Crux Australis Herald
Baron Uberto Renaldi [mka Nigel Castle]
GPO Box 2719, Adelaide SA 5001, Australia
phone: (08) 8336 6791 or intl +61 8 8336 6791
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Crux Australis Herald
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"The CAMeL"
May 2001 (Anno Societatis XXXVI)
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!
In this issue…..
The Lochac Heralds' Handbook | Reflections on performing a Principality court | Reports
Roster changes | Important addresses | Subscriptions and Resources | Submission requirements
Meeting schedule | Recent submissions | News of previous submissions
Introductory blurb
Congratulations to Viscount Alfar of Attica, who won the May Coronet Tourney fighting for the honour of Liadan (the rest of whose name I have not been given). Alfar and Liadan will be invested as the 35th Prince and Princess of Lochac in July.
You will no doubt have heard that the Board of Directors have approved Lochac’s request to be a Kingdom. This means we must now pull out all the stops: the Heralds’ Handbook, awards, ceremonies and regalia must all be ready by July 2002, and much of it needs to be completed before the first Crown Tourney in April or May. If you wish to assist or offer suggestions (polite ones, of course) then contact either me or Master Stephen (Deputy Seneschal for Kingdom Advancement) whose address is in Pegasus.
Your servant,
Baron Uberto Renaldi,
Crux Australis Herald
I am still waiting for the flood of suggestions and offers to help with this worthy tome. If I have to write the majority of the thing myself then it won’t get done and we won’t have a Lochac-specific handbook which all heralds, new and experienced, can turn to for assisting them in their duties.
Please consider volunteering your time, your knowledge and/or your ideas.
Reflections on performing a Principality court
[The following are some observations made by Claire Marie Alderton, Acting Black Wing Pursuivant, after she performed her first Principality Court. They have been published here (after some editing by me) with her kind permission. My heartfelt thanks to Claire for sharing these observations with us. If you would also like to contribute your ideas or experiences on any heraldry-related topic then I am more than happy to publish it here]
Having water at all times when heralding is a good thing, a very good thing!
It was a courtesy gesture on my part to contact Their Highnesses about a fortnight prior to Their arrival. This allowed me to introduce myself and ascertain if my services were required, and (if so) which ceremonies would be required. [Not all royalty are forthcoming with such information, however! - Crux]
At Their Highnesses’ courts, there were more people standing behind the thrones than I am used to, and although this was fine for the tourney, when indoors it was necessary for me to stand behind Their Highnesses rather than to one side. My nervousness [perfectly natural] was lessened somewhat by having Sir Alfar on my right and Lady Maryann to my left.
I had use for my ‘Itty Bitty Book Light" – the small light with extended arm clips nicely to the back of my folder. However, since the battery pack is heavy I did find it difficult to keep the pack taped to the inside front cover of the folder until I applied ample amounts of silver duct tape. Despite this small problem I highly recommend others get one as it comes in very handy: it is small enough to conceal and dispenses with the problem of someone holding a candle for you and/or getting wax dripped on you.
His Highness had need to look over a couple of ceremonies from the handbook. I had the foresight the night before to check my smaller file and put into it all the coronet associated ceremonies from my large ceremonies book. Unfortunately, one of the ceremonies required (swearing fealty to His Majesty via His Highness) seemed to be missing. After looking over the other ceremonies I suggested to reword a similar ceremony as an impromptu substitute, and had it checked by Their Highnesses before court. When I got home I checked my large ceremonies book and discovered that the ceremony I needed doesn’t exist anyway! [The need to create or modify ceremonies on-the-fly is not common, but you should always be prepared for it. - Crux]
Doing paperwork immediately after the event is useful. [Doing the paperwork immediately before court, if time permits, is even better - Crux] Despite arriving home quite late, and having had an extremely long day, I started on the paperwork so as to note important and interesting details whilst they were fresh in my mind. As a result, I noticed a small oversight which I was able to get resolved quite quickly.
