Although devices (or “coats of arms”) are the most recognizable form of armorial display, their cousins the fieldless badges were equally common during the medieval period and renaissance.
We’ve recently registered a fieldless badge for each member of our family incorporating a distinctive animal and color. Continue reading “Family Animal Badges”
SENA devotes over 10,000 words to conflict checking armory, which the below guide attempts to summarize.
It includes references to the relevant sections of SENA so you can track down more details if needed. Continue reading “An Armory Conflict-Checking Checklist”
I keep forgetting which complex lines are considered to conflict with each other, so I put together this quick-reference guide in hopes that a visual presentation would help it to sink in. Continue reading “Complex Lines Quick Reference”
This video provides a decent introduction to the medieval use of armory for a non-specialist audience.
A notable characteristic of armorial depiction is that any illustration of a given design is considered to be heraldically equivalent. For example, any illustration of “Gules, three lions passant guardant in pale Or” is said to represent the English Sovereign, no matter in what style the lions are drawn, as long as they accurately reflect that blazon.
Konstantia Kaloethina has assembled a nice demonstration of this principle in her “Heraldic Mythbusting” blog post containing nine different illustrations of “a seraph proper” by six different artists.
Two seraphs proper; the first by myself using an illustration by Vinycomb, the second by Konstantia Kaloethina. (Shared with permission.)
In addition to these illustrations, the post provides some period examples of “artistic license,” explains some boundaries on when it’s taken too far, and discusses the Society’s heraldic registration policies — it’s definitely worth a read.
Bahja had a name picked out and a lovely first draft of his device designed, but it needed a bit of adjustment to be registrable by the College of Arms.
Or, on a saltire between four rings purpure gemmed gules a pomegranate slipped and leaved Or seeded gules.
Although the original arrangement Bahja had sketched was problematic, we were able to retain all of the charges and the overall color scheme, while shifting them into a new layout which was free of conflicts.
Bahja is a Arabic masculine ism (given name) and al-Azraq is an Arabic masculine laqab (descriptive byname).
Both are found in “Arabic Names from al-Andalus” (Juliana de Luna, 2008).
Anne is an active fencer in the Province, who wanted to register armory that was personally meaningful, and had already identified a silver tree as the primary charge.
Per fess sable and vert, a tree and in chief a comet bendwise argent.
The illustration of the tree comes from the Pictorial Dictionary of Heraldry, affectionately known as the PicDic, while the comet comes from the Viking Answer Lady’s SVG Images For Heralds collection.
Anne is a female given name in multiple parts of medieval Europe. It is found in the Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources at http://dmnes.org/name/Anne as attested to 1485 in Early Modern English, citing Wills and Inventories Illustrative of the History, Manners, Language, Statistics, &c. of the Northern Counties of England, from the Eleventh Century Downwards, volume I of Publications of the Surtees Society. London: J. B. Nicholas and Son, 1835.
Østgarðr is the name of the Crown Province of the East Kingdom, and the byname “of Østgarðr” follows the Branch Name Allowance of SENA PN.1.B.2.f.
Catelin wanted a name and device that reflected her family’s Scottish heritage, and had already picked a basic direction, so it didn’t take much additional effort to help her select something that was both unique and registrable.
Azure, a stag courant to dexter base between two roses argent.
Catelin had been interested in a “bucking” stag, but as that isn’t a recognized heraldic posture, we went looking for alternatives which would produce a similar visual effect.
While “courant to dexter base” is an unusual arrangement, it has been registered twice, most recently in January 2016.
The white rose was a badge of the House of York.
The illustrations for both charges are taken from Fox-Davies’ 1909 book A Complete Guide to Heraldry.
Catelin is a female given name found in the British Isles.
Straquhin is a late-period byname from the Scottish Lowlands.
SENA Appendix C indicates that after 1100, English and Scottish name elements may be combined.
This friendly video by Mistress Morgan Donner of An Tir with Baroness Alianora Greymoor provides a useful introduction to folks in the SCA who’re interested in registering some armory but don’t know were to start.
Someone recently asked if there was an listing of which charges had been used most or least often in the Society’s armory. It turns out that this isn’t an easy question to answer using the standard Morsulus armorial interface, but since I’ve imported that data into a SQL database I was able to put together a query that generates such a listing.
The data below is current as of the LoAR dated January 2018, which was posted in March. It includes over fifty thousand total registered armory items, including those which have since been released.
Some other important caveats result from the way this listing was constructed:
