Below are the results of the March 2002 Letter of Acceptance and Return from the Laurel King of Arms. This website is not authoritative, but is an accurate reproduction of the text of the March LoAR.

November 2001 Letter of Intent
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ACCEPTANCES

Adelaide de Saussay. Name and device. Sable, a lion's face jessant-de-lys and in chief three crescents argent.

Submitted as Adelaide de Saussay-la-Campagne, the submitter requested authenticity for 11th to 13th C Norman France and allowed any changes. All information found by the College indicates that a locative byname referring to this location would not contain the full name, but would instead simply be de Saussay or du Saussay. Therefore, we have dropped -la-Campagne from the byname to meet the submitter's request for authenticity.

Alasdair MacArthur. Name and device. Or, a saltire vert.

Nice arms! He has permission to conflict with Deille of Farnham, registered February 2002, Or, on a saltire vert a pawprint Or.

Alasdair MacArthur. Badge. (Fieldless) Two claymores in saltire vert.

Caterine d'Albret. Name.

Conrad von Zollern. Name.

This name does not conflict with Conrad von Zollern (1208-61), who was burgrave of Nuremberg from 1227 and founder of the Franconian Hohenzollern family, which eventually became the 19th to 20th C German Imperial family, because Conrad von Zollern does not have his own entry in an encyclopedia.
As Bahlow (p. 637 s.n. Zoller) dates Zoller to 1329 and Brechenmacher (p. 865, s.n. Zoller) dates Zoller to 1142, the byname Zoller (and its locative form von Zollern) is not unique to this family and so is not presumptuous.

Drahomira von Augsburg. Name.

Helena de Orduuelle. Name.

Submitted as Helena Ordevill, the submitter requested authenticity for 12th to 13th C England and allowed minor changes. The byname Ordevill was documented from Frances and Joseph Gies' Life in a Medieval Village (p. 71) which gives Ordevill from hors de ville or Extra Villam meaning "outside the village.". The photocopy provided from this source do not include any information about what sources the authors used in assembling their information. Also, a footnote on one of the photocopied pages indicates that the authors have standardized or normalized names in their book. Their book was not written with the purpose of being a name resource and any name information in it should be used with care. The information included in the photocopied pages is not sufficient to discern whether Ordevill is period, or even what language it is. As the College found no other support for Ordevill, it is not registerable with the documentation provided. Reaney & Wilson (p. 331 s.n. Orwell) dates Turbert de Orduuelle to 1066. Since the submitter indicated that sound was most important, we have changed the byname to this form in order to register the name.

Kiena Munro. Badge. (Fieldless) A covered cup per fess argent and Or.

Robert of Deerbourne. Badge. (Fieldless) Two columns in saltire argent.

Rognvald Longarm. Name.

The submitter requested authenticity for "1200 Northern England" and allowed minor changes.
Rognvald was documented from A History of the Vikings by Gwyn Jones. This source seems to use English normalized forms of names when referring to historical people. Metron Ariston identified Rognvald as "the usual anglicization of the given name Rægnvaldr which appears on page 14 of Geirr Bassi". However, this gives us no indication if the form Rognvald is authentic for the submitter's desired time period.
The LoI provided hypothetical Old Norse bynames (suggested by Mistress Gunnora) meaning 'long arm'. However, the LoI did not included any indication of what sources she used to assemble this information. It has long been the policy of the College that we require supporting documentation, even when the there is no doubt regarding the expertise of the individual:Despite our high respect for [Name] and her expertise in [language] (it's what she does for a living), we have to have some idea of why she thinks it is O.K. to register this name form. Specifically we need to have documentation of the meaning and construction of the elements in this name, information not included on the letter of intent or on the forms. (Alisoun MacCoul of Elphane, LoAR 30 Sep 89, p. 14) In the case of this name, had the missing documentation been provided, it would have been of little help since the submitter does not allow major changes. Changing the language of the byname is a major change, so we would not be able to change this to an Old Norse form even if the documentation had been provided. Lacking the supporting documentation, Longarm cannot be considered a Lingua Anglica translation of a Norse descriptive byname.
No documentation was provided and none was found for an English byname Longarm. Reaney & Wilson (p. 283 s.n. Longenow) date Wlter le Longebak ('long back') to 1332, Godric Langhand ('long hand') to c1095, and Reginald Lungeiaumbe ('long leg') to 1212-23 among others. These examples support long + [body part] as a descriptive byname in this time frame. Reaney & Wilson (p. 14 s.n. Armstrong) dates William Arm(e)strang to 1250 and gives the meaning of this byname as 'strong in the arm'. This example documents the use of arm in an English descriptive byname. Therefore, Longarm is a plausible descriptive byname in English.

Sean of the Outlands. Holding name and device (see RETURNS for name). Azure, a bowed psaltery and a mountain of two peaks Or.

Submitted under the name Sean MacLeod.
The instrument in this submission is a psaltery shaped like an isoceles triangle, with the strings running vertically from attachments on the base side of the triangle to attachments along the top two sides. It is effectively the same as the one blazoned in the Pictorial Dictionary as a bowed psaltery. One commenter asked whether this sort of psaltery was a period musical instrument. We have researched this issue with the help of Bruce Draconarius of Mistholme (one of the authors of the Pictorial Dictionary), Janneke van DenDraak (author of the web page on psalteries at http://home.foni.net/~lyorn/sca_e/guild/psalter.html), and Arthur D'Glenn (author of the web page on various musical instruments at http://www.radix.net/~dglenn/defs/inst.html).
Plucked psalteries were period musical instruments and were found in a number of shapes. However, the bowed psaltery was not a period instrument. Mary Remnant, Musical Instruments: an Illustrated History from Antiquity to the Present, p. 30, states that the bowed psaltery "was not a medieval instrument at all but a Tyrolean folk instrument of no great antiquity". The various on-line sources consulted agree and some posit that the instrument may have originated in the 20th C.
There were some triangular-shaped plucked psalteries found in period, but we have not found evidence for this triangular shape strung in this fashion. The closest we have found to this shape is on Janneke's web page, which gies an illustration from a "10th century copy of 'De Musica' a book by M. Severinus Boëthius, who lived at the end of the 6th century in Italy". The triangular shaped psaltery illustrated here is close to an equilateral triangle. The strings attach near the top point in a bunch and then radiate out to attachments near the bottom of the triangle, so that the strings are almost all the same length.
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Stanley Saide (ed.), vol. 16, under Rotte, says that "rotte" was another name for a triangular psaltery, which came to be used more loosely for a number of stringed instruments. An illustration is given from an "11th- or 12th-century MS" showing a triangular psaltery in the shape of a right triangle, with the strings extending up from one of the right angle sides and attaching to the hypotenuse side. Remnant shows a psaltery of a similar right triangle shape from a Spanish reliquary c. 1390. The first psaltery (played by King David) is held with the strings vertically and the second (played by an angel) with the strings horizontally.
It is possible that there might have been triangular psaltery shapes in period that differed from those descrived above. The New Grove Dictionary states that "in the 12th century a copyist of Notker Balbulus complained that the ancient ten-string psaltery had ben adopted by musicians and actors, who had altered its mystic triangular shape to suit their convenience, increased the number of strings, and given it the barbarian name 'rotta'"
However, the bowed psaltery, due to the way it is strung, appears to be a significantly different musical instrument than any of the psalteries described or illustrated in period in the web pages and in the books cited above. The bowed psaltery is strung so that it has long strings at the centery of the instrument, diminishing in length to short strings at the outside of the instrument, like two harps back to back. All of the period psaltery shapes found are strung with equal length strings, or strings which are long on one side of the instrument and decrease to the shortest strings on the other side of the instrument. The bowed psaltery shape, strung as it is, would be a very different instrument from the documented period psalteries. As a result, it seems apreipriate to ask for documentation for this form of psaltery as a musical instrument.
This submission, and all other received before the October 2002 decision meetings, will be registered under the current SCA blazon for this charge, bowed psalter. Future submissions of this charge should provide documentation for this form of musical instrument in period or they may not be registered.
The psaltery in the device of Eowyn nic Wie of Kincora, which had been blazoned as just a psaltery, has been reblazoned elsewhere in this letter to indicate that it is a bowed psaltery. The other two psalteries registered in the SCA are already explicitly blazoned.

Vladimir Ivanovitch Protzko. Device. Argent, a griffin segreant maintaining a battleaxe and in chief a label sable

Wulfgar Neumann. Badge (see PENDS for device). (Fieldless) A wolf's head erased close purpure.

RETURNS

Sean MacLeod. Name.

This name conflicts with Shauna MacLeod (registered February 1998) based on the precedent "Conflict with the registered name Shauna MacLeod. There is insufficient difference between the given names. [Seán MacLeod, 09/99, R-Meridies]".
His armory has been registered under the holding name Sean of the Outlands.

Tea inghean Conuladh. Name change from Alatheia McCullaugh.

No documentation was presented and none could be found that the name Tea was used outside of legend. Lacking such evidence, this name is not registerable.
The correct form of the byname is inghean Chonuladh, not the submitted inghean Conuladh.

PENDS

Wulfgar Neumann. Device. Gyronny sable and argent, a bordure counterchanged.

Bordures may be counterchanged over a gyronny field. We have many period examples of bordures compony, which are almost the same in appearance as bordures gyronny. Because the bordure counterchanges has large enough pieces to maintain its identifiability, and it looks like a common multiply divided period bordure, it may be accepted without explicit documentation of a bordure counterchanged on a gyronny field.
The SCA currently protects the Campbell quarter of the modern Scottish arms of Campbell of Argyll, Gyronny Or and sable. An earlier form of these arms is Gyronny argent and sable, and we have been asked to consider whether this form should be protected by the SCA. The Gyronny argent and sable version of the Campbell arms is found in David Lindsay of the Mount's 1542 roll and the 15th C Scots Roll, as well as a 1601 portrait of Duncan Campbell of Glenorchy (a cousin of the Earl of Argyll) as seen in McKean, The Scottish Chateau: The Country House of Renaissance Scotland, plate 13 and pp. 137-138. Thistle Stall Plates, by Charles Burnett (Ross Herald) and Leslie Hodgson, p. 22, also mentions the Lindsay form using argent and sable, and states that "Pont's Manuscript (c. 1624) is apparently the first appearance of the quartered shield as used today". The illustration of the modern form in Thistle Stall Plates shows the modern form currently protected in the SCA.
If the older form of the Campbell arms is important enough to protect in the SCA, then Wulfgar's arms conflict. There is one CD for adding the bordure but no difference by RfS X.4.a for reversing the order of tinctures on a gyronny field. This submission must therefore be pended for consideration of whether the argent and sable version of the Campbell arms should be protected.
(This item was originally item 14 on the Outland's LoI of November 17, 2001.)

November 2001 Letter of Intent
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