Below are the results of the November 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 November LoAR.

Note: this LoAR covers both the June and July 2002 Letters of Intent.

June 2002 Letter of Intent
July 2002 Letter of Intent
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ACCEPTANCES

Alasdair na Fésóicce. Device. Per saltire gules and sable, a bend sinister ermine.

Arslan Batujin. Name.

Beatrice Carmela Mercante. Badge. Per bend sinister Or and gules, a fleur-de-lys and a bee counterchanged.

Béla Kós. Device. Per bend argent and sable, a hawk stooping and a skull counterchanged.

Caerthe, Barony of. Badge. Or, a dragon passant gules and a chief embattled sable.

Cathyn Fitzgerald. Device change. Per bend rayonny gules and sable. His previous device is retained as a badge.

Catrin von Berlin. Name and device. Gules, three bat-winged cats sejant affronty wings displayed and a chief Or.

Ceara McCain. Name.

Chinua Al-Naran. Device. Per bend wavy gules and Or, a sun counterchanged.

Corwin Roberts. Name and device. Sable, a pall inverted between two dragons combattant and a phoenix issuant from base Or.

Daniel Larke del Glen. Name change from holding name.

Fergus MacLennan. Device. Quarterly embattled vert and Or, in bend two wolves salient argent and in bend sinister two Celtic crosses vert.

Fergus McCain. Name.

George Woulfryth. Name.

Georgius de Canterburie. Name.

Isabella Francesca Niccola di Giovanni. Name.

Jehannette de Courcelles. Name.

Katrein Adler. Device. Per bend sinister argent and azure, in bend three cinquefoils counterchanged.

Kolfinna knÿtir. Name.

Niall MacTaggart. Name and device. Per bend sinister sable and azure, a cross crosslet fitchy and a scorpion argent.

Patrick Olyveyr. Device. Or, a chevron ployé vert between two pairs of swords in saltire gules and a compass star azure.

Petru cel Rau. Name and device. Per pale gules and sable, in saltire a rose slipped and leaved Or and a dagger inverted proper.

Rhiannon ferch Iorwerth. Badge reblazon (for Tylwyth y Gigfran Dywyll). (Fieldless) A raven sable perched atop and supported by an equal-armed Celtic cross purpure.

Robert fitz Ralph. Name.

Scholast Michel. Name and device. Vert, a dragon Or and a bordure Or semy of closed books palewise vert garnished Or.

Tat'iana Travina. Name and device. Azure, a hippopotamus statant within a bordure argent.

Thomas de Carisbourg. Device. Sable, a bend sinister gules fimbriated argent overall a Latin cross fleury Or.

{TH}óra Hrónarsdóttir. Name and device. Per fess azure and argent, a sunburst inverted and a dragon displayed counterchanged.

Wilham of Caer Galen. Holding name and device (see Returns for name). Argent, in base a heart gules and on a chief sable a pair of armored arms embowed respectant each maintaining a dagger Or.

Yazida bint Zarif. Name and device. Ermine, two goats clymant addorsed within a bordure sable.

Zulaikha bint Zuhair. Name.

RETURNS

Adella de Tourlaville. Device. Returned for conflict.

Conflict with Marten Jeros Bröker, Argent, on a nesselblatt vert a cat dormant guardant argent. There is one CD for the tincture of the nesselblatt, but because a nesselblatt is too complex to void, there is no difference by RfS X.4.j.ii for changing the type only of tertiary charge.

Éile Keldeleth. Name. No documentation provided that name was used outside of legend.

Éile was documented as a secondary header form listed in Ó Corráin & Maguire (p. 84 s.n. Éle). However, no documentation was presented and none could be found that the name Éile was used outside of legend. Lacking such evidence, this name is not registerable.

Ileana Welgy. Device.

This armory is overly complex. It has four types of charge (hand, coronet, trimount and crescent) and six tinctures (vert, azure, Or, gules, argent and skin proper). This exceeds the rule of thumb for complexity in RfS VIII.1.a, which says that the sum of the number of types and tinctures of charges in a single piece of armory should not exceed eight. In some cases, a submission may closely adhere to period armorial style even while exceeding this rule of thumb but no evidence was presented that this submission is such a design. Hence, this must be returned for redesign and simplification.

The submitter is a countess and entitled to use the comital coronet.

