Lady Sorcha MacLeod
Aspen Pursuivant for the Barony of Caerthe
Presented at the Culinary and Performing Arts and Sciences Competition,
Caerthe, Outlands, on 20 October A.S. XXXVI (2001)
Updated on 22 January A.S. XXXVI (2002)
Presented at the Outlands Heralds and Scribes Symposium,
al-Barran, Outlands, on 23 March A.S. XXXVI (2002)
To all who come by these letters, Greetings!
Heraldry; art and science. Since the first use of a painted emblem to identify this lord from that, heraldry has grown and changed in both its artistic depictions, and the rules, or the science, which governs those depictions. Various regions had conventions that evolved in different directions, and SCA heraldry is no exception. Over the three and a half decades since our inception, we have seen numerous changes as new information was discovered, and the particular needs of our game have become better understood.
The purpose of this class is to acquaint scribes in the SCA with the conventions of heraldry that we use. Such an acquaintance will help ease the process of including heraldry on scrolls. We will cover the basics of heraldry, the resources that are available, and how to search the armorial and ordinary.
There are many conventions of heraldry, however, there are a few general guidelines which will enable anyone to have a basis from which to work. An understanding of the use of tincture in heraldry is the first step. There are four basic types of tinctures: color, metal, proper and fur. We will deal with furs and "proper" charges momentarily; let us first discuss color and metal. The most basic rule of heraldry is "Thou shalt not put a color on a color, nor a metal on a metal." The reason behind this is that armory must have good contrast to be identifiable at a distance. There are exceptions, of course, but they are extremely rare in SCA heraldry, and most mundane examples will be found post-period. SCA heraldry uses five colors:
We also use two metals:
Thus, one could put a fox gules on an argent field, but could not put a fox Or on an argent field. The red fox shows up clearly as a fox against the white background, but if you paint a yellow fox on a white shield, the fox will get "lost" in the background. If a horsed knight is barreling down on you from across the field, and you know that your friend has a gold fox as his emblem, but your foe has a gold lion, you need the contrast to know which approaches and what action to take. Quickly, now! He's nearly upon you!
Furs are nominally neutral fields, with the exception of the ermine type furs. For example, vair is a fur which is composed of interlocked vair bells in azure and argent. Since the field is evenly divided between the two tinctures, you may put either a color or a metal upon it, so long as it is not one of the field tinctures. Thus you may put a purpure or an Or charge on a vair field, but you may not put an azure or argent charge upon it. Ermine furs are a basic field scattered with ermine spots, and are treated according to their base field color; thus ermine and erminois would be considered metal fields, while counter-ermine and pean would be considered color fields.
There are several furs in use in SCA heraldry (Figure 1). Some of the more common are:
The use of the term "proper" can be found occasionally in SCA heraldry. This convention is a way to depict some charges with their "natural" coloration. Proper charges may have a default tincture, or may be blazoned. For instance a tree proper is a brown trunk with green leaves by default. A brown cow must be a "brown cow proper" to differentiate it from the black, white, or purple cows. A proper charge is treated according to its largest tincture. The tree or the brown cow would be a color charge, and must therefore be placed on a metal field. A polar bear proper would be a metal charge, to be placed on a color field.
The second step in understanding heraldry is a knowledge of ordinaries and field divisions. Ordinaries are simple geometric charges with a default location on the device (Figure 2). Examples of central ordinaries include the pale, fess, bend, bend sinister, saltire, chevron, cross, and pall. Peripheral ordinaries include the chief, base, and bordure.
Figure 2.
Fields may be divided in many ways (Figure 3). Per pale, per fess, per bend, per bend sinister, per saltire, per chevron, and per pall all simply divide the field in the same manner as their corresponding ordinary, but with single lines instead of broad charges. A field divided along the lines of a cross is "quarterly."
Figure 3.
There are also a number of multi-part field divisions. Checky is a checkerboard pattern, while lozengy is a repeating diamond pattern. Barry is a field divided by horizontal bars, bendy and bendy sinister are fields divided along the diagonal, gyronny is a field divided in radial symmetry, and chevronelly is a field divided into many chevron pieces. Note that multi-part field divisions are divided into even numbers of pieces. For divisions such as barry, bendy, gyronny, and chevronelly the number is usually six or eight divisions. If using them in a non-standard number, blazon them with "of (number)" after the field division, i.e. Barry of ten, gules and argent (Figure 3a). Including the number is not a period convention, but it is sometimes encountered in SCA heraldry. If no number is indicated, the actual depiction is at the scribe's discretion. If there is an odd number of equal pieces, blazon as the field with a number of charges upon it (where the field tincture is that of the greater number of pieces), i.e. Or, three chevronelles vert (Figure 3b).
