From: rancke@diku.dk (Hans Rancke-Madsen)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Heraldic questions...
Date: 4 Jan 93 18:45:04 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen

Tim@f4229.n124.z1.fidonet.org (Tim) writes:

>   Hans Rancke wrote:

>HR>You may not have meant to do so, but that was certainly the impression
>HR>I, for one, got.

>Well, it was inaccurate.

So I gathered.

>HR>Recalling as best I can without the original postings I think that
>HR>Arval argued that Corpora spoke of recreating aspects of the whole of
>HR>Western Culture and that consequently the heraldic styles of
>HR>Scandinavia, Germany, Hungary, Spain, Portugal, etc. were equally as
>HR>valid as the style you (that is, the Society) is currently
>HR>concentrating on (to the exclusion of these styles).

>One might just as well argue that our monarchs ought to be elected by our
>nobles, because the Empire and Poland were run that way.

Well, if your Corpora allows it then that is certainly a valid argument,
isn't it? Wasn't Arval's argument that Corpora _didn't_ restrict your
heraldic styles the way your College did?

(Incidentally, you were right about Denmark not being strongly feudal.
The Scandinavian kingdoms also had elected kings. The Danish king did
acquire some fiefs in Germany, though.)

>The point is that the "scope of the Society" covers a lot of time and a
>lot of area. If we try to "re-create" all of that all at once, then the
>resulting mishmash is nothing ever found in period, and so the underlying
>objective is not attained. There has to be a focus.

Does there? It is my impression that the Society survives (perhaps even
thrives?) on just such diversity in other fields. Why should this be
different for heraldry?

>My argument is, that
>having such a focus *in heraldry* is fully compatible with the purposes of
>the SCA as expressed in Corpora, and by no means will doing so crush out
>diversity in other areas, which is what Arval appears to be afraid of.

Well, being restricted in the use of heraldry does seem to impair those of
you who want to emulate personae from outside your preferred time and place.

>HR>From your reply I gathered that you did not regard anywhere outside
>HR>your "core area" as _truly_ Western Culture (You certainly defined
>HR>Scandinavia as "barbarian fringe", a contention that I take issue
>HR>with, but will leave aside for the moment in the light of your new
>HR>message).

>Well, you gathered wrong. My apologies if I am being insufficiently
>articulate. The "core area" that I specified is certainly not the *whole*
>of "western culture", nor even the *focus* of "western culture", but it IS
>the focus of the aspects of "western culture" that we in the SCA are
>trying to emulate: the noble tourneying society of the High Middle Ages.

To the extent that such a society existed at all. But I suppose that that
is an altogether different subject. In any case the thing I took exception
to was the claim that Denmark was not part of Western Medieval Culture.

>The people who got together to hold the first backyard tournament didn't
>get together to hold a multicultural medieval Disneyland, they got
>together to hold an Arthurian-romance tournament, and there is going to be
>any consistency in the SCA that is the sort of focus that is essential.

Really? It's been a long time since I browsed through my old copies of
Amra, so I may misremember, but the stuff I read there didn't seem to
indicate quite that amount of reverent seriousness.



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
------------
"I know there are some people in the world who do not tolerate their
fellow human beings, and I just can't _stand_ people like that!"
                                (after Tom Lehrer)