There was some confusion about the cheers at the closing of court. [This is not uncommon - Crux] I had thought that when Royalty visited it was correct protocol to announce the cheers above and including the highest ranking figurehead present (in this case Their Highnesses). Thus for the first court I said "Long live the King. Long live the Queen. Long live Their Highnesses, Hip! Hip! (etc.)" But then, the gentle heralding for the Baron and Baroness called for cheers for them as well. I approached Their Highnesses for Their opinion on this matter and asked Them if Their Excellencies should be included in the cheers for subsequent courts. The response was yes, but without the "Long live" part. [?huh? - Crux] I later checked my notes and ceremony handbook and, remembering what I had been taught and what was written there, as usual not all things go word for word. What it really comes down to is: ask Their Highnesses. [My golden rule is: cheer every royalty who have conducted some business at that court, and don’t have the populace repeat "Long live..." for the last royalty included – just go straight into the "Hip, Hip!". However, as Claire says "ask", as some royalty are very specific about cheers at their courts - Crux]
No matter what happens, always smile. [Well, almost always. I wouldn’t recommend grinning through a banishment, for instance. A better rule is "No matter what, stay composed", which is often easier said than done. - Crux]
The deadline for end-of-reign reports is 16th June 2001.
Please don’t be late with your report!
Much to my astonishment I discovered that Viscountess Alisaundre de Kilmaron was not a Pursuivant Extraordinary despite having been Frette Rouge Pursuivant a few years ago and quite competent in her knowledge of book heraldry. This situation has now been rectified.
Crux Australis Herald: Uberto Renaldi [Nigel Castle] GPO Box 2719, Adelaide SA 5001. Ph (08) 8336 6791. Email herald@sca.org.au
Hund Herald (West Kingdom external commentary) and Bombard Pursuivant (Ceremonies deputy): Thorfinn Hrolfsson [Steven Roylance] 1592 Malvern Road, Glen Iris VIC 3146. Ph (03) 9885 6348. Email roylance@corplink.com.au
Canon Pursuivant (Precedence and Gentry list): ): Morag Freyser [Helen Brinsmead] PO Box 455, Woden ACT 2606. Email the_brinsmeads@dingoblue.net.au
Mortar Pursuivant (Field and Voice deputy): Gwynfor Lwyd [Peter Ryan] 6 Merton Street, Springvale VIC 3171. Email prism@primus.net.au
Rocket Pursuivant (PE test & Drop-dead deputy): Aislinn de Valence [Megan Dansie] PO Box 526, Unley SA 5061. Ph (08) 8293 6635. Email aislinn@merlin.net.au
Baryl Pursuivant (External commentary): Thomas Flamanc of Kelsale [John Sawyer] PO Box 8021, Monash University VIC 3800. Email sawyer@lexicon.net.au
Subscriptions and Resources
"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".
The Armorial and Ordinary, as well as updates to them, are available from ‘SCA Inc. - Free Trumpet Press West’ in the USA. Their address is ‘1613 N. School St., Normal IL 61761-1240’. They also sell the ‘Heraldic Pictorial Dictionary for the SCA’, proceedings of Known World Heraldic Symposia and Compilations of Precedents by past Laurel Sovereigns of Arms. Contact me or see details of their web site below.
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’. Any decent bookstore should be able to order them for you.
Useful or interesting links:
The SCA Heraldry web page - www.sca.org/heraldry including the Laurel home page and on-line armorial and ordinary search.
The Academy of St. Gabriel (an heraldic consultation service) - www.s-gabriel.org
West Kingdom Heralds' Handbook - www.goldenstag.net/Handbook/index.htm
Free Trumpet Press West (SCA heraldic publications) - www.sca.org/heraldry/ftpw.
Parker’s Glossary of Heraldry - http://www04.u-page.so-net.ne.jp/ta2/saitou/ie401
If you can think of any other links or resources that should be listed here, please let me know.
Cost: $20 per new submission (name, device or badge). Note: a new name and device costs a total of $40. No cost for resubmissions or branch submissions. Make cheques payable to "SCA Inc. College of Heralds".
Copies required:
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.
Crux Australis submission 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 17th June 2001 and the one after that is scheduled for the 8th July.
Present at the Crux Australis Submissions Meeting held on Sunday 13th May 2001 at 36 Rosella Street, Payneham SA were: Baron Uberto Renaldi, Crux Australis Herald, and Viscountess Alisaundre de Kilmaron, Pursuivant Extraordinary At-Large.
The following submissions were FORWARDED to the College of Arms for registration:
Device Rsubmission to Crux Australis
Vert, two griffins couchant to sinister Or.
The submittor’s name was registered in September 2000.
His previous submission, returned by me in May 2000, was identical except that the bottom two-thirds of each griffin’s wings were argent. As there was no way to accurately blazon this I was forced to return it. With this submission, the wings are the same tincture throughout.
Name Resubmission to Laurel (see RETURNS for Device)
The submittor would like a female name, does not seem to care about meaning, sound or culture (but presumably wants an Italian name and/or something associated with cats) and will accept major changes. The submittor’s previous name submission, ‘Kassandra Gatto Ammiratore’, was returned by Laurel in June 1999 for lack of documentation.