Figure 3a.
Figure 3b.
Heraldic animals have some conventions specific to themselves, so we will look at them specifically here. When drawing animals, any raised limbs should be the far limbs, to maximize visibility. All limbs should be drawn, and tails are often drawn to fill the available space - usually over the back in some manner. Beasts may be in a variety of positions; some of the most common are:
Animal parts may be used, and are "cut off" in a couple of different ways: couped is cut off cleanly, and may follow the outline of the display area - heads usually have a bit of the neck attached, erased is "torn off" and is usually depicted as having three rough triangular points coming from the cut off end. Cabossed or caboshed is applied to animal heads, which are cut cleanly at the base of the head with no neck showing, and the head is affronty, or facing the viewer.
Birds also have some common positions unique to their category:
Wings may be elevated,(wings and wingtips raised) or inverted (wings raised, wingtips bent down). They may also be either displayed (spread to either side) or addorsed (back to back with each other).
Blazon has specific rules, which allow artists to draw arms in a very similar manner from wording alone. Blazon is always read from chief (top) to base (bottom), from dexter (left by view) to sinister (right by view), and from back (field) to front (primary, secondary, to tertiary charges). Each charge is listed as number, charge name, position, and tincture. Tincture is listed for the field, and for the last charge in any consecutive list of charges of the same tincture. While "dexter" means "right" and "sinister" means "left," these appear backwards to the viewer or the artist, because these terms refer to the right and left of the person wearing the arms, not the person seeing them.
The first thing any blazon lists is the field by division and tincture. If there is no division, the tincture stands alone. Fieldless badges properly begin with the first charge, as there is neither division nor tincture to define the field. To begin, let us start with a field divided in half vertically, with the left half red and the right black. Thus, the first part of our blazon will be (Figure 4a):
Per pale gules and sable,
The next thing to be listed is the primary charge group, again, by number, charge name, position, and tincture. Let us put two sleeping yellow lions on our field. Our blazon now reads (Figure 4b):
Per pale gules and sable, two lions dormant Or,
Finally, we will list our secondary charge group, in this case, a gold chief. This gives us:
Per pale gules and sable, two lions dormant and a chief Or.
Notice that we have removed the "Or" after "dormant" because the chief is also Or. Since they are consecutive charges of the same tincture, the first listing is omitted.
When writing blazons, there are but a few things to keep in mind. Capitalize the initial word and any instances of the tincture "Or." This helps to denote the beginning of the blazon, and also helps prevent any confusion between "Or," (yellow or gold) and "or," (either/or). The (Fieldless) notes in the ordinary are record-keeping conventions which stand for, "No, we did not forget to write the field - there just isn't one!" They are not part of the actual blazon. If you are including the blazon for a fieldless badge (for an order for instance), do not include (Fieldless) when you write it on the scroll. Finally, commas are largely overused in blazon writing. It is customary to insert a comma after the field is described, and to put commas around phrases when a charge description is complex, i.e. Argent, five mullets sable, three and two, a bordure gules.
There are many resources available to scribes, the first of which is the network of people who understand heraldry in its scribal application. You can always ask another scribe, the Kingdom Scribe, or one of the deputies of that office, of course, but there is another group of people who you can also turn to - heralds! Heralds are required to operate within the same bounds of discretion that scribes are concerning awards and scrolls. No herald is likely to be offended if you remind them that this is an award that has not yet been given, and you need to keep it a secret. Your local herald is a valuable resource for researching correct name spellings, proper blazons, and just what a "musimon" is. (It's a ram with both ram's horns and goat's horns.) Please be courteous and give these folks a little time to research the answers to your questions.
There are a wealth of internet resources that can help you research all things heraldic. Below is a list of web sites and mailing lists that may be of assistance to you.
The SCA Ordinary and Armorial put out by Morsulus Herald, a deputy to the Laurel Sovereign at Arms, and Free Trumpet Press West. The on-line version may be found at many URLs, but I use
http://www.farreaches.org/heraldry/OandA/
It is reliable and is updated regularly.
"Modar's Heraldry Page" by Baron Modar Neznanich,
http://www2.kumc.edu/itc/staff/rknight/heraldry.htm
This site has links to many wonderful articles on heraldry and heraldic display. Excellent resource!
"Helpful Links" put out by The Association of Amateur Heralds,
http://freepages.family.rootsweb.com/~heraldry/page_links.html#HERALDIC%20CL
Just what it says. There are dozens of links from this site that may be helpful for those scribes wishing to gain more than a cursory knowledge of heraldry.
A Glossary of Terms Used in Heraldry, by James Parker
http://www04.u-page.so-net.ne.jp/ta2/saitou/ie401/
This site is searchable and has many illustrations. Excellent resource!
The SCA Heraldry page.
http://www.sca.org/heraldry/welcome.html
Links to a variety of resources, including the Laurel Home Page.
scahrlds@listserv.aol.com
A great group of people who love to help. Often quite technical, more so than is needed unless you plan to study heraldry. Moderate mail volume. To subscribe, send mail to:
listserv@listserv.aol.com with subscribe scahrlds yourfirstname yourlastname in the body.
outlands-heralds@yahoogroups.com
A smaller, but still great group. Low mail volume. Subscribe through http://www.yahoogroups.com.
The SCA Ordinary is a list of the armory registered in the Known World. It is arranged according to subject heading, and also lists the individual who has registered the armory. If you are not sure of the actual blazon of the armory you are working with, you can search this document by major elements of the device such as field tincture or division, or charges upon the field.
The SCA Armorial lists the names registered in the Known World and the armory registered to those names. It is arranged alphabetically by given name. If you need to know how to properly spell someone's name, or the blazon of their device, you can search this document.
The paper version of the Ordinary and Armorial are very large and printed in a very small font. It is arranged alphabetically by element. It is helpful to know the sorts of classifications charges come under if you wish to search the paper Ordinary. For instance, if you want to look up armory with a lion on it, you would actually turn to the "B" section, since a lion is a beast. Under Beast, you will look for "Cat," as that is the subheading lions are listed under. There is an index in the Ordinary that can be helpful in determining which headings to use.
When searching this document, try to search by an element not seen very often. For instance, take the following blazon: Per bend sinister sable and gules, a bend sinister Or between a badger couchant contourny and a quatrefoil slipped argent. You need to know the registered name of the person who holds it, so you have a few choices on which heading to search. Beast - Badger gives you 33* listings to look at. If you try to find it in Bend sinister - 1 - Uncharged - Plain line - Or, you will have to search through 80* listings to find out that it belongs to Conan MacPherson (registered in April of 1996 via Caid).
*Numbers taken from on-line Ordinary to save the author from having to count listings. Numbers in the paper version will vary.Unfortunately, there is only one way to become familiar with the headings, and that is to use them. It does get easier with practice, though.
When searching the paper version, if you do not find your entry in the main body of the text, you will have to search the updates, which are also arranged alphabetically by heading. The Armorial also has updates, which are arranged alphabetically by given name.
The on-line version of the Ordinary is much easier to search. For scribal purposes, using the Blazon Pattern Search Form will be most helpful. In this search form, you simply select the letter the charge begins with, and the search engine will take you to the appropriate place in the index. In this version, if you search under "L" for lion, it will tell you to see Beast - Cat, and will give you a link to that part of the index.
Again, try to search by less common elements. One major benefit to searching the on-line version is that it is no longer necessary to check through numerous updates when searching for more recent registrations.
When drawing heraldic charges, remember that these items are stylized, rather than drawn naturally. Charges should fill the space they inhabit, to improve identifiability. They should be "big and bold."
Armory may be displayed on a variety of shapes, including the usual escutcheon (shield), basic geometric shapes such as a circle, square, lozenge (diamond), triangle, or rectangle, and on such shapes as a cartouche or a heart.
When drawing "semy" fields, or those with a distribution of items over the background, it may be helpful to draw these items first and to then place the other charges over them. You may leave or remove the partial "semy" charges as you like, but should remove them if the distributed charges and the main charges are the same tincture. This will give a more even distribution, although there are period examples of having the distributed charges tucked in around the main charges.
The author, Lady Sorcha MacLeod, mundanely known as Tammy Ackerson, grants permission for this work to be reprinted in whole or in part, by members of the Society for Creative Ananchronism, Inc. for use in the SCA, so long as the author is granted due credit, and an effort is made to notify her of the use, and how she may obtain a copy of publications in which it is reprinted. All other uses require written permission from the author, who may be contacted at: sorchamacleod@netscape.net. E-mailed permission to reprint constitutes written permission.
This document is not an official publication of the Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc.