CAMeL April 2007

Warmest greetings unto the College of Heralds of the Kingdom of Lochac, and unto any others who may read this missive from William Castille, Crux Australis Principal Herald

From Crux Australis

Hi All,

Well bar a few hickups, the college has been motoring along reasonably well. As was announced on both Blazons and the Lochac list, Rocket Herald is now reaponsible for the entire submissions process within Lochac and her address is 4/25 Goble St Niddrie Vic 3042. Please ensure you send you submissions to the correct address. Ordnance Pursuivant is now responsible for just the production of CAMEL.

OLD FORMS

There have been several submissions returned recently because they were on the old forms. As of 31st October 2006, any forms that predate 18th July AS XLI (2006) [see bottom of the form] are no longer acceptable for submissions. If you have any forms that are dated before this date DO NOT! use them for SCA heraldic submissions, they will be returned.

COMMENTARY ACCESS TO OSCAR

In the cover letter to the LoAR that came out at the beginning of May, Laurel asked the Kingdom Principal Heralds to discuss with their Kingdom's college the process to determine wether a person should be granted commentary access to the new online scawide commentary site OSCAR. From the responses I got on Blazons, the concensus seems to be that the peson should have a record of productive commentary at a kingdom level before being grant commentary access to OSCAR and that approval should come from Crux. So I'll be recommending to Laurel that all applications for access should be referred to the persons Kingdom Herald who , in consultation with the Kingdoms submission Herald(s) (if they have one), will recommend wether or not (with reasonable justification if not) the person should be granted access.

ISSUES WITH THE SUBMISSION PROCESS

Recently there has been some discussion about the flaws in the submission process. Yes it is flawed, Yes it is archaic, yes it is labourious. Unfortunately as Crux Australis I cannot "fix" it. If you feel strongly about please do contact me, but don't just whinge at me. I am happy to listen to aything that is well reasoned and rational. There have been some well reasoned statements put to me recently and I have taken note of them and forwarded them to Laurel. This is all the I can do. My silence on Blazons does not mean I necessarily agree or disagree , but I feel as Crux I must take a neutral position to facilitate reasoned debate and pass the relevant information on to Laurel Sovereign of Arms.

Yours in service to the College.
William Castille
Crux Australis Principal Herald.

Important Addresses

Submission Requirements

Cost: $20 per new submission (name, device or badge). No cost for resubmissions (within the permitted time limit) or branch submissions. Note: a new name and device costs a total of $40. Make cheques or money orders payable to "SCA Inc. College of Heralds". Do not send cash through the post!

Copies required:

NAMES: Two (2) copies of both the form and ALL documentation, including title page of each book NB: The title page is not the same as the book cover! Essays about a submitter's persona may be entertaining, but do NOT constitute documentation. When citing web sites as documentation, you must include a printout of the pages used. Please don't staple your forms, paperclips are fine and loose is ok too.

DEVICES AND BADGES: Four (4) colour copies and one (1) black & white OUTLINE copy. The colour copies should be accurately coloured, preferably in felt tip pen. Colour printers or faint coloured pencil is not acceptable. The colours must be visible across a crowded Herald's meeting. Laurel has requested that gold pen NOT be used, as it deteriorates in files and turns to glue. Please don't staple your forms, assuming that all goes well at kingdom level they are separated and go to four different homes. Paperclips are fine and loose is ok too.

Please include ALL necessary documentation to support each submission. It is the responsibility of the submitter to present their submission in a way that makes registration easy. Name documentation should be as accurate as possible. Failure to provide sufficient documentation is a cause for return of your submission. If you are having trouble with your documentation then speak to your local herald. If they can't answer your specific question, consider writing to Blazons, or contacting me. If I don't know the answer but I will at least be able to point you in the direction of someone who will.

From Rocket Herald

I've now held the external submissions office for somewhat over half a year. It's been a steep learning curve and each LoI still feels like an exam, but I must be a rather twisted kitty because I'm greatly enjoying the job! I would however like to have a longish whine about some consistent issues with submissions. Some are small details, others are larger problems, but all slow preparing the packet for Laurel.

Only forms dated Laurel v. 2.0; Lochac v. 2.0 (Laurel Approved [18 Jul 2006]) can be used. All submissions on earlier versions of the forms will be subject to administrative return.

Copies of all documentation not listed in Appendix H of the Administrative Handbook are required with submissions. Many submissions are citing articles from the Academy of Saint Gabriel, or Aryanhwy merch Catmael's site www.ellipsis.cx/~liana. These are both excellent sources, but neither is listed in App. H so copies must be included. Please check that any submissions that pass though your hands have the required copies. Not providing copies of documentation is grounds for return. I'm about annoyed enough to start doing so�

Wikipedia is not an acceptable source for documentation. Most articles give modern normalised forms of names, which are not useful for our purpose. Also, due to wikipedia's collaborative nature the accuracy of the articles can be highly questionable. Please see the Dec 2005 LoAR cover letter for further comments on this matter - the dingo reference is good for a giggle.

The name documentation section on the forms should be filled out. Please provide a summary of the documentation for the name, be there copies attached or not. "See attached� is not a summary. "Emailed to Crux� is also not a summary. One recent example "found in a book�, with no copies is beyond useless! Should all other pieces of paper be lost we ought to be able to reconstruct your submission from what's written on the form. Past copies of CAMeL or LoIs are good places to look for the type of information required.

I was guilty of this one myself - Please don't send in name forms with the submitted name in all capital letters. We have RTF editable forms available online, so writing in all caps to overcome terrible handwriting should no longer be much of an issue. Many languages have specific capitalisation rules, others are variable. Please fill out the form with the exact capitalisation being submitted.

It is preferable to not colour in the sable/black portions of device and badge submissions on the outline copy.

Staples are bad. Each copy of a submission is eventually sent to a different