[MR] Heraldic Word of the Day

[Jim Looper]

My apologies for the jump in days, work is getting a bit on the hectic side... 



Today is not going to be a word, but a posting of an article on the Society's Webpage... 



FREQUENTLY GIVEN ANSWERS (That Are Wrong) 

by Master Gawain of Miskbridge 
(with assistance from Lady Alanna of Volchevo Lesa, Master Dmitrii Volkovich, and Master Da'ud ibn Auda) 

Permissing is hereby granted to reprint this article in SCA publications. 




HERALDRY 

    1. Only queens can use roses on their arms. 

What is reserved to queens (and Companions of the Rose) are rose wreaths . Chaplets of roses are reserved to princesses. By extension, orles and bordures of roses are also reserved. Single and multiple roses of any tincture* are not reserved, and are registered all the time, so long as they don't look too much like a wreath. 

* A rose tinctured gules and argent is an English royal badge, the "Tudor rose", and is not registerable in the Society. 
    2. Charges that have been previously registered in the Society are always OK to use. 

The College of Arms' level of understanding of period heraldic practices has increased greatly over the years. A number of charges that have been registered in the past are now seen to be at odds with the heraldry of our period of study and are no longer accepted for registration. 
    3. You have to have an Award of Arms before you can register your heraldry. (Alternate version: You have to have an AoA before you can display your heraldry.) 

Anyone may register heraldry. Until they receive an Award of Arms from the Crown, it is called a "heraldic device" instead of a "coat of arms". The two are registered and displayed identically; only the terminology changes when you become armigerous. N.B.: This is not a practice firmly based on historical precedent. 


    4. Sable is a fur. 

Yes, sable is a dark-brown luxury fur. No, in heraldry, sable means black, which is classified as a color, not a fur. 


    5. Furs are considered neutral with respect to the Rule of Tincture, so they may be placed upon, or be charged with, either metals or colors. 

This is mostly true in heraldry outside the SCA, but we consider each fur individually: in the ermine family we categorize furs by their field tincture, since that has the greater area: ermine = argent, so is considered a metal, while counter-ermine = sable, so is considered a color. On the other hand, furs of the vair family have more or less equal areas of both tinctures, so are indeed considered neutral. A charge of either of the constituent tinctures is still not allowed go over or under a vair fur, though. 


    6. A bar sinister on a coat of arms shows that the bearer is a bastard. 

This is wrong in at least two ways. First, there is no such thing as a "bar sinister" in heraldry. A bar is a narrow horizontal stripe, so there is no way for it to be sinister. Second, one of a number of marks of illegitimacy, well-known because it was used by some acknowledged bastards of the French crown, was the "bendlet sinister couped overall", also called a "baton sinister". This is definitely not the only mark of illegitimacy used in period heraldry. 


    7. They stopped checking against mundane armory, so now you can use anything you want . 

"It is true that the SCA College of Arms no longer checks for conflict against any but famous non-SCA arms. But to deliberately search out a real coat of arms and to adopt it is, in short, theft. Your arms should represent you, not someone else. Independent invention or creation of a coat of arms which may be similar to non-SCA arms, however, is permissible." - Da'ud ibn Auda 





Sincerely, 



Lucien