From: Suze.Hammond@f56.n105.z1.fidonet.org (Suze Hammond)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Heraldic Questions...
Date: 24 Jan 93 19:55:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: therose.727982979.AA00000


 Ti> From: Tim@f4229.n124.z1.fidonet.org (Tim)
 Ti> Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

 Ti> 
 Ti> Alan Fairfax Aluricson, Fenris Herald, wrote:
 
 
 CX> > The fact that there is a "convention" at all indicates quite plainly
 CX> > that the exceptions were, well, exceptional. If we give exceptions
 CX> > equal weight with more conventional treatments, ultimately the
 CX> > exceptions will become insufficiently exceptional to adequately
 CX> > emulate Real Medieval Armory...
 
 CX> You're falling down a slippery slope here "...if we allow _any_
 CX> non-medieval heraldry, we'll get lots of it..."
 Ti> 
 Ti> No, I'm attempting to keep us from continuing too much farther down a
 Ti> slippery slope that we're already on, and which you don't appear to
 Ti> be able to see.
 Ti> 
 Ti> Count the number of SCA devices that (a) use purpure as a field, (b)
 Ti> use purpure for a charge, (c) have a charge oriented to sinister, (d)
 Ti> use a bend sinister versus a bend, (e) have an ordinary overlying the
 Ti> corresponding line of division, (f) have different types of charge on
 Ti> either side of an ordinary, (g) put wings (especially bat wings) on
 Ti> ordinarily non-winged creatures, etc., etc., and compare those
 Ti> numbers to similar armory (of you can find it) in Papworth, or Lyon,
 Ti> or Rietstap, or Siebemacher. To a considerable extent, the exceptions
 Ti> are taking over even as we speak; I think a very good case could be
 Ti> made that the trends in our armory depart significantly from those
 Ti> present in Real Armory, especially Real Medieval Armory, and to that
 Ti> extent we are in retreat. 

Ah, but here you're both mistaking the reason for the problem.

We don't have all this oddball, inauthentic armory because we allow a few
"exceptional" period examples. 

We have all this oddball, inauthentic armory because we are constrained to
avoid *conflict* with a way-too-large set of mundane armory. 

If we are made, by our own laws, to avoid all the "good stuff" because it's
already been taken long ago, we will always be plagued by inauthenticity 
and tortured style. No amount of Tadhg raving against this practice, or
another slaving to save us from another practice will "save" us, no matter
how successful these gentles ultimately are in pinning us down to the "best"
model. All the good stuff is taken. Has been, with rare exception, for about 
500 years. We are now protecting arms of families that have been extinct 
for generations, despite having learned that every mundane heraldic 
jurisdiction we have contacted considers our game to be the same as art, or
a play, and ignores it, and despite having found from the same sources that
we would not be allowed to display our arms in their lands, outside our 
events, in any case!

So long as we protect Joe Schmoe's Aunty forty times removed's dead great
grandfather's armory, we will simply have no way to design arms except to
look for interesting-looking seldom-used charges, and use them in heretofor
unthought of ways. That is, pretty much by definition, going to be non-
authentic, non-period armory. And the sad part is that neither Mr. Schmoe 
nor his Aunty know about our "kindness" to their long-dead relations nor 
would they care if they did.

The color-on-color issue is sort of a red herring, really. I can prove that
there were quite a few examples of this "heresy" right in Merrie Old
England, and in Tadhg's time-period. I've seen them (they're mostly pretty
horrid, BTW). I believe we should allow all armory of all peoples we allow
recreation of. Since almost all examples of "bend sinister" simply meant,
in period, that we were looking at the off-side of the horse, I wouldn't
allow that, or any other contrived sinisters. I would codify what the best
styles of the "new" types were, and similarly disallow the worst of Poland,
or whatever. But it's all *moot*. If I were suddenly Laurel King (Queen?)
and did all these things, we'd still have inauthentic armory so long as
every one of us is forced to avoid all mundane arms, because new "heresies"
would spring up as rapidly as weeds in a Spring garden, because we force
them to...

 CX> I think the best way to solve this problem is to let people do their
 CX> own work.
 Ti> 
 Ti> That doesn't "solve the problem" except in the sense that it would
 Ti> totally divorce the SCA from any pretense of connection with the
 Ti> Middle Ages. I am unwilling to countenance that.
 
Oh Tadhg, lighten up! I have people in my shire who are perfectly able to
design their own armory with very little tinkering from a herald, once they
have the rules. Not every non-herald is a no-talent twit, you know. The
SCA is crawling with artists and artisans. For heaven's sake, this isn't
the local Moose Lodge...

 CX> I'm willing to see a color-on-color shield or twenty if the bearers
 CX> have been educated.
 Ti> 
 Ti> It's a deal. Anybody who can present a Certificate of Heraldic
 Ti> Education can have a color-on-color shield. I'll be willing to accept
 Ti> suffering two years as a Principal Herald in lieu.
 
 CX> Besides, there are many examples of specific color-on-color practices
 CX> from cultures.  Red-and-black for Germany, and blue-and-green for
 CX> Hungary, aren't exceptions to the rules but part of the rules.
 Ti> 
 Ti> What "rules" do you mean? They're not part of the SCA's rules, and
 Ti> that's the point. If you want to argue that they *ought to be* part of
 Ti> the SCA's rules, then I'm still waiting for a persuasive argument.
 Ti> 
 Ti> In period, as in mundane heraldry today, "the rules" varied from
 Ti> jurisdiction to jurisdiction; we're such a jurisdiction, and we have
 Ti> our own "rules"; and it is far from intuitively obvious that our
 Ti> "rules" ought necessarily to include *everybody else's* "rules" from
 Ti> the vast temporal and geographic scope of the SCA just because such
 Ti> comprehensiveness is tolerated in other areas. Shall I wear a
 Ti> houppelond and a belted plaid? 

Very bad example. I can probably find you a portrait with that combination
from period... Probably a noble from Ulster...  ;-)

 Ti> Why not? Both come from in our period.
 Ti> How about a toga and a chaperon with a liripipe? Same logic applies.

That'd be a better example.

 Ti> How "medieval" would the atmosphere be in such a group? Not very.

Ummmm, but it sure would be "its own jurisdiction".  :-)
 
 CX> Part of my problem is that SCA heraldry is violating conventions of
 CX> medieval heraldry that were broken far more rarely than the
 CX> color-on-color ones.
 Ti> 
 Ti> Such as? I have a list, certainly, but I'd like to see how it
 Ti> compares to yours....
 
 CX> SCA heraldry just doesn't look medieval in most cases, and that's what
 CX> we have to address.
 Ti> 
 Ti> That's what I'm *trying* to address, and you're fighting it tooth and
 Ti> nail. I agree with you wholeheartedly that SCA heraldry "just doesn't
 Ti> look medieval in most cases", and it's people who don't care about
 Ti> what was conventional and what was exceptional who are the problem,
 Ti> not the solution. 

Na. The problem is the poor dears want their devices to *pass conflict*
and have given up caring if purpure isn't a good color in favor of being
pragmatic. In case you hadn't noticed, purple is not a very popular color,
mundanely. I have no reason to believe that SCAdians would pick it so often
if it didn't almost guarantee they'll pass mundane conflict with it. And
the proof is that you see a lot more purple armory than purple garb!

 Ti> I can't stem the tide of purple axes and bat-winged
 Ti> wolves and sheaves of threaded needles, 

A tide that wouldn't exist if they could have real wolves and rampant lions
and plain bends on plain fields, and any number of real armory that is way
too conflicted to even try for, any more...

 Ti> but at least the rule of
 Ti> tincture has survived; if I had to choose what to save and what to
 Ti> lose, that might not be my choice, but I'm not *getting* a choice -- I
 Ti> have to work with what I've got. As do we all.
 
I think you've picked the wrong hill to make your stand on, myself.

 CX> Nebuly, dovetailed, purpure, and vert were all less common than
 CX> color-on-color heraldry in the middle ages, and yet nobody ever
 CX> complains about the existence of these things.
 Ti> 
 Ti> Not true. *I* did, for a number of years, and got consistently flamed
 Ti> for it in the CoA. I still do, when I think I can get away with it ...
 Ti> which isn't often. 

Good. But how will we avoid conflict without them, and all the other SCA-
specific weirdies?

 Ti> I've lost any chance at a peerage because of it;

Piffle. Get a peerage in something else. All work and no play makes Jack
a dull boy. Have Vashti teach you to dance. Play music. Cook. 


Seriously, folks... we've got to make all this over-zealous conflict
checking stop. Either that, or accept that our armory cannot be authentic,
ever, in any way. 

Because neither Tadhg's way nor anything else will ensure authentic medieval 
style so long as we cannot copy authentic medieval style.

Moreach



 
... Suidh suas agus eisd... Cuir air falbh na cleasan agad.