Heraldry tips (SCA)
Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 1:43 pm
There have been a few questions regarding heraldry and the SCA on the board lately, so I thought I would post a few do's, don'ts and what to expect.
You do not need an award of arms, grant of arms, or peerage in order to register or display your heraldry in the SCA.
The SCA does not police heraldry on the field or off, however the very reason to register, persona names, heraldry, households, and badges is to avoid confusion with someone else, and helps officers on the SCA keep track of who is who. Otherwise they have to deal with John Paston, his son John Paston, and John Paston's brother Sir John Paston. However someone who has registered heraldry in the SCA can ask that you do not display what is copywrited to them.
Heraldry has to follow certain guidelines, since heraldry as a whole was constantly evolving from the 12th century up, the SCA has had to streamline certain issues.
This is the basic guidleines:
http://www.caerdubh.com/heraldry/tincture.html
Concerning your family Coat of Arms (COA), trademarks, etc.
The SCA does not allow trademarks such as the Nike "swoosh", Babylon 5's Logo, etc, as registerable heraldry.
Two reasons;
1. It is a copywrite violation.
2. Most of it is either, a) cannot be documented, or b) violates other rules of heraldry anyways.
The SCA also considers family heraldry, especially the ones you see commercially produced as copywrited as well. Since few, if anyone can lay sole personal claim to a family COA. And while you may think that no one has seen your family COA, you never know it may be the staring a herald in the face from one of the many books we use as resources.
The SCA also has a rule of presumption, which basically means you cannot lay claim to family ties, lands, titles, or powers that your persona does not actually posses. So, unless your Duke like Cuan, you cannot put a crown on your shield. You also cannot say your Barak Pendragon, because you are laying claim to a title and family you really don't have the right to. And you cannot have heraldry that looks like two or more COAs combined, such as the Royal Arms of England. This also applies to cantons and other marks of cadence.
But if you designed your own heraldry, say ten years ago, and have been jousting proffessionally with it, and it does not violate any of the above, and one or two rules to spare, you will not be denied since it is something you can lay personal claim to.
As for the process of registering your heraldry, and why it takes so long is to avoid all of the above.
YOur consulting herald should check to make sure the design is compatible with the SCA rules of Heraldry and conflict check it against the armorial, if time and access allow. (It is difficult to check the online armorial when you are at an event, but I have seen it done).
Once you have officially submitted your name and heraldry it is sent to the Kingdom Level Herald who usually holds a meeting about once a month to help sort through all of the requests, if there is nothing wrong found, it will be sent to the Laurel level which takes a while to get through all of those submissions from the entire society. So ten months to a year is pretty darn quick.
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"As long as there are fanatics there will always be heretics"
http://www.caerdubh.com
You do not need an award of arms, grant of arms, or peerage in order to register or display your heraldry in the SCA.
The SCA does not police heraldry on the field or off, however the very reason to register, persona names, heraldry, households, and badges is to avoid confusion with someone else, and helps officers on the SCA keep track of who is who. Otherwise they have to deal with John Paston, his son John Paston, and John Paston's brother Sir John Paston. However someone who has registered heraldry in the SCA can ask that you do not display what is copywrited to them.
Heraldry has to follow certain guidelines, since heraldry as a whole was constantly evolving from the 12th century up, the SCA has had to streamline certain issues.
This is the basic guidleines:
http://www.caerdubh.com/heraldry/tincture.html
Concerning your family Coat of Arms (COA), trademarks, etc.
The SCA does not allow trademarks such as the Nike "swoosh", Babylon 5's Logo, etc, as registerable heraldry.
Two reasons;
1. It is a copywrite violation.
2. Most of it is either, a) cannot be documented, or b) violates other rules of heraldry anyways.
The SCA also considers family heraldry, especially the ones you see commercially produced as copywrited as well. Since few, if anyone can lay sole personal claim to a family COA. And while you may think that no one has seen your family COA, you never know it may be the staring a herald in the face from one of the many books we use as resources.
The SCA also has a rule of presumption, which basically means you cannot lay claim to family ties, lands, titles, or powers that your persona does not actually posses. So, unless your Duke like Cuan, you cannot put a crown on your shield. You also cannot say your Barak Pendragon, because you are laying claim to a title and family you really don't have the right to. And you cannot have heraldry that looks like two or more COAs combined, such as the Royal Arms of England. This also applies to cantons and other marks of cadence.
But if you designed your own heraldry, say ten years ago, and have been jousting proffessionally with it, and it does not violate any of the above, and one or two rules to spare, you will not be denied since it is something you can lay personal claim to.
As for the process of registering your heraldry, and why it takes so long is to avoid all of the above.
YOur consulting herald should check to make sure the design is compatible with the SCA rules of Heraldry and conflict check it against the armorial, if time and access allow. (It is difficult to check the online armorial when you are at an event, but I have seen it done).
Once you have officially submitted your name and heraldry it is sent to the Kingdom Level Herald who usually holds a meeting about once a month to help sort through all of the requests, if there is nothing wrong found, it will be sent to the Laurel level which takes a while to get through all of those submissions from the entire society. So ten months to a year is pretty darn quick.
------------------
"As long as there are fanatics there will always be heretics"
http://www.caerdubh.com