Category: Personal

Heading to KWHSS

I waited until almost the last possible minute, but still managed to snag a room for two nights at the Sheraton around the corner from the University of Pennsylvania library where the Known World Heraldic and Scribal Symposium will be held next month.

I’m looking forward to hanging out with my fellow nerds and talking about heraldry and the various crazy things we do and make to support our little corner of the SCA.

And I’m loving the fact that despite being in another barony eighty miles away, this event is fully transit accessible, with just two inter-rail transfers to get door-to-door in under two hours.

I look forward to seeing a bunch of you there!

Personal Heraldic Title

When Wilhelm Laurel established the rank of Herald Extraordinary, he began the practice of personal heraldic titles:

Each Herald Extraordinary shall have a title that is his/her own personal title that s/he shall hold so long as s/he remains active. 

Cover Letter, July 1981 Letter of Acceptances and Returns

Over the year since my elevation, I’ve struggled to think of an appropriate title to take on, until I was startled awake this weekend with a stroke of inspiration. The submission form has now been sent off and we’ll wait to see if the College will accept me as the “Gadfly Herald.”

Continue reading “Personal Heraldic Title”

Extraordinary Recognition

During the Known World Heraldic and Scribal Symposium this weekend, I learned from Master Yehuda ben Moshe that, as one of his final actions as Brigantia, I had been elevated to the rank of Herald Extraordinary, a recognition for which I am deeply grateful.

Unlike nearly all of the awards and honors of the Society, this rank can not be bestowed by royalty or their representatives in the baronage; instead it stems from the authority of the Sovereigns of the College of Arms and the Principal Heralds of each kingdom.

The term “extraordinary” is used here not in the sense of “unusual,” but rather to mean “outside the typical order” — a recognition of work being done sui generis, rather than in a fixed role within the Colleges’ normal organization.

“Such a rank shall have no fixed duties, unless such shall be agreed upon by the holder and the Kingdom Principal Herald, but instead the holder of the rank shall be a senior member of the College who shall lend heraldic expertise as s/he sees fit.”
— Wilhelm Laurel, July 1981 LoAR

The rank was established over forty years ago, and is closely held; the record suggests that only a dozen Extraordinaries have been named here in the East over the last two decades, and even fewer in the two decades before that.

This recognition is especially meaningful to me in coming from Master Yehuda, because it was during his elevation to Herald Extraordinary at KWHSS in 2018 that I first came to see this title as one to which I could aspire, and the members of this rank as a group of which I could hope to one day be considered a peer.

So, my thanks to Yehuda for the recognition, and to the Heralds of the Colleges for their companionship and conviviality over the last seven years — I will endeavor to continue to be worthy of this honor in the years ahead.

Seeking A Technical Collaborator or Successor for the Traceable Heraldic Art

As we approach the fifth anniversary of my Traceable Heraldic Art project, and given how terribly overcommitted I am with numerous projects underway, I wanted to let folks know that if someone with a strong software-development background was interested in developing the next generation of the system that hosts that collection, I’d be open to collaboration and eventually turning it over to someone else to run.

This recent blog post lays out some of the background on how the current system works and what I hope might some day replace it, and links to the source code and data files I use to build and update the site. A successor system might be coded very differently, but I would hope that it would still support the current functionality and enable the development of new capabilities, so it seems likely to be of similar complexity.

This doesn’t mean I am about to abandon the project, but I have spent somewhere about four thousand hours on it already, and would like to free up some time to work on other things. If you’re a combination web-development nerd and armorial-art nerd, and you’re interested in spending years of your life improving and maintaining a much-valued community resource, drop me a line!

Five Years Before The Mast

The above social media post marks the five-year anniversary of my having joined the heraldic community.

I had started researching names and device designs for my own submission the previous December, getting some very helpful Irish onomastic advice from Mistress Alys Mackyntoich, and some armory feedback from the Facebook Heraldry Chat group.

I spoke to the former heralds of my canton and province that spring, but they weren’t submissions experts, so rather than mailing in the forms I filled them out as best I could and brought them to the Heralds Point tent at Pennsic that summer.

By happenchance, the herald who I was routed to was Meisterin Gisela vom Kreuzbach, who looked over the large pile of poorly-summarized documentation I had handed her and decided nonetheless that I had some promise, and invited me to come around the desk to sit by her and watch over her shoulder as she entered the records into the forms interface. I wound up shadowing her through several consultations that afternoon and returning for more a couple of days later, and by the end of the week I was hooked.

Little did I know that moment would set me on a path to spending literally thousands of hours working on this esoteric corner of our peculiar hobby. Thank you to everyone who has given me a hand up over the last five years, and to the many who went before us and paved the way for the world we now inhabit.

Armorial Catalog for Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin

During the five years in which I’ve been thinking about medieval armory,  I’ve registered four different designs with the College of Arms of the Society for Creative Anachronism, and as I’ve started thinking about further registrations it seemed prudent to pause and take stock of my current inventory. Continue reading “Armorial Catalog for Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin”

Family Animal Badges

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”

Appointment as Seahorse Pursuivant

Sixteen months after being made the Herald of the Canton of Whyt Whey, I have been appointed the Herald of the Crown Province of Østgarđr, whose title is Seahorse Pursuivant. My report from the meeting of the Provincial Officers Council follows.

To the populace of the Crown Province of Østgarðr, on behalf of their Viceroy and Vicereine, does Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin send his greetings.

Following this evening’s Commons meeting, the Provincial Officers Council gathered to review the candidates for those offices whose terms expire this month.

Continue reading “Appointment as Seahorse Pursuivant”

My Name and Device

My SCA persona is of mixed post-Viking Irish and post-Roman Welsh descent, living in northern Wales one thousand years ago, so I tried to select a name and armory that felt appropriate for that context.

Per fess argent and vert, a bear passant gules.

The Irish and Welsh of 1017 did not have a concept of personal armorial designs, which arrived in the British Isles with the Normans fifty years later, but heraldry is such a pervasive element in the SCA that I was willing to be anachronistic about it.

However, I still wanted to use a very simple design that was reminiscent of the earliest period of heraldry — per-fess fields with a single central charge are found by the twelfth century.

Continue reading “My Name and Device”