June 2010 LoP

Last modified: May 17, 2010

Outlands College of Heralds

June 6, 2010
From the Office of the Castle Herald
Lady Tatiana Moskovskaia
castle@outlandsheralds.org

Unto the Outlands College of Heralds, our respected friends and colleagues who give freely of their time to provide commentary, and all others who come by these letters, on this 6th day of June, A.S. XLV (2010 CE), does Lady Tatiana Moskovskaia send greetings on behalf of Sheik Omar Mohammud Mirzazadeh, White Stag Principal Herald.

I regret to inform you that Baron Carrick has foolishly agreed to transfer the Castle Office to me. All the errors in this and any of the following letters are his responsibility for not training me well enough in the art of Submissions.

Please send submissions to Tatiana Moskovskaia (Tatiana Golter), 9151 Sun Country dr, Elizabeth, CO, 80107

It would assist Castle Herald greatly in the future if you would e-mail a copy of the documentation summary for name submissions along with the paper copies; It saves having to re-type everything again. Also, please be sure that you include dates of registration and return for armory for previously registered names and resubmissions of any kind. If Castle can't find where an item was returned, it may be pended until the information is provided or payment is made for a new submission.

Here follows the Kingdom of the Outlands Letter of Presentation for June 2010. Your comments and suggestions are always welcome. Errors found herein are my sole responsibility. Anyone may comment upon the items found herein, and e-mail commentary to the herald's commentary list is encouraged. Please have comments on items contained herein to Rampart Herald by July 20, 2010, for the decision meeting tentatively scheduled for July 21, 2010. As a reminder, the College of Arms requests commentary on all items, including appeals.

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1. Branwen ferch Gruffudd Rhodri. Device resubmission (Laurel). Per chevron enhanced argent and gules, a vol argent and in chief two lilies sable.

Submitter's name was registered on July 2005 LoAR.http://heraldry.sca.org/heraldry/loar/2005/07/05-07lar.html

Previous device, Gules, on a pale between two vols argent, three chaplets of four arum lilies sable, was returned on July 2005 LoAR (http://heraldry.sca.org/heraldry/loar/2005/07/05-07lar.html) , for the following reasons:

This is returned for redraw as the chaplets of lilies are not identifiable. They aren't true chaplets, being more like "four lilies conjoined in annulo", which distorts them to the point that we couldn't identify them. Charges must be identifiable, per RfS VII.7.a.; On resubmission, the submitter is advised to draw more standard vols. That is, the vols should not be stretched so that they are nearly two and half times tall as they are wide. We applaud the submitter's effort to make the charges fill the available space, but one can have too much of a good thing.
: The device was resubmitted and returned on April 2009 LoAR (http://heraldry.sca.org/heraldry/loar/2009/04/09-04lar.html) for the following reasons:; Sable, a vol argent and a bordure argent semy of arum lilies gules.; This is returned for lack of identifiably. The arum lilies on the bordure are not recognizable. Various commenters thought they were either screws or other items.

The current device is a complete redesign.

2. Caerthe, Barony of. Order Name Resubmission (Laurel). Order of the Cordon of Caerthe.

(Caerthe) Branch name registered 1973 via Laurel. The previous submission of [Order of the Cordon of Honor] was returned on the July 2009 LoAR: http://heraldry.sca.org/loar/2009/07/09-07lar.html

Caerthe, Barony of. Order name Order of the Cordon of Honor. This order name is presumptuous of the Napoleonic Legion d'honneur, which is still given out today. Siren explains: <Cordon> clearly means "A ribbon, usually worn scarfwise, as part of the insignia of a knightly order." "grand cordon: that distinguishing the highest class or grade of such an order." This is from the documentation that the submitters themselves give; it's the OED definition 6. So, basically this order name means "Ribbon (or order insignia) of Honor" where "Legion of Honor" is a mundane knightly order that still exists. So, I don't think we can just dismiss the possible presumption. We would drop the modifier of Honor in order to register the name, since Cordon, by itself, does not presume upon the Legion d'honneur or any other knightly order, but the submitters do not allow major changes.

This resubmission is following Laurel’s suggestion.

[Cordon]: OED lists Cordon, n 5. a. “An ornamental cord or braid forming a part of costume.” With the spelling [cordon] dated to 1599. OED lists Cordon, n 6. “A ribbon, usually worn scarfwise, as part of the insignia of a knightly order.” “grand cordon: that distinguishing the highest class or grade of such an order. blue cordon (F. cordon bleu): the sky-blue ribbon worn by the Knights-grand-cross of the French order of the Holy Ghost, the highest order of chivalry under the Bourbon kings; hence extended to other first-class distinctions: cf. BLUE RIBBON. These and similar names are also applied to the wearers of the insignia, and by extension to other persons of distinction; cordon bleu, jocularly or familiarly, a first-class cook; also attrib. and quasi-adj.”

OED indicates the term in English is of French and Italian origins, with definition 6 being clearly a French loan term with the English equivalent being a Ribbon.

“Project Ordensnamen” by Meradudd Cethin (http://heraldry.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/order/) lists the order name Le Cordon Bleu as an example order. Les Cordon Bleus was a common name for the members of the Order of the Holy Spirit formed in 1578 by Henri III of France. This name derived from the Blue Cordon/Ribbon used to wear the Cross symbol of the order (Wikipedia: Order of the Holy Spirit -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Holy_Spirit).

Construction: This order name follows the order name pattern laid out by Laurel on the August 2005 LoAR, and further discussed in “Registering an Order Name in the SCA” by Ursula Georges (http://heraldry.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/order/registerorder.html), of the form “Orders named for heraldic charges or for items that, while not found in period as heraldic charges, may be used as heraldic charges.”

