Author: Mathghamhain

Identifying Charge Groups

[Update, January 2024:] For the latest version of this document, see Identifying Charge Groups Revisited which simplifies the flow of the questions.

The concept of “charge groups” was developed within Society heraldry to facilitate analysis of armorial designs; although that phrase isn’t used in either period or modern heraldry, it is an effective way of understanding the actual designs that appear in period armory.

The rules for charge group analysis are set forth in Appendix I of SENA. and are covered in the “Armory 102” video class at East Kingdom Herald University.

To start, find a group of one or more charges of a similar size and in a related arrangement, then consider their placement and relationship to other charges to categorize them as follows:

Continue reading “Identifying Charge Groups”

Traceable Art Acknowledgements

Assembling and refining the Traceable Art collection has been an ever-growing project over the last three years.

Thank you to each of the artists who contributed illustrations to this effort, and to those who posted their creations online under licenses that allowed them to be collected here. Their names are catalogued in the Sources section, and this collection would not exist without them.

I am very grateful to the Pennsic Traceable Art project, led by Ailis Linne, which provided the inspiration for this collection, and was initially the primary source of material. A special thanks to Þórý Veðardóttir for recruiting me to work on updating that resource, and for providing feedback during the first year.

Many thanks to the heralds of the SCA for the years of research and the reference material which informed this work. Notable among these is Bruce Draconarius of Mistholme, creator of the Pictorial Dictionary of Heraldry, aka the “PicDic,” a truly invaluable resource.

Particular thanks for the helpful feedback received from Beatrice Domenici della Campana, Kryss Kostarev, Muirenn ingen Dúnadaig, Tanczos Istvan, Thóra Róarsdóttir, Yehuda ben Moshe, and the members of the SCA Heraldry Unofficial Chat group on Facebook.

My sincere appreciation to folks who have contacted me with corrections, including Basil Dragonstrike, Konrad Mailander, Michael Gerard Curtememoire, Amy Hanson, Alexandre Saint Pierre, and Cormac Mór.

April First Submissions

Every year on the first of April, the heralds of the Society for Creative Anachronism post mock submissions of historical names and armory. You can browse an archive of these letters via the College of Heralds Imaginary.

We generally attempt to adhere to the conventions expected for normal letters of intent, including source citations and armorial rules, but our standards for documentation and style are somewhat relaxed for this humorous purpose.

Below are entries I came up with this year; some of them appeared on the Eastern and Imaginary letters. You’ll notice that a majority of them reflect the East’s theme for the year: desserts. Continue reading “April First Submissions”

Traceable Art Quarantine Update

Over the last forty days or so, I’ve added another two hundred and thirty illustrations to the Traceable Heraldic Art web site.

Thanks to Iago ab Adam and Vémundr Syvursson, both of An Tir, who contributed a number of items to the collection in recent weeks. Master Iago’s adaptations from the Wappenbuch Conrads von Grünenberg are particularly striking, capturing the idiosyncratic character of the original roll while adhering to the clean line-art requirements of our submissions format.

(If you have line-art images you’re willing to share with the community in this way, get in touch! I’d love to have both brand-new charges and new versions of existing charges in different artistic styles.) Continue reading “Traceable Art Quarantine Update”

Using DrawShield for Emblazons

DrawShield is a web service that allows rapid generation of armorial images by either entering a blazon or choosing elements in a point-and-click interface.

It’s an automated system, so the results often aren’t as polished as you can produce by assembling elements yourself, or as unique as the custom work of a talented heraldic artist, but it’s fast and easy, and doesn’t require any tools other than a web browser, so it’s a great option for casual users to try out different possibilities and quickly mock up options for discussion.

Hundreds of charges from the Book of Traceable Heraldic Art have been converted to DrawShield elements, so users of the Traceable collection may recognize some images they encounter there, and DrawShield users can find additional variations of charges here if they wish to further embellish a design they started in that system.

Using GIMP for Emblazons

Jehanette de Provins, Her Majesty the Queen of Northshield, teaches classes on how to create armorial images using GIMP and images from the Book of Traceable Heraldic Art, and recently recorded a session for viewers at home.

GIMP is an open-source software package for pixel-based illustration, in the same vein as Paint and Photoshop. As a Mac user, I find the interface to be a bit clunky, but it’s free, it includes a lot of features, and it runs on a wide variety of operating systems, which makes it a useful tool.

Make sure to turn your volume up to follow the presentation!

Downloading the Livro do Armeiro-Mor

The Livro do Armeiro-Mor (Book of Great Armigers) was painted in Portugal 1506-09 by Jean Du Cros.

As with a number of other period armorials, it has been photographically digitized at high resolution, but the only publicly-available source for these scans is a “click to pan and zoom” web interface operated by the Portuguese Archives Network, which is hard to flip through rapidly, and can’t be accessed when offline at an event. Continue reading “Downloading the Livro do Armeiro-Mor”

#HeraldicLove 2020

Did you know that people in the medieval and renaissance periods sometimes displayed their arms on a heart shape?

For the month of February, the SCA’s #HeraldicLove campaign encouraged people to display their device or populace badge on a heart-shaped field.

In support of this effort, I joined a number of other heraldic artists in creating these images for people both locally and across the Society. Continue reading “#HeraldicLove 2020”

Traceable Art Winter Update

Over the last three months, I’ve added more than two hundred new items to the Traceable Heraldic Art collection, bringing the current total to just over three thousand distinct charges, divisions, treatments, and lines.

Some of the new illustrations were taken from period manuscripts such as the Wappenbuch der Arlberg-Bruderschaft, while others were drawn from modern sources such as the Viking Answer Lady SVG files and the creations of the Pennsic Heralds’ Point art tent team from last summer. Continue reading “Traceable Art Winter Update”

A Catalogue Of Period Devices

I often encourage people who are beginning the process of designing a personal coat of arms to start by looking at period rolls of arms. Doing so can help to set expectations and provide inspiration that contribute to creating a device that is plausibly medieval — especially if you focus on rolls from the particular time and place that you want to evoke for your persona.

Without this context, it’s easy to fall into the trap of recycling SCA armorial tropes, such as “per bend sinister, an X and a Y counterchanged,” which is almost never found in period coats. Continue reading “A Catalogue Of Period Devices”