This is the third class in the three-part warranting series. Please read through the page, then take the quiz that is linked at the bottom. If you have any questions, please reach out to the Coracle Herald.
by
HL Taran Saraev
In the SCA we recreate the courtly life of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. A big part of that Courtly life is Heraldry. So what is Heraldry? If you ask an SCA Herald you will often get the answer, “It's what Heralds do!” This is a popular answer due to the fact that SCA heralds do an awful lot of seemingly unrelated things. Outside the SCA you will hear the answer, “Heraldry is the art and science of armorial bearings.” By this, they mean the creation and registration of what most folks call "coats of arms". In the SCA we mostly call them devices, though we sometimes use other words like badges and ensigns (flags). While most SCA folk still call them devices you are free to call them your arms after you receive an Award of Arms (AOA). In the SCA we call this part of Heraldry Armory or Armorial Sciences and sometimes picture heraldry.
The other big parts of SCA Heraldry involve the creation and registration of Period Names or Book Heraldry, the announcing and calling out of various things which is called Voice Heraldry or Sign Heraldry if you are signing for the hearing impaired. There is also Protocol Heraldry which deals with the order of lists, traditions, history, and other such things.
The purpose of this class is to prepare the students to help members of the SCA with Name submissions. It is part of the three-part warranting series offered in Trimaris. It is not intended to replace the traditional Heraldry 101 class, which is an introduction to the practice of Armorial Heraldry.
Know where to Find SENA, and what it is.
Know the submissions process (kingdom and society).
Know where to go to find answers
Know how to deal with clients (politely, empathically, and kindly)
Know about commenting
Be able to Help a SCA member with an Name Submission.
NOTE: This class will overlap with Warranting Class Two. A lot of the information will be similar in format. To the extent of overlap, it should reinforce important concepts. In this class we should mostly be focusiong on names. So it should be different in substance.
This is how you find the Heraldry Rules on the SCA website. There are many useful things there. It can be found by going to http://www.sca.org . Then click on <Activities and Events>. Then click on <Activites in the SCA>. Then click on <Heraldry>. Then click on <Rules>. Or use the following Link.
http://heraldry.sca.org/regs.html
This particular class is about names. If you don't have any knowledge about SCA names, it can be tricky to follow along. You can go and read “What is an S.C.A. Name?” found at http://heraldry.sca.org/armory/whatis/name.html. It should be able to get you up to speed for this class. Always feel free to send questions to the Trimarian Coracle Herald <coracle@trimaris.org>.
When you are at the rules page above, you will notice the first link is Standards for Evaluation of Names and Armory. This is often shortened to SENA. These are the rules for name and device registration. The more you learn about heraldry, the more involved you find the rules are, to the point that interpretation of the rules becomes an issue. For our purpose here, it is too much to really get that deep into the rules, let alone their interpretation. Instead, at this point it is prudent to try and get a flavor for the rules. To do this, we will read two things. First, on the rule page, you will find a link called Submissions Checklist for Standards for Evaluation of Names and Armory. This link can be found directly below:
http://heraldry.sca.org/sena_checklist.html
At this point, please read only the first section called Personal Names and the description of the appendices at the bottom. Armory will be discussed in a different class, so fear not, you will get to the armory part later. Please ignore the section called Non-personal Names as it is outside of the scope of this class. Now please read a slide available in either PDF or PowerPoint called PowerPoint Slides for Names in the New Rules. The link for each is below.
http://heraldry.sca.org/training/names-slides.pdf
http://heraldry.sca.org/training/names.ppt
Make sure you read the slides and the personal names selections from the Submissions checklist thoroughly and that you understand them. Questions from this material will be found in the quiz. Please feel free to send any questions to the Trimarian Corcle Herald <coracle@trimaris.org>.
There are two types of armory submissions, each with their own submission forms. These are called devices and badges. A device represents you personally. You might think about it as an identification. A badge represents ownership or affiliation. So if you had a six plate dinner set you might put your device on your plate and your badges on the rest. You could wear your device, while you might make a favor with your device on it to signify that a friend, lover, or associate is connected with you. For SCA submission purposes, your device is registered on a device form. All other heraldic armory submissions are registered on a badge form. Badge forms come in two varieties, standard and fieldless. Think of the standard form like the device form, but in a different shape. A fieldless form is for badges without a designated background. Think of a pin or broach that could be placed on any surface.
To submit a device or badge in the Kingdom of Trimaris is not difficult. Please remember that the name must be submitted before or at the same time as a device or badge. This is to ensure there is a way to hold the armory submission. The price of a submission in Trimaris is $5. You turn in a completed submission form to either your local herald or the kingdom deputy herald in charge of submissions (Lymphad Herald). You can find out who the current Lymphad is by looking for that listing here: <https://www.trimaris.org/Herald>. When the device is turned in, the person who is turning in the submission should receive a receipt from the person they gave it to. Current preference is that submitters pay for their items via epay or directly to the Kingdom exchequer. The submission does not have to be turned in in person; it can be sent via email, or even mailed to the Hulk Herald.
Once the submission is turned in, the Lymphad puts the submission on an Internal (Kingdom) Letter of Intent (KLoIs). During the time specified in the letter by the Lymphad, usually one month, it is commented on by heralds across the kingdom. Then Lymphad takes the commentary and decides to send it up to the society level or back to the submitter for more work. Occasionally submission heralds will hold discussion meetings, but this varies kingdom to kingdom and submissions herald to submissions herald. If the submission moves to the society level, it is put on an External Letter of Intent (LoIs). The LoI is commented on by heralds across the entire known world for three months. Then, the Next Month there is a discussion meeting where the submission is approved or returned for more work. Next all the discussions of the submissions are proofread for a month. Then all the submissions are put in a Letter of Acceptances and Returns (LoAR). The decisions of the LoAR are returned to the submitter through the Kingdom's college, usually either the Trireme Herald or the Lymphad Herald. If the submission was accepted (approved), this is wonderful and folks are happy. If the submission was returned the herald should empathetically explain the college's decision and offer the submitter revisions so that the submission can be resubmitted. There is no cost for resubmissions. But if the submitter desires to change an accepted submission it costs 5 dollars. As can be seen from above, the whole process usually takes six months to a year. Though if the submission has issues it can take much longer. The KLoIs and LoIs are handled on a web platform called OSCAR (Online System for Commentary and Response). The address for OSCAR is <http://oscar.sca.org/>. We will talk more about OSCAR below, but the studious herald will play around on the site as much as possible both with and without a login to know what information can be found there.
The submissions process is an involved process. Before we get into the material for this section, I would like to offer you some supplementary reading. This article is called The Submitter's Guide to Submissions. It covers names and devices. It is offered here in case there is still some confusion as to what we are talking about. Below are links to the same article in two different formats.
http://heraldry.sca.org/guide.doc
http://heraldry.sca.org/guide.pdf
At this time, make sure you have played around with OSCAR and visited trimaris.org to find out who the kingdom heralds are and what they do. There are short job descriptions by each Herald's title. The Kingdom Heralds are there to help all the other heralds do their jobs. Make sure you understand the submission process described above. Questions about this material will be found in the evaluation. Please feel free to send questions to the Trimarian Coracle Herald <coracle@trimaris.org >.
Resources are much more central when dealing with names, as each name element and the construction must be documented. It is important to learn the difference between a good source and a bad source. Good sources usually look text-heavy with dates. Bad sources rarely have dates. Baby name sites and books are famously bad name references. While learning your name resources, the SCA has a couple of resources to help. First, they have a list called Names Sources to Be Avoided in Documentation, stay away from these books at all costs. Then they have a list called Sources That Do Not Require Photocopies to Laurel (the no photocopy list). This is not necessarily a list of trusted sources, but it is a list of books the society heralds office keeps on file, so it is a good place to start.
Keep in mind all articles on sca.org and s-gabriel.org/ (links below) are on the no photocopy list! The articles on sca.org and s-gabriel.org/ are the best web references for SCA names. Also, probably every SCA name herald should buy A Dictionary of English Surnames by Reaney, P.H. and R. M. Wilson. They should also buy an Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names by Withycombe, E.G.. These two name books will handle more name submissions than you possibly realize.
The rest of this section is a list of resources that can be found online. Please visit each one and take note of what is offered at each. There will be several questions based on these sites in the quiz. Once again, feel free to email questions to the Trimarian Coracle Herald <coracle@trimaris.org>.
http://heraldry.sca.org/ - Main SCA heraldry website
Office of the Triskele Herald - http://trimaris.org/Herald – Kingdom Heralds page. List of Officers with descriptions, Submission forms
SCA College of Arms - Rules and Regulations - http://heraldry.sca.org/regs.html – The Rules live Here!
SCA College of Arms - Name Articles -http://heraldry.sca.org/names.html –Names Live Here
Sources That Do Not Require Photocopies to Laurel -http://heraldry.sca.org/admin.html#APPENDIXH – No Photocopy List
Names Sources to Be Avoided in Documentation -http://heraldry.sca.org/admin.html#APPENDIXF – Wisdom, Attend!
The Academy of Saint Gabriel - http://www.s-gabriel.org/ - This is a mecca for SCA names and resources.
A Branch Herald's Toolbox - http://heraldry.sca.org/htoolkit.html –Start yours today! The tools of Heraldry.
[Withycombe] Withycombe, E.G. Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names. - A Standard English given name book. Cheap on Amazon. $0.01 used
[R&W or Reaney and Wilson] Reaney, P.H. and R. M. Wilson. A Dictionary of English Surnames. - A standard English surname book. Cheap on Amazon. $6 used
Known World Heraldic & Scribal Symposium - http://heraldry.sca.org/kwhss/2015/ - Lots of Valuable articles on all heraldry topics can be found at sca.org
Online System for Commentary and Response - http://oscar.sca.org/index.php?action=137 – Go here to track submission and comment
This is both the easy and hard part of working with armory or name submissions. True, you have to learn the heraldry, but then you have to do the hard work of helping people. My suggestion is that after you take this class, go to Herald's Point at a kingdom event and help out. You will learn more by helping other people than you will ever learn by reading. The other advantage to helping people with heraldry at Herald's point is that more experienced heralds usually hang out there so you can ask questions if you don't know something. You need to remember a couple of things, though. First, you are there to help the client/submitter. Your job is to help them pass what they want, within the framework of the rules. You don't have to like or agree with their submission. Only try and make the submitter happy. When doing heraldry, we work with the whole range of people we find in the world. Some are wonderfully easy folks. Some are more challenging and difficult. It is important to treat everyone with understanding and kindness. If you do this, you will be doing okay. In the spirit of offering extra help with dealing with people, here is a short video offering some good ideas <https://youtu.be/J8nnj0Rebng>.
Make sure you understand this section. It will be covered in the quiz. Please feel free to send questions to the Trimarian Coracle Herald <coracle@trimaris.org >.
Remember those KLoIs and LoIs, the submissions on those letters are commented on by heralds. Commenting is an important job that is neglected by many heralds. First, it is necessary that the kingdom and society submissions heralds have commentary to make their decisions. Also, this is a great way not only to learn heraldry and its rules, but also the current working interpretation of those rules. Commenting heralds are better heralds! In this class we will focus only on the name submissions.
In this section, you need to get your feet wet in commenting. This section may bring up questions, so be sure to email questions to the Trimarian Coracle Herald <coracle@trimaris.org>. First, you need to email your principal herald and have them approve you to comment on the KLoIs in OSCAR. You may need to sign up for an account first <http://oscar.sca.org/newuser.html>. Once you have done this, log in and go to the KLoIs section. See if Trimaris has a letter up. If not, see if it will let you read another letter. Click on the letter. You will see different submissions, read through them. If you have commenting ability from your principal herald, you will see the comments as well. If you see them, read them and try to understand them. In this class, focus only on the name submissions. There are several types of comments that can be made, most of them outside of the scope of this class. But to give you a taste, one comment might be whether or not the links work. Another might be whether or not the documentation actually matches the submission. Does the submission break any rules? Sometimes very experienced heralds might miss something very simple while looking at the complexities of the submission. In the kingdom letters everyone should be fairly polite and kind, if they're not, feel free to email your principal herald. On the society letter levels, it might seem like a different story. Some of the big society heralds look at things as more of an academic exercise and may forget that submissions are attached to people. They may not be trying to be rude, they're just being intellectual and aloof. Sometimes these types also get upset when someone doesn't know something. So if you comment on the society level, make sure you have your thick skin on. As for you, when commenting, always be nice and kind. While the actions of some society-level heralds are understandable, it is not acceptable to emulate them. We should always strive to be chivalrous and virtuous. If you have problems with someone while commenting on OSCAR, try and fix the problem yourself, but always feel free to talk with your kingdom's principal herald if things get out of hand. There is a lot in this section, make sure you understand it and have looked at some letters in OSCAR. Take advantage of the Coracle so you can get an idea of what commenting is. This section will be covered in the quiz. Please feel free to send questions to the Trimarian Coracle Herald <coracle@trimaris.org>.