This order name also follows the frequently used order name pattern of [thing + place] laid out in “Project Ordensnamen” (Op. Cit.).

This order name is based upon the [regalia] pattern from “Medieval Secular Order Names” by Juliana de Luna (Julia Smith) (http://heraldry.sca.org/laurel/names/order/new/).

Cordon as a heraldic charge: “A Glossary of Terms Used in Heraldry” by James Parker cites a [Cordon] as being used in association with heraldry, specifically as a portion of the achievement for widows. This use of a cordon in heraldry is attributed to Anne of Bretagne (1477-1514) the widow of Charles VIII of France (1470 – 1498), who bestowed a cordon of lace on several ladies, instead of a military belt or collar. She also began surrounding her own escutcheon of arm with a similar cordon.

While this does not indicate that a Cordon was used as a charge within period, it does indicate that it was used in association with heraldry, would have been familiar to period heralds, and had a defined form of a loop of cord with several knots on its length. It seems reasonable to this herald that this can in fact be used as a heraldic charge.

3. Caerthe, Barony of. Order Name Resubmission (Laurel). Order of Inspiration.

(Caerthe) Branch name registered 1973 via Laurel.The previous submission of [Order of the Dreamer’s Cup] was returned on the June 2009 LoAR http://heraldry.sca.org/loar/2009/06/09-06lar.html

This was an appeal of a Laurel return from February 1995. The original return stated:

The order name does not appear to follow any period exemplars that any of the commenters could find. [It was suggested that the "Order of the Cup" would be far more appropriate.] [LoAR 02/1995, Outlands-R]

The appeal argued that the order name followed the meta-pattern of "orders name for objects of religious veneration", listed on the August 2005 Cover Letter, with the Holy Grail being referenced as such an object. However, all that the appeal demonstrated was that Laurel's suggestion in the previous return, Order of the Cup, is a plausible period order name. It does not provide any justification for the addition of the modifier Dreamer's or any similarly abstract modifier. None of the commenters were able to provide any evidence supporting Dreamer's Cup as a plausible period order name, so we must return this. In resubmitting, the group should be aware that the use of the apostrophe to indicate the possessive is not registerable:

Submitted as Order of the Lion's Paw of Kenmare, we have removed the apostrophe; there is no evidence that the apostrophe was used in period. [Northkeep, Barony of, 05/04, A-Ansteorra]

This resubmission is a complete reworking.

[Inspiration]: OED lists [Inspriation] under definition 3 as “The action of inspiring; the fact or condition of being inspired (in sense 4 or 5 of INSPIRE v.); a breathing or infusion into the mind or soul.” Dated spellings include [inspyracion] (1494), [inspiracyons] (1526), [inspiracion] (1526), [inspiration] (1611). If the 1611 spelling is considered too far outside of period for use as an order name term, the group would prefer the 1494 spelling [inspyracion]. This order name follows the order name pattern laid out by Laurel on the August 2005 LoAR, and further discussed in “Registering an Order Name in the SCA” by Ursula Georges (http://heraldry.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/order/registerorder.html), of the form “Orders named for virtues.” This order name is based upon the [abstract quality] pattern from “Medieval Secular Order Names” by Juliana de Luna (Julia Smith) (http://heraldry.sca.org/laurel/names/order/new/), which had 3 instances covering 2% of the sampled order names. Examples include [Hope].

Upon registration, this order name should be associated with the badge Per bend Or and vert, an aspen leaf and a goblet counter-changed.

4. Ceara MacAlee. New Name and Device.Vert an estoile within an orle of ivy argent.

(Dragonsspine) Gender:Female. Submitter cares most about the sound of the name, left undefined. Changes accepted.

[Ceara] - Irish Names, Donnechadn O'Corrain/Fidelma Maguire, p.50.

[MacAlee] - The Surnames of Ireland,MacLysaght, p.3.

5. Nicholas Kenington. New Device Change. Sable an annulet argent enflamed gules.

(Dragonsspine) Submitter's name was registered on the September 1997 LoAR (http://heraldry.sca.org/heraldry/loar/1997/09/lar.html) via the Outlands.

Submitter wishes to release his current device, Gules, on a fess indented argent a brown ferret passant proper, (registered on the same LoAR) if this one passes.

6. Ronan MacKennagh.New Name and Device. Azure a griffin rampant to sinister, within an orle of thirteen mullets of eight points argent.

(Dragonsspine) Gender: Male. Submitter cares most about the sound of the name, left undefined. Changes accepted.

[Ronan] - Irish Names, Donnechadn O'Corrain/Fidelma Maguire, P.157.

[MacKennagh] - The Surnames of Ireland,MacLysaght, p.157, MacKennagh.

7. Seamus O'Mourne. New Name.

(Dragonsspine) Gender: Male. The submitter cares mostly about spelling of the name, left undefined. Changes accepted.

[Seamus] - Irish Names, Donnechadn O'Corrain/Fidelma Maguire, p.163.

[O'Mourne] - The Surnames of Ireland,MacLysaght, p.223. Mountain - O'

Irish Placenames, Deidre Flannagan&Lawrence Flannagan, p 240.

Mountains of the Mughoharna tribe, County Down, Mourne Mountains.

(Castle note - the above info on the surname was retyped exactly from the submission form, hope some one can make sense of it)

Thus ends the June 2010 Letter of Presentation.

Yours in Service

Tatiana Moskovskaia
Castle Herald

Line Emblazon Sheet
Color Emblazon Sheet
June2010 Letter of Presentation
July 2010 Letter of Response
July 2010 Letter of Intent
October 2010 LoAR Results
Return to the Rampart home page