Society History – Techniques of Digital Heraldry

Historical Trends in Extraordinary Titles

There’s recently been an effort to update the list of Heralds Extraordinary, originally maintained by Modar Neznanich but now posted as an official College reference. Jeanne Marie Lacroix did an amazing job of checking through the entire set of records, filling in gaps and making corrections throughout.

Based on that data, I put together a little chart showing the number of new Heralds Extraordinary created each year since the rank was established.

It’s interesting to see the distribution change from around an average of less than two per year during the first two decades to nearly ten per year starting in the middle of 2002. I’m not sure what triggered the culture change, but it sure is dramatic.

Even with the increased rate in recent decades, this remains a small group, with just over 250 people so recognized in 42 years.

Caveats

This visualization is based on the data available to date, and it’s possible that a few items have been overlooked or that some entries will end up being shifted by a year or two, but this should be reasonably close to the final result.

Note also that record keeping in the early years of the College was somewhat haphazard, and in some cases we only have a date for when a title was registered rather than when the rank was awarded.

A Phylogeny of the Laurel Kingdoms

The Known World of the SCA is divided into twenty kingdoms which have emerged over its fifty-eight year history, as shown in this family tree.

Branch Arms on the East Kingdom Pennsic Sheetwalls

The sheetwalls surrounding the East Kingdom royal encampment at Pennsic are donated by local branches, and decorated with their arms.

This lovely display of the provincial arms is reported to have been created by Lord Renier VerPlanck (sometimes written Reijnier Verplanck), and is likely about fifteen years old.

Armorial of the Viceregents of the Crown Province

Back in 2018 I created an image for the fiftieth anniversary of Østgarðr (and by extension, of the East Kingdom) that shows the arms of the viceroys and vicereines, the unique title held by the landed representatives of the Crown here in the only Crown Province of the Known World.

When I drew this five years ago, Suuder and Lada still wore the chains of state which serve the viceregents as the civil equivalent of the coronets one finds in the 185 baronies which follow us in the Armorial of Precedence. Tonight I’ve updated the chart to reflect the investiture last autumn of Angelica and Sofya, joint Viceréinas of Østgarðr. Long may they serve!

Seeking Proofreaders for Old LoARs

Folks — I’d love some help with a round of proof-reading for some old LoARs which I’ve transcribed for addition to the Laurel website.

There are a handful of letters from the 1970s which were scanned decades ago, but never got transformed into webpages. I’ve created new pages for them, but before they go live they could really benefit from a fresh set of eyes to spot any errors that may have crept in during transcription. The new pages were created via a mix of OCR and hand-typing, with manually-applied web markup, and almost certainly contain some errors.

Who Owns the Copyright to the LoARs?

A couple of days ago, I was working on getting some old LoARs ready for publication online when I stopped to consider who held the copyrights to them.

[As with all of the legal commentary on this site, the below should be read with the knowledge that I am not a lawyer, and none of this should be taken as legal guidance — I’m just attempting to describe a somewhat-obscure issue as best I understand it.]

Because the letters were created by volunteers rather than employees, they are not “work for hire,” and I don’t think any past Sovereigns have been asked to sign agreements on the subject.

Why You Can’t Register Marshalled Armory

Considerations of armorial designs including straight-line per-pale or quarterly field divisions often include a discussion of whether they have “the appearance of marshaling.” Putting aside the question of how we answer that question (already ably addressed elsewhere, see here and here), one might wonder why this is an issue — why doesn’t the SCA’s College of Arms register armory that has the appearance of marshalling?

I believe the answer is that marshalled arms were not issued as such by period heraldic authorities, nor did newly-armigerous families assume already-marshalled arms.

Instead, each individual coat of arms was granted (or assumed) independently, and it was only after that point they were ever combined via impalement or quartering (or sometimes more esoteric arrangements as seen in Iberia).

How the East Kingdom got its Blue Tyger

The Blue Tyger (sometimes informally known as “Sparky”) serves as a sort of mascot for the East Kingdom, appearing in its populace badge as well as many of its award insignia.

Earlier this year I got curious about why this was, and asked some Eastern heralds, who provided a bunch of the context: the blue tyger had been selected by Alfgar the Sententious, first Brigantia Herald, as a figure from East-Asian mythology and a riff on the dragon of the Middle Kingdom.

An Unsubmitted Badge for the “Vicar-General” of Østgarðr

For the first eight or nine years of Society activity on the East Coast, the Kings and Queens of the East lived within driving distance of New York City, and the Crown Province of Østgarðr was governed directly by the royalty.

However, in the winter of AS X the Crown Tourney was won by Sir Alaric of the Southern Region (now Atlantia) and this situation became untenable — in the spring, rule would pass to a king who lived too far away to visit the city regularly.

To prepare for this situation, at Twelfth Night in January 1976, King Aonghais (yes, that Aonghais) named Count Vardak Mirceavitch Basarabov of Iloi (yes, the only Court Count) to be a royal representative, tasked with overseeing the province on behalf of the Crown. Continue reading “An Unsubmitted Badge for the “Vicar-General” of Østgarðr”

Memories of Hal Ravn, Former Morsulus Herald

[I recently got in touch with Hal Ravn, who first transferred the Ordinary of the Society into electronic format, and asked him about that experience. Following a few rounds of correspondence, he granted permission for me to post an excerpted version of his recollections here, for which I am extremely grateful. I have attempted to place the narrative into chronological order below, eliding mundane names and non-heraldic elements. Points where I’ve stitched material together out of the order in which it was written are marked with […] and editorial interjections are marked with square brackets. — Mathghamhain]

Continue reading “Memories of Hal Ravn, Former Morsulus Herald”