Re: MR-Disc: Instant Correct Heraldry for Newbies

[Robert J Welenc <rjwelenc@erols.com>]

Poster: Robert J Welenc <rjwelenc@erols.com>

Summation with much snippage:
>%petersr@spiegel.becltd.com (Peters, Rise J.) scripsit:
>%>>[...] In the Society in general, if you want something, the quality of
>%>> what you get, and how fast you get it, depends on how much work you're
>%>> willing to put in and at what level of intensity.
>%>> Contrast that with heraldry:    I figure out the rules (complicated in 
>itself), get the forms, go to the library and do my research, etc. etc. -- and
>%then submit the paperwork and wait for =months= while the bureaucracy
>%grinds.

Eldred agrees:
> With other aspects of the Society,
>you get fairly immediate results.  Even if they aren't immediate, you can
>at least see progess.  Heraldry does seem to fall into a black hole for a 
>while.

>%Alfredo El Bufon
>>%>I propose the following solution:
>>%>The College of Arms devises, an assortment of heraldicly
>%>correct, attractive-looking badges for some new households.
>%>I think seven would be a good number.  To join any one of
>%>these houses, a gentle need only be interested in making
>%>and/or displaying appropriate heraldic displays featuring
>%>the household armory. 

Eldred:
>YEAAAGHHH!  Alfredo, smite yourself....twice.  Don't even
>TRY to start pressuring new people to join households right
>away.  Years ago, there were problems stemming from
>households warring over who would get the next newcomer...

Alanna:
>%A similar solution was proposed a few months back on SCAHRLDS.  Lady
>%Margaret suggested that baronies and shires register 'loaner arms'.   If a
>%newcomer likes these arms and wishes to adopt them, the group can release
>%them to him.  Mistress Jaelle, what do you think? 

I spoke to Mistress Jaelle in person Sunday.  Please note that the following
are not quoted verbatim, but are the summaries of myself, Alanna Volchevo
Lesa, and any objections to the wording should come back to me, not Jaelle.

She does not approve of the 'loaner arms' for a number of reasons.  

First: the tying up of good armory that doesn't belong to anybody.  What
happens if your submitter wants 'Sable, an aardvark argent' and it bounces
against the Barony of the Purple Kangaroo's loaner arms 'Vert, an aardvark
argent'?   You've got a submitter who has a right to be upset because those
conflicting arms are, in effect, ownerless.

Second:  Starting from knowing *nothing*, how long does it take to authorize
as a heavy?  How long does it take for a fencer?  Or to become a really good
archer/leatherworker/needleworker/other craft skill?  Many months, (although
there, again, you do have visible signs of some progress as opposed to the
heraldic black hole.)  Instant gratification is _not_ what the SCA is about
and you shouldn't expect it from heraldry anymore than you would expect to
pick up a sword for the first time in October and win Crown in November.

Third, sometimes it is the submitter's _perception_ that registration takes
a really long time.  If you come to me in January and say "How do I register
my arms?"  I will sit down with you, go through the basic rules that I
*must* follow as a herald, and work out one or more things that are usable.
You go away and think about it, and catch up with me in March with yet
another idea.  It won't work for some reason that to you is obscure heraldic
nitpickery, so you go away again and finally get back to me in April with a
registerable device.   The actual submissions process takes about 9 months,
barring problems, so it is January or February again before you hear "Yes,
your arms are official".  _In your perception_ it has taken over a year to
get your arms registered because you first started them  way back last
January.  

(In practice, once an item clears Kingdom level I tell my submitters that
they can start to use them, but caution them against making something really
time-consuming, just in case.  Atlantia has a very small percentage of
device returns, less than 10%, and usually they are arms that have some
problem with them originally.)

Eldred:
>I like the idea of having armory ready and available for people to use. 

I keep several pictures of armory that I have thought of in my files, so
that on the rare instances when people come to me and say "I don't know what
to use"  I have it available.  These are all things that I have checked for
conflict and are still clear as far as I know; much of it is interesting but
seldom-used charges. 

>In practice, it would work sort of like a heraldic 
>visitation in period--people get assigned arms by the College of Arms if
they do not have them....  

Umm, Eldred, I hope that *assigning* arms to people was not quite what you
meant.  That could be interpreted as "The heralds made me take these arms I
didn't really want."  We get enough complaints about "The heralds wouldn't
let me have the really cool arms I wanted with a red skull on a black
background/a crown/all the stuff that goes with my persona story/Celtic
knotwork/a blue field with gold fleur-de-lis/my real mundane arms/(insert
your favorite submitter horror story here)".  We don't want them to feel
that they are having arms forced on them.

In summation, there doesn't appear to be any currently acceptable way to
speed up the approval of personal arms, other than the submitter and
submitting herald really doing their absolute best to ensure that what is
being submitted is (1) registerable and (2) clear of conflict.

In service to Atlantia and Atlantians,

Alanna Volchevo Lesa



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