This submission uses a vert trimount on an azure field, which violates RfS VIII.2 on armorial contrast. The submission was sent to Laurel under RfS VIII.6.a, the "Documented Exceptions" subclause concerning "General Exceptions". See this month's submission for Kathws Rusa, also in the Outlands, for more discussion concerning the precedent and requirements for such a documented exception to be acceptable. The summary paragraph of the pertinent ruling from the cover letter of the first December 1993 LoAR is as follows:

In other words, any future submission requesting an exception to any of the Rules for Submission must be documented (1) by multiple period examples, (2) from a number of heraldic jurisdictions, (3) in the exact form of the proposed armory, (4) of comparable simplicity and style as the proposed armory, (5) which apply only to that submission. We do not believe these restrictions to be too onerous, and hope that, if anything, they will stimulate our submitters to do some research on their own.

As documentation for this submission, we have been provided with an article "Materials in support of the case for the trimount", assembled by Erasimierz Waspanieski as documentation for the December 1993 submission.

The provided documentation supports some, but not all, of the design elements present in this submission. On resubmission, if the submitter wishes to continue to pursue the documented exception, the submitter should be careful to preserve the elements which are compatible with the poor-contrast trimount, and should not introduce elements which are not compatible with the poor-contrast trimount.

The general design of a vert trimount on an azure field is acceptable as long as the rest of the armory is "of comparable simplicity and style" as "multiple period examples" of armory using a vert trimount on an azure field.

The general concept of an arm issuant from the trimount is compatible with the presented designs. The majority of the designs have some charge or charges issuant from the trimount, and some examples explicitly use an arm as a charge. While we do not have many examples of items issuing from crowns in the examples provided in the documentation, more examples were adduced by the College of Arms, and it appears to be a relatively standard practice.

Some of the provided examples show arms holding an item in conjunction with a crown issuant from the trimount, although the examples so presented have a notably different design. The arm is fesswise and embowed, so that its elbow issues from the crown. In this submission, the base of the cubit arm issues from the crown. The design in the period examples helps the identifiability of the crown, as at least half the crown rests against the (high-contrast) field. In the current design there is significant overlap between the crown and the (low-contrast) arm. The College was uncertain whether this design of a cubit arm, holding an object, issuant from a crown, which was itself issuant from a trimount, with contrast difficulties between the crown and the arm as well as between the trimount and the field, was compatible with period style. Documentation for this particular design should be provided if it continues to be used in a resubmission.

The College also had some concerns about the fact that the charge grasped by the arm appeared to be in the same charge group as the surrounding charges, as the grasped charge shares type, tincture and size with the surrounding charges. No documentation was provided for this design, so we also request that documentation for this particular design should be provided if it continues to be used in a resubmission.

Kathws Rusa. Device.

This submission uses a vert trimount on an azure field, which violates RfS VIII.2 on armorial contrast. The submission is sent up under RfS VIII.6.a, the "Documented Exceptions" subclause concerning "General Exceptions".

The particular case of a vert trimount on an azure field was considered in the first December 1993 LoAR (there were two December meetings that year). The device, Azure, a demi-wolf contourny argent, issuant from a trimount proper, vorant a vol Or, was accepted. The Cover Letter to that LoAR stated:

I believe the standards proposed by Master Bruce in his thoughts on this submission are the ones to be applied to submissions requesting an exception to any of our Rules in the future.

The documentation must consist of multiple examples, not two or three but at least a dozen, and not limited to a single heraldic regime, but be from across Europe. The examples must be of the exact form used in the submission: if the submitter wants a green trimount on blue, that's what must be documented -- and that documentation cannot then be used as an argument for, say, a green fess on blue. The examples must be of comparable simplicity and style as the submission. And finally, even if the evidence is accepted, it only applies to the item at hand.

In other words, any future submission requesting an exception to any of the Rules for Submission must be documented (1) by multiple period examples, (2) from a number of heraldic jurisdictions, (3) in the exact form of the proposed armory, (4) of comparable simplicity and style as the proposed armory, (5) which apply only to that submission. We do not believe these restrictions to be too onerous, and hope that, if anything, they will stimulate our submitters to do some research on their own.

As documentation for this submission, we have been provided with an article "Materials in support of the case for the trimount", assembled by Erasimierz Waspanieski as documentation for the December 1993 submission.

The documentation presented adduces 47 possible examples of poor contrast mounts or trimounts in period armory across Europe. The poor contrast was either on the entire coat or on a separable quarter or half of a marshalled coat. (There were 48 examples in the article, but one was not on a poor contrast field: the field was per pale argent and azure.) The provided documentation does a good job of documenting the specific practice of a green trimount on an azure field, so that the exception is indeed "in the exact form of the proposed armory". The particular color combination of green mount or trimount on blue is found in almost half of the examples. Most of those examples explicitly used trimounts.

However, the documentation does not demonstrate that this armory is or "of comparable simplicity and style as the proposed armory." In the 47 examples in the article, 42 of the examples showed at least one of the charges on the armory issuing from or resting atop the poor-contrast trimount. This is a very strong stylistic trend. This trend may be due to the fact that such a design helps lessen the visual problems of a poor-contrast peripheral charge. Having one or more other charges resting atop or issuant from the poor-contrast peripheral charge helps attract attention to the fact that the peripheral charge is present on the armory. The trend may also be due to the fact that the documentation was originally assembled to support a submission where the primary charge issued from a trimount. Unfortunately, the Laurel office does not have the resources to research whether the provided documentation is representative of all poor-contrast trimounts, or if the documentation is skewed towards supporting the original submission. While the Laurel office does as much research as it can, the burden of providing demonstrating supporting materials is primarily on the submitter.

Of the five examples in the documentation in which the charges on the armory were all disconnected from the poor-contrast trimount, four were not "of comparable simplicity and style as the proposed armory." Two examples included a fess, and this submission does not use an ordinary. Two examples used only a single primary charge with the trimount, and this submission has a primary charge group and a surrounding secondary charge group with the trimount. There is explicit precedent stating that designs using ordinaries may not be used as support for a documented exception which does not use an ordinary, and that designs using a single primary charge may not be used as support for a documented exception which uses a primary charge surrounded by secondary charges:

[Gules, a bear passant sable between three mullets of six points Or] The submitter asked that this be registered under RfS VIII.6, Documented Exceptions. She included numerous examples of sable charges on gules from different areas of Europe. While there was enough evidence given to support Gules, a bear passant sable ... the only examples the submitter presented of a low contrast charge between high contrast secondaries the central charge was an ordinary. As ordinaries have a different level of complexity from an animate charge, we cannot consider their examples as sufficient. None of the examples present showed the case Gules, sable between Or (or argent). The Documented Exceptions rule is by nature very conservative; one needs multiple examples of very similar patterns to allow extrapolations. Therefore, we must return the device. (LoAR of March 2000)

This left only one example which is arguably of "comparable simplicity and style as the proposed armory", which was the family of Bentivoglia (in Venice), Azure, an arrow between two others in chevron all inverted argent, between in chief a delf gules, and a trimount proper. This single example is not sufficient to support the documented exception.

Roderick Conall MacLeod. Badge. Returned for conflict.

Conflict with a badge of the Barony of Storvik, (Fieldless) A drakkar under sail proper, bearing a sail argent charged with three pallets gules. The sail is equivalent to a sail paly argent and gules. As a result, there is one CD for fieldlessness, but no difference for changing what is, at most, only one-fourth of the tincture of the ship (one half the tincture of the sail.) There is also no difference between a caravel and a drakkar per the LoAR of April 2000, which stated specifically in the case of a caravel versus a drakkar, "By long standing precedent, there is not a CD between two types of ship."

Wilham of Douglas. Name. Returned for presumption. Armory registered under holding name Wilham of Caer Galen.

This name conflicts with a number of men listed in general encyclopedias. Kraken named a number of these in his commentary:

[T]he name conflicts with William of Douglas (d.1200), family founder, cited in the LoI; Sir William of Douglas (d.1298) who fought with William Wallace; William, 6th Earl of Douglas (c.1423-1440) and William, 8th Earl of Douglas (c.1425-1452), both murdered at the order of James II; William Douglas, 11th Earl of Angus and 1st Marquis of Douglas (1589-1660) who fought for the Royalists in the Scottish end of the English Civil War; and US Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas (1898-1980). All these have their own listings in [a general] encyclopedia (Funk & Wagnalls 1975 edition).

Regardless of whether William and Wilham, which are both English, are forms of the same name or not, they are insufficiently different in sound and appearance.

His armory has been registered under the holding name Wilham of Caer Galen.

June 2002 Letter of Intent
July 2002 Letter of Intent
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