‘Cassandra’ is found in Withycombe under its own heading, with this spelling dated to the 13th and early 14th centuries. In The Iliad, Cassandra is the daughter of Priam and Hecuba. Withycombe states that "the Trojan war was a favourite theme of medieval poets...Cassandra, like Hector, [was] a common christian name in the 13th and 14th C."
No real evidence was provided for the client’s preferred spelling of the given name with a ‘K’ [see below], nor the use of this name in Italy, for which I have no resources to check. However, with The Iliad (or at least some derivative of it) being familiar Europe-wide during our period I would be surprised if it was not used in some form or other in the Italian states. I have asked the commenting members of the College of Arms for assistance in confirming this.
The byname ‘Cattani’ is from the Online Catasto of 1427 which is itself compiled from David Herlihy and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber’s Census and Property Survey of Florentine Domains in the Province of Tuscany, 1427-1480.
[Note: documentation (of sorts) was provided for the spelling of ‘Kassandra’ with a ‘K", but it was not acceptable. It consisted of the acknowledgements made by Marion Zimmer Bradley for her novel The Firebrand, which is presumably based around the siege of Troy and what may have occurred afterwards. No matter how well documented the names in a story about Ancient Greece may appear to be, this does not make this work of modern fiction acceptable as a source for medieval names! End of rant.]
The following submissions were RETURNED for further work:
New Device
Azure, a fess argent fretty vert between three mullets pierced argent.
I feel a bit guilty returning this submission, as the two problems with it are relatively minor.
The first is that the holes in the mullets are too large – far larger than any examples in any of my books on armory, to the extent that they more resemble roundels placed on the mullets than holes pierced in them. The second is that although the outline copy clearly shows which slats overlap which in the fretty, the coloured versions do not, and there is a significant amount of it to be almost mistaken for 'a fess vert lozengy argent'.
Neither of these problems on their own would have been cause for return, but the two of them together pushed the device over the edge. Fortunately they can both be easily fixed with a redraw and the result will be a rather elegant device.
Device Resubmission to Laurel
Argent, a cat statant between three mullets of seven points sable.
This is being returned for a redraw. There is too much "white space" in this design. All the charges need to be drawn larger, especially the mullets which should also have points of equal size. The cat needs to be longer to fill more of the width of the shield.
I cannot resist getting on my soapbox here and stating my personal opinion that the medieval heraldic version of the cat was the lion and that what we should be encouraging people to use instead of domestic cats. I’m not against cats, just against their use in SCA heraldry when there is a perfectly good medieval alternative. Now back to our regular programme...
The following submission was PENDED until the Crux Australis submissions meeting in July 2001:
New Badge
(Fieldless) A pomegranate argent slipped, leaved and seeded Or
This is probably in conflict with (Fieldless) A pomegranate slipped and leaved Or [badge, Allaine de Beaumont of Glastonbury, June 1995] and (Fieldless) A pomegranate sable slipped, leaved, and seeded Or [badge, Cathlin Sommerfield, Sept 1999] OR Per bend sinister rompu argent and gules, in sinister base a pomegranate slipped and leaved argent, seeded gules [device, Katherine Lynten of CaerLeon, Aug 1987], depending on how the pomegranate is drawn.
In each case, there is automatically one CD for ‘fieldlessness’ versus any other armory (including ‘Fieldless’), but the second CD can only be granted if (and I quote RfS X.4.d) ‘the tincture of at least half the charges in a group’ is changed. This means that to avoid conflict with Allaine’s and Cathlin’s badges, Jan’s pomegranate must be drawn so that the argent portions (mainly the outer skin of the fruit) visually comprises more than half of the badge. However, this would then probably bring it into conflict with Katherine’s device, in which the sole charge is presumably mostly argent.
The only thing that would save it would be if the stem, leaves and seeds of Katherine’s pomegranate account for more than 50% of the charge (as Jan’s currently does), whilst the same elements account for less than 50% of Allaine and Cathlin’s badges and Jan was to draw his pomegranate ‘just right’ so as to be able to use X.4.d to get a second CD in each case.
Therefore, I have decided to pend this submission to allow the submittor (with my assistance) to obtain copies of the aforementioned gentles’ armory so as to ascertain if an avoidance of conflict is within the bounds of actuality.
None. I have not yet received Laurel’s Letter of Acceptances and Returns for April 2001.