From: Godfrey de Shipbrook <jlee@smylex.UUCP>
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Heraldic questions...
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 92 23:35:35 EST
Organization: Shipbrook Software  (Tampa, FL)

Greetings from Godfrey!

Arval writes, in response to my response to his response to my response
to something or another:
> 
> Simon got part of what I've been saying just right: I think the College's
> services should be re-focussed to be educational and voluntary, rather than
> regulatory and required.

Taking those adjectives in reverse order:

Were it `required', Carolus would be in deep trouble for not registering
his device, no?  ;-)

Yes, it is `regulatory':  if one wishes to register a device, one must
follow certain rules.  

However, it is also `voluntary'.  If one *doesn't* wish to follow the
rules, or if (as in the case of the esteemed Carolus) one follows the
rules but for one reason or another does not *wish* to register, one
simply *doesn't register the device*, and goes ahead and uses it anyway.
No sanctions are imposed upon a person who does this.

And lastly (or should that be firstly?), from my experience, the College
of Arms *is* `educational', to those who wish to be educated.


> Let's think about identification &
> uniqueness in the context of re-creation.  Arms were not universally unique
> in the Middle Ages.  Through most of the period of the use of armory, there
> was no formal authority which could ensure or enforce uniqueness of armory.

Nor were there sanitary kitchens.  I, personally, would like to think
that my arms are unique to me; that someone can find me at Pennsic by 
recognising my banner, without the possibility that they've got the wrong
per-pale-azure-and-argent-a-clarion-counterchanged-or-and-gules; or that
the wording which I have written on several AoA scrolls (`to be borne by
<him/her> alone throughout the Known World') is indeed true.  Certainly,
*attempts* were made to maintain unique armory at various times in period
(and, I'll grant, as you say, often only within localised regions), and
perhaps if they'd have had fast long-distance communication and computers,
they'd have been much more successful across a larger geographical area.
(But that's merely idle speculation about `as they should have been'.)

The ultimate point is, what do the *members* want?  Would most members be
uncaring if someone in another kingdom bore the same device as they?  Or
is a wish for singular arms more the prevalent desire in our Society?


> Your analysis of your second point, Godfrey, is dead-on: It is a matter of
> taste.  In every other art in the SCA, matters of taste are left to the
> individual.  [...]   Why should the same questions
> of taste in names and armory not be left to individual choice?

Ah, but they ARE, though.  If I wanted to paint my shield with a large
purple-and-blue orangutan with a banana up each nostril, there's no-one
to stop me.  I could fly a banner with that device on it if I wanted to.
I just couldn't *register* that device.

Likewise, I could call myself Wibble Flarpson of Bletchford.  I could 
get other people to call me that, possibly even without laughing.  I
simply couldn't *register* that name.

But by the same token, I could make and wear a set of Elizabethan garb
from neon green-and-orange tropical-flower-motif polyester, complete
with blinking LED-studded codpiece.  I just couldn't enter it in an
Arts & Sciences competition.


> The College of Arms requires a much higher level of
> authenticity than is required in any other field of SCA endeavor. 

Hey, if you don't want to follow the authenticity requirements, DON'T 
REGISTER YOUR DEVICE.  Nobody is holding people at gunpoint and *forcing*
them to register devices.


> When Wulfgar Newcomer enters a tourney bearing some dreadfully modern thing
> painted on his shield, he is making an attempt at period heraldry, but
> TheHeralds will jump on him for it.

The anal-retentive ones will `jump on him'.  The more helpful ones will 
(hopefully) offer constructive comments, but if he's dead-set on using
that `dreadfully modern thing', they'll subsequently leave him alone.


> The heralds are the only formal Authenticity Police in the SCA.

With no intent to slander, don't forget the judges of A&S competitions. 
Actually, with some of the registered names that Tadhg (hope I spelled
that right) was complaining about a couple of months ago, A&S judging
is apparently more stringent than the CoA...


> I just don't think
> it is appropriate to require authenticity in this one art when it is not
> required in any other. 

Again, it's not required unless you feel the need to register a device.
If you don't feel that need, no-one's forcing you to follow *any* rules.


> I will not impose my preferences on the entire SCA,
> and we should not tolerate it when others do so.

I agree with you.  That's why I've never made any comments to my friend
about his extremely modern banner; though I dislike it, he's got every 
right to fly it if he wants to, and I'm likewise free to avert my eyes
from it when I see it.


>> Every time I've seen or participated in an arts & sciences competition,
>> documentation and authenticity were extremely important when judging the
>> merit of a piece.
> 
> I'm sure you realize that there is a big difference between requiring
> documentation in a competition and requiring it simply to use a thing at
> events.

To use it at events?!  Is Carolus forbidden from displaying his
unregistered device?  Or my friend from flying his bounced banner?

Come now, Master Arval, methinks you exaggerate just a wee bit.

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Net:  Jeff Lee / jlee@smylex.uucp / jlee%smylex.uucp@tscs.tscs.com     |
| SCA:  Lord Godfrey de Shipbrook / Wyvernwood, Trimaris                 |
|       Per pale azure and argent, a clarion counterchanged or and gules |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
              That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man
              If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.