{"id":2537,"date":"2010-06-16T01:44:03","date_gmt":"2010-06-16T09:44:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ogre.nu\/wp\/?p=2537"},"modified":"2018-02-24T23:54:48","modified_gmt":"2018-02-25T07:54:48","slug":"heraldic-heresy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/?p=2537","title":{"rendered":"heraldic heresy"},"content":{"rendered":"

I happened to see a “demo” in a park by a branch of the Society for Creative Anachronism<\/a>. (A “demo” is a small event designed to get public attention, as opposed to one where everyone present is expected to dress and behave cod-medievally.) I stopped to say hi, and mentioned that twenty years ago I was active as a book-herald: designing coats-of-arms and checking them for sufficient difference from others previously registered. This datum was received with excitement, as the local shire has no book-herald; so I indicated that, although I have no desire at all to play the SCA game, I’d happily make available such expertise as I have.<\/p>\n

I joined the shire’s mailing-list as well as that of the kingdom heralds, and within a month caused an uproar. Warning: unexplained SCA heraldic jargon ahead.<\/i> <\/p>\n

A new member sought advice on a device and badge that she proposes to register. The badge is the same as the device, but fieldless. I remarked, <\/p>\n

When I was active – a long time ago in a kingdom far far away – we’d say “Don’t bother paying to register it; if you put it on your gear, everyone will understand.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Outrage! <\/p>\n

Displaying unregistered armory is claiming ownership to something you do not actually own and in a Society of honor, is dishonorable. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Possibly it was unclear that my advice was merely not to register the badge as well as<\/em> the device. (But why would I be on that list if I advocated registering nothing?) I retorted: <\/p>\n

As I see it, using a simplified unregistered (perhaps unregistrable) version of one’s arms as an ornamental motif — not on a shield or flag! — is like using a simplified unregistered (and almost certainly unregistrable) version of one’s name. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The distinction I had in mind, between e.g. putting a fleur-de-lis on one’s goblets and flying a royal banner of France, was either not understood or not considered significant. After at least one more round of “Making such a claim would be wrong” and “So what? This is not<\/em> making such a claim,” I asked which of a list of specific acts would be condemned: wearing a tunic in the tinctures of one’s arms, wearing a belt ornamented with a charge from the arms, and so on. But before I could get a reply on this, the peevishness of my next two posts provoked a senior herald to declare the thread closed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I happened to see a “demo” in a park by a branch of the Society for Creative Anachronism. (A “demo” is a small event designed to get public attention, as opposed to one where everyone present is expected to dress … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fandom","category-heraldry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2537"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2574,"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537\/revisions\/2574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}