Unto the College of Heralds of the Principality of Lochac, and all others who may read this missive, from Baron Uberto Renaldi, Crux Australis Herald, greetings!

Proposed Policy Change | Summarised Lochac Heraldic Policy | Reports | Roster changes

Important addresses | Subscriptions and Resources | Submission requirements

Meeting schedule | Recent submissions | News of previous submissions

News has come to me of a disturbing practice being performed by some court heralds. It seems that when these heralds make a slip of the tongue or other blunder during court, they flourish their ceremony books and invite someone else to take over heralding the court.

Be it known that I highly disapprove of such behaviour! Whilst wearing the tabard one is the voice of the Crown and therefore one should always act in a professional manner. The aforementioned behaviour brings disrepute to the both royalty one speaks for and to the College of Heralds. It is also discourteous.

On the more practical side, drawing attention to your mistakes is bad theatre. We all make mistakes and, besides practising reading out aloud, there is little you can do to prevent them. What to do when they occur depends on the situation. Sometimes just going straight on without a pause is best - people have short memories and will soon forget that a minor slip-up even happened. If the mistake is one that people will notice (such as a mangled name) then stop, apologise, and continue. What you should never do is make a scene in the middle of court. This disrupts the flow of business, compounds the fault and annoys both populace and royalty.

If, after a particularly mistake-laden court, you are criticised for your errors, then you are fully entitled to offer the critic the chance to try their hand and court heraldry - unless of course it a more experienced herald who is attempting to give you constructive advice!

Finally, it is a good idea for less experienced court heralds to have someone more experienced as their second. That way, the second can take over if the inexperienced herald finds they are having a really bad day.

Your servant,

VBERTVS

Baron Uberto Renaldi,

Crux Australis Herald

Proposed Policy Change

I am seeking comments on the following change to Lochac Heraldic Policy:

Resubmissions are free for a period of ten (10) years from the date of the most recent return, after which the submission is considered withdrawn.

Currently, a submittor who has had a submission returned may resubmit for free any time, regardless of how long ago the submission was returned. This has already led to a few ‘dead’ submissions in the files, and under the current policy this number will only grow as time goes on.

This change is one that benefits the College and the Crux office rather than the submittors, but I believe that 10 years is long enough (maybe too long?) for anyone to at least resubmit something if they actually want to get something registered. I have heard that some Kingdoms require resubmission within one year, but I believe that to be a bit severe.

Comments must reach me by 17 December. If no severe objections are raised then the change will be implemented early next year after an amnesty period in which the inactive submissions affected will be listed in Pegasus to give the submittors a chance to resubmit.

Summarised Lochac Heraldic Policy

The document titled ‘Lochac Heraldic Policy’ is a weighty 14-page collection of policy, advice and information that is no doubt daunting to new heralds and cumbersome for the more experienced.

I have, therefore, produced a summarised version which should be easier to use. I have included it with this Camel, below. Any comments or corrections would be much appreciated.

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Reports

End-of-reign quarterly reports are due by 17 December 2000.

None this month

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"The CAMeL" is available from Crux Australis at $20 per year. Make cheques payable to "SCA Inc. College of Heralds".

Laurel's Letter of Acceptance and Return is available from the SCA College of Arms. Send a cheque for $US25 made out to "SCA Inc. — College of Arms" to Bruce R. Nevins, 2527 E. 3rd Street, Tucson AZ, 85716-4114, USA. As usual, everything of relevance to Lochac will be published in "The CAMeL".

Master Thorfinn is the person to talk to about heraldic publications. Possibly the most useful item that he stocks is the ‘Heraldic Pictorial Dictionary for the SCA’ (affectionately known as the PicDic), which will cost you $A8.50 for the first edition or $A12.50 for the second edition. Alternatively, order it directly from the USA via Free Trumpet Press for $US15 (details of their web site are below — and they now take credit cards).

I also recommend that groups acquire some name resources, in particular P.H. Reaney & R.M. Wilson’s ‘A Dictionary of English Surnames’ and E.G. Withycombe’s ‘The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names’.

Many interesting heraldic links can be found through the SCA Heraldry web page at www.sca.org/heraldry including the Laurel home page, on-line armorial and ordinary search, and the Academy of St. Gabriel (an heraldic consultation service). The Free Trumpet Press West web page is www.sca.org/heraldry/ftpw. Parker’s Glossary can be found at http://www04.u-page.so-net.ne.jp/ta2/saitou/ie401

Cost: $20 per new submission (name, device or badge). No cost for resubmissions or branch submissions. Make cheques payable to "SCA Inc College of Heralds".

Copies required:

• Names: two (2) copies of both the form and ALL documentation, including title page of each book.
• Devices and Badges: four (4) colour copies and one (1) black & white OUTLINE copy. The colour copies should be accurately coloured, preferably in felt tip pen (eg Crayola Classic Colours). Faint colour printers or faint coloured pencil is not acceptable. The colours must be visible across a crowded Herald's meeting.

Please include ALL necessary documentation to support each submission. It is the responsibility of the submittor to present their submission in a way that makes registration easy. Name documentation should be as accurate as possible: remember to include photocopies of the title page as well as the relevent page(s) of any source used.

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Crux Australis meetings are held once a month, usually at 36 Rosella Street, Payneham SA, starting at 2pm. Please call beforehand if you intend to bring submissions for processing. The next meeting is scheduled for the 19th November and the one after that will probably be on the 17th December

If you can’t make it to the meetings but would like to participate in commentary via email, drop me a line and I will add you to the ‘blazons’ mailing list.

Present at the Crux Australis meeting held on Sunday 15th October 2000 was Baron Uberto Renaldi, Crux Australis Herald and no-one else at all.

1. Laigen ingen Diarmata

Group: Agaricus / Saint Malachy
Consulting herald: Jan Antheunis van Ghent

New name

The submittor wanted a 12-14th century feminine Irish name with the meanings ‘spear’ and ‘descendant of Jeremiah’.

Sadly, it must be returned for lack of documentation. Although the documentation cited does show ‘Laigen’, it has it as a byname not as a given name, and there is no evidence that bynames were used as given names in Ireland in this period.

The closest matches that I could find in Corráin and Maguire were ‘Líadan’ (also spelt ‘Líadain’ and ‘Líadaine’) which is pronounced ‘lia-darn’; ‘Lerben’ or ‘Learbhean’ which is pronounced ‘lar-varn’; ‘Liamuin’ or ‘Liamhain’ pronounced ‘lyav-in’; and the masculine name ‘Ledbán’ or ‘Leadhbhán’, pronounced ‘lie-varn’.

Although there is no evidence that masculine names (or even feminised forms of them) were given to daughters, the RfS would allow the submittor to register a masculine given name. However, they may then be forced to use ‘mac’ instead of ‘ingen’ to make the entire name masculine.

The rest of the name looks fine, although I believe the correct phrase for ‘descended from Diarmata’ in a 12th-14th century Irish name would be ‘inghean uí’, whilst just ‘inghean’ would mean ‘daughter of’. It appears that ‘ingen’ is an earlier form of ‘inghean’.