28).

The June Laurel meeting is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, June 22, 1991, and will consider the bulk of the letters of intent dated in March. Two letters of intent dated in March will be scheduled to be considered at the traveling Laurel meeting to be held at the Heraldic Symposium in Atlantia on Sunday, June 30.

Please remove Obelisk Herald (Ansteorra) Gwenllian Cwmystwyth ferch Morfudd from your mailing list for non-commenting.

Lord Star asks that you add to your mailing lists Misty Star Herald, Lord Dathi O'Cooney (David C. Reed), 301 Krenek Tap #95, College Station, TX 77840.

Two College of Arms members were recently recognized by the Crowns of their respective kingdoms: Lady Triton, Hilary of Fairehaven, is now a member of the Order of the Pelican, and Lord Lymphad, Siegfried Conrad Georg Heydrich, was awarded a Grant of Arms. Heartfelt congratulations to both!

After a lot of thought, discussion, reading, re-reading, and research, it has been decided that we will NOT check for conflicts against mundane crests. The reasons for this are (not necessarily in order of importance): although the English College of Arms registers crests, and the SCA has in the past treated them like fieldless badges, they are a "limited use" type of badge (they are not used to identify retainers and property, but are most often seen in an achievement of arms, along with the coat of arms, supporters, etc.); given that identical or nearly identical crests are registered to apparently unrelated families (eleven different families have a Saracen's head for a crest, for example), they do not appear to be a strong mark of specific or familial identity or cognizance (the intent of the conflict rules is to avoid identity. Where there is no apparent strong correlation between a crest and identity, the need to avoid that identity is greatly reduced - conflict checking does not need to occur where the chance for presumption does not exist); there was a reasonably strong consensus among the commenters that while we might consider checking fieldless badges against crests, there was no reason to think that fielded armory ought to conflict (and it might be noted that all of the pended items on this issue were fielded armory), and Laurel does not believe that complicating the rules with a special class of conflict checking is worth the possible benefit that might come from doing so.

After carefully reviewing the research of Lords Crescent, Batonvert, and Yale, I have come to the conclusion that we are going to have to treat mundane mon as tinctureless armory for purposes of conflict checking. I do not do this lightly (or even happily), but the unescapable conclusion from the research is that mundane mon were treated in period as tinctureless: that is to say, they could legitimately have been displayed in any color/metal combination. Because the purpose of our conflict rules is to avoid identity, and because a mon which is black and white in a book could legitimately be displayed and used in any contrasting tincture combination (by our definition, tinctureless), I do not believe that we can allow difference for tincture. (Any other course would leave us open to someone taking the mon of, say, Tokugawa, submitting it in Or and vert, and getting it registered. Yet any Japanese would see it only as Yamamoto, not differenced at all.)

To respond publicly to Lord Trefoil's request for a discussion on the registration in the January 1991 LoAR of Ariel daughter of Thorarin: Ariel, being a Biblical name (Ezra 8:16-17; II Sam. 23:20; I Chron. 11:22), has long been accepted in the SCA for registration. Admittedly, it is a masculine name, and has not been documented as a feminine given name in period. However, Mistress Alisoun MacCoul of Elphane (LoAR of 25 January 1987, p. 7) noted that "cross-gender names are so well-established a tradition in the Society that it would be pedantic to object" when she registered a masculine byname form with a feminine given. As a consequence of this long-standing acceptance of cross-gender names, I felt I could not but register this name.

What a pity that when the [Heraldry] Society's Arms were re-styled, the opportunity was not taken to correct the teeth of the lion.

Humans have FOUR incisor teeth between the two canines whereas Lions have SIX...

Perhaps the engraving can be altered to make the correction?

T.H. Brown. L.D.S., Hon.F.H.S.

Middlesbrough

Sounds like some of the nit-picky stuff we get into sometimes, doesn't it?

Until next month, I remain, as ever,

Your servant,