Belts (fwd)

[clevin@ripco.com (Craig Levin)]

Poster: clevin@ripco.com (Craig Levin)

Earl Dafydd:

> Belt colours as a job labelling method is not tremendously standardized. 
> In many kingdoms (including Atlantia) the use of green or yellow belts for
> apprentices or protegees is uncommon or unknown.  Even the use of red
> belts for squires is by no means universal. 
>
> My squires and apprentices both wear blue belts to show their fealty and
> affiliation with me. If I ever take any protegees, I will give them a
> blue belt.  The use of blue belts is an ancient tradition in my fealty
> lineage tree.  Nearly a dozen Knights of Atlantia give their students blue
> belts.  I also know several other examples in Atlantia of the belt colour
> for squires/apprentices/protegees being based upon personal heraldic
> livery colours of the teacher/mentor.

I am a protege, and I wear my master's badge, rather than an
specially colored belt. He's caused it to be woven upon a belt
favor, which I wear along with a similarly sized herald's belt
favor. Looks spiff, IMO. he's also got a tabard with his badge on
it, in case he wants me to act as his household's herald.

There are a number of good period ways that a vassal can show that
he is in fealty to someone. The easiest is to wear his lord's
badge, either as a belt favor, as I have done, or as some other
token (perhaps a pewter medallion, similar to a St. Christopher
medal for Catholics). Also, one could change one's coat of arms
to have a what is called a chief of affiliation-your lord's coat
of arms would be compressed onto a chief. This was done in the
Italian Peninsula to show that one backed one of the major powers
that made life there interesting (Ghibellines added a chief of
the coat of arms of the Holy Roman Empire, while Guelfs either
added a chief of France or of the Pope). 

A less agreeable act was done in the Holy Roman Empire, in the
early days of heraldry: some of the vassals of the archbishop of
Trier adopted his arms, but made a slight change to them (what we
would call a 1 CD change), to show that they were of his army,
but not him. I tend to doubt that people would want to do this in
the SCA, since we make a big deal about getting one's own coat of
arms.

Pedro de Alcazar

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clevin@ripco.com
Craig Levin
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