From: mittle@watson.ibm.com (Josh Mittleman)
Subject: Re: Heraldic questions...
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 00:59:31 GMT
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

Greetings from Arval!

Godfrey, Kwellend-Njal, and Simon added to the threads on the purposes of
the College of Arms.  Godfrey and Simon traded comments about my arguments.

Simon wrote: 

> Arval has never said that the College of Arms shouldn't help people
> design good armory, *if they want the help*.

Godfrey added:

> What surprised me was that he appeared to be saying that:
> o  the CoA shouldn't require devices to be non-conflicting
> o  an individual should be able to have whatever device he wants,
>    even if it's something that wouldn't have appeared in period

> The first makes no sense whatsoever, as the entire purpose of armory is
> to identify individuals... The second, I suppose, is a matter of taste. 

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.  Let me try to explain some of the rest by
addressing Godfrey's two points, which neatly divide the question into its
two logical parts: uniqueness and style.

The entire purpose of SCA armory is NOT to identify individuals [see
footnote]. The purpose of armory in the SCA is exactly the same as the
purpose of anything else in the SCA: To have fun and learn by re-creating
selected parts of medieval culture.  I think we should use armory for
identification, but if that goal gets in the way of the real purpose of the
SCA, then something is wrong.  That's what I think has happened in the past
25 years of College of Arms history.  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.
The evidence shows us that armigers did make some effort to maintain
uniqueness locally, but it was done informally and it certainly was not
done globally.  Even in the later Middle Ages, when royal officers
regulated armory in a few kingdoms, no one attempted to enforce uniqueness
even over the entire kingdom, let alone between kingdoms.  The SCA not only
enforces uniqueness, but enforces it globally across the Society _and_
across all of history and literature.  Thus, while the uniqueness of armory
can be part of our re-creation if we so choose, the way we have approached
uniqueness really contributes nothing to our medieval re-creation.  The
question, therefore, is not whether arms should be unique, but rather what
"unique" should mean and how uniqueness should be maintained.  Should it
apply across the Society?  Should it apply to SCA vs. non-SCA insignia?
Should the corporation enforce uniqueness, or should it leave it to the
kingdoms to handle as they choose, or even to individuals to handle as they
see fit.  Personally, I would prefer the corporation to do as little as it
can get away with without having the Society fall apart, and I do not
believe that universal armorial uniqueness is necessary to smooth function
of the Society.  I think it does make sense for a kingdom to have some
mechanism for assisting members to choose unique arms, but I don't think
that has to be a registry with the overhead we have today.  

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.  I _can_ come to an event wearing something fantastical that
never could have existed at any time in history - lots of people do.  I
_can_ come to an event and eat from paper plates, drink from plastic cups,
fight in carpet armor - lots of people do.  Why should the same questions
of taste in names and armory not be left to individual choice?  Why should
these arts be regulated at all?  Last week I asked:

> Do you believe that the corporation should require a minimum level of
> authenticity of all participants in the SCA? 

Godfrey answered:

> It does, actually; all participants at an event must wear at least an 
> attempt at period-looking garb.

Indeed so, and that requirement is so fundamental that it is written into
Corpora.  Note however that we do not require _provably authentic_ garb,
just an attempt, and Corpora does not require any other effort at
re-creation.  The College of Arms requires a much higher level of
authenticity than is required in any other field of SCA endeavor.  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 heralds are the only formal
Authenticity Police in the SCA.  I happen to agree with you, Godfrey, that
everyone ought to do his best to use medieval names and armory.  I will
encourage them to do so and help them whenever I can.  I just don't think
it is appropriate to require authenticity in this one art when it is not
required in any other.  I will not impose my preferences on the entire SCA,
and we should not tolerate it when others do so.  Yet that is exactly what
the College of Arms has been doing for 25 years.

Godfrey wrote:

> 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.  If I enter my craftworks in a competition, I am claiming
publically that my work is authentic, and I am asking for criticism.  But I
have the option not to enter those contests, simply using my craftwork for
my own pleasure.  I think that heraldry should operate by the same
standards: Each participant should be free to choose whether or not he
cares if his name or device is authentic.  Are you suggesting that heraldic
submission should be considered analogous to a formal arts competition?  If
that's how you want to think about it, that's fine with me, but then you
have to accept that some people aren't interested in competing in your art,
and we have no right to require registered arms of anyone for any reason
for which we would not also require them to have competition-quality
documentation for their garb, feastgear, etc.



Carolus wrote:

> I ...  don't want to get involved with an organaization, the COA, that I
> feel is actively preventing SCAdians from practicing good heraldry.

Kwellend-Njal replied:

> Do you have any examples of this?  You've thrown down a gauntlet; I'm
> calling your bluff.  Let us hear some examples of this "good heraldry"
> that the CoA is preventing people from practicing.

Laurel recently refused to register a perfectly authentic piece of
Hungarian armory because it conflicted with the College's rules of
contrast.  This action clearly hindered the re-creation of part of the
culture on medieval Europe, and was therefore directly contrary to the
basic purpose of the Society.  Similar examples can be found in almost
every month's returns from Laurel, and far more occur at lower levels where
submitters are discouraged from even attempting to experiment with some of
the more unusual parts of period heraldry.

More fundamentally, one could argue that the basic services provided by the
College prevent us from learning things about period culture because they
introduce constraints foreign to history.  For example, name uniqueness has
no basis in history.  I think that if we had to deal with the occasional
problem of finding two people with exactly the same name, we would all
learn a little more about how names developed in medieval society.
Similarly, if we didn't have universal armorial uniqueness (and therefore
could use far simpler armory), then we could expect that at large
inter-kingdom gatherings we would find a few cases where two people were
bearing identical arms.  Figuring out how to deal with those situations
would teach us something about period heraldry as it actually was used.  I
know that this point is highly speculative, but I do believe that we will
always learn more and have more fun in a Society with fewer restrictions on
individual creativity.

	Arval.



Footnote: Even when we consider period armory, there is considerable
question whether "the entire purpose of armory is to identify individuals."
That is certainly the classic opinion in many heraldic texts, but it is not
sufficient to answer all the questions.  For example, we observe that the
use of armory spread very rapidly after its introduction in northern
France.  Within 50 years of the first evidence of inherited arms, we find
examples of armory throughout France, in northern Spain and Italy, and well
into the Low Countries.  I think it is naive to attribute this phenomenal
expansion entirely to the need for marks of identification.  I think that
armory must have served other purposes, e.g, a clear distinguishing mark of
nobility.  Individual identification clearly was always an important factor
in the development of heraldry in western Europe, but I think it incorrect
to characterize it as the "entire purpose" of the art.

===========================================================================
Arval Benicoeur                                       mittle@watson.ibm.com