Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Heraldic questions...
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 21:49:15

    Arval wrote:

 JM> We were not discussing "non-European" cultures, but rather the difference
 JM> between "western Europe" and "western culture".  Since the original
 JM> subject of this discussion was Hungarian armory, it should suffice to
 JM> point out that Hungary had an Angevin ruling dynasty in the 13th
 JM> century, held tournaments and jousts, and is the home of the first
 JM> recorded monarchical order of knighthood (Boulton, Knights of the
 JM> Crown).  If it is not part of western culture, I should like to know
 JM> how you define that term.  One might also observe that if the drafters
 JM> of Corpora had meant "western Europe", they could have written that.
 JM> Since they did not, they must have meant something else.

    Non sequitur. If, as I do, they considered "western culture" to be
    functionally synonymous with "Western Europe", it doesn't necessarily
    mean *anything* else.

    Granted that Hungary had an Anjevin dynasty in the 13th century - how
    long did it last? Poland briefly had a Saxon "dynasty", too, but that
    doesn't make Poland any more central to what we do than Hungary is.

    Monarchical orders of knighthood don't prove much of anything - even
    the Japanese eventually established them; the military religious orders
    after whom they were modeled predated them by a couple of centuries,
    and those were all Western European in a sense restrictive enough to
    please even me.

    I define "western culture" to include those areas that were part of the
    western half of the Roman empire, a position for which I suggest that a
    substantial case could be made. This means Britain, Gaul, Spain, Italy,
    and I even look askance at most of Germany....

 JM> For the nonce, let me grant that a consistent heraldic system has some
 JM> merit in and of itself.  It is not enough to establish a consistent
 JM> system; it must be consistent with something.

    Sure -- itself. That's *all* consistency means.

 JM> If our system is to be consistent with western European armory, then
 JM> evidence of medieval western European armorial usage must override our
 JM> rules. If not, our "consistent system" is pure fantasy.

    Non sequitur. To quote Laurel, "We follow the general practices, not
    the exceptions." You persist in asserting that any practice is of equal
    value to any other practice. Not so. Some practices are crucial, others
    are eccentric; a minority of 49% is still a minority.

 JM> You know as well as I that the College of Arms has shown no
 JM> willingness to accept the heraldic practices even of western Europe,
 JM> which surely includes Spain and Portugal, the low countries, and
 JM> western Germany.

    The College of Arms (to a lesser extent than I do) focuses on the
    practices of the "core" of feudal civilization: south of the Trent,
    north of the Loire, west of the Rhine. You seem to perceive "western
    Europe" as some sort of homogenized mass, from which any cupful is
    identical to any other cupful. Not so.

 JM> How many hundreds of examples of red bendlets on blue do we have to
 JM> dig out before that will be considered more than "a fashion" or "an
 JM> exception"?

    Obviously, more than have yet been presented.

 JM> Or simple black charges on red?  Or highly complex Tudor armory?  What
 JM>is sufficient evidence to require a change in the system?

    Enough to convince Laurel, essentially. Convincing the "weightier" part
    of the College of Arms would help. Both you and I have been singularly
    unsuccessful at doing so to date. Perhaps we should form a club....

 JM> > The College does not restrict the scope of the Society in any way, it
 JM> > merely restricts the scope of what it will register.

 JM> Therefore, you must agree that no rule should bar participation in the
 JM> Society at any level on the basis of lack of heraldic registration, and
 JM> that anyone in the SCA should feel free to bear & display Hungarian,
 JM> Polish, Italian, or Spanish style armory without bothering with submission
 JM> and registration.

    Correct. On the other hand, I also feel that we should be sufficiently
    authentic to accept regulation of armorial practices on a Kingdom,
    rather than SCA-wide, basis; and that a Kingdom ought to be able to
    regulate participation with respect to this area as it does with
    respect to others. For example, requiring a "registered" name and
    device to enter Crown Tourney is no more onerous, or less legitimate,
    than requiring a white belt/invitation from the Crown.

 JM> You must certainly agree that the College of Arms should have no
 JM> regulatory authority over usage, and that Laurel's return of armory
 JM> need have no practical meaning for a submitter who wants to recreate
 JM> some other part of the Society's scope.

    No more so that excommunication by the Pope, certainly. Just as a Duke
    in period could practically ignore the formal disabilities involved in
    excommunication, so a Duke in the SCA can, pretty much to a similar
    degree, practically ignore the formal disabilities involved in failing
    to register his name and armory. On the other hand, that doesn't make
    either one legitimate ways of "doing medieval life".

 JM> Where do you find any basis for claiming that the College of Arms can have
 JM> a purpose divergent from that of the Society as a whole?

    I never made any such claim. Just because the College of Arms doesn't
    embrace *every* purpose embraced by the SCA doesn't make it's work
    somehow illegitimate -- it's area of concentration is very focussed, as
    is that of the marshallate, the arts & sciences offices, and the other
    specialized branches of Society administration. You seem to thing that
    everything has to be everything all at the same time, or else it is
    (Boo! Hiss!) "divergent". Not so.

 JM> The College of Arms is not an end unto itself; it is an office of the
 JM> corporation which exists for the sole purpose of assisting the
 JM> membership in their re-creations.

    Which it does, when those re-creations are congruent with the formal
    objectives of the Society, as presented in the Articles of
    Incorporation, the By-Laws, Corpora, and the Governing and Policy
    decisions -- not one of which the College of Arms can legitimately be
    demonstrated to have contravened. Granted, the CoA doesn't fall in line
    with *your interpretation* of those documents, but that is another
    thing entirely; they don't often fall in line with *my* interpretation
    of those documents (or Talan's, or you-name-it's) either.

 JM> It has no authority to follow any policy other than that set by the
 JM> Board for the Society as a whole.

    Nor does it. The policy that the Board sets for "the Society as a
    whole", however, is necessarily broader than the purpose that the Board
    has set for the College of Arms. You constantly confuse the scope of
    the two.

 JM> Apparently, you disagree with this statement and you believe that the
 JM> College is a goal in itself, and that maintaining it as an accurate
 JM> recreation of some medieval heraldic system is more important than
 JM> making it serve the entire Society.

    No, I just disagree with your understanding of it, and especially with
    your shotgun application of it to everything in the SCA regardless of
    whether or not it is appropriate. Just because "green is pretty"
    doesn't mean that everything, to be pretty, must be green; just
    because diversity is a good thing doesn't mean that everything, in
    order to be good, must be diverse.

 JM> You are undoubtedly correct that many of the members of the College
 JM> over its history have held your opinion.  I reject it utterly.

    Hell, Arval, my opinions have been rejected by better people than *you*
    -- people that I *liked*, even. I doubt seriously that I would need
    more than the fingers of one hand to count the members of the College
    of Arms that agree with me more than ten per cent of the time -- about
    the same amount as tend to agree with you, come to think of it ... but
    *different* people, of course. It just so happens that this is one of
    the few areas that I feel the CoA is approximating the right thing (not
    very *closely*, but I'm thankful for small favors). No doubt you could
    easily find other areas wherein you might sigh with relief and say
    "Well, at least they're doing THAT right...", those likely being areas
    that would have me frothing at the mouth. It's happened before, as you
    well know, and I don't doubt it will happen again.

        Tadhg, Obelisk


 * Origin: Herald's Point * Steppes/Ansteorra * 214-699-0057 (1:124/4229)
From: Tim@f4229.n124.z1.fidonet.org (Tim)
Sender: FredGate@ocitor.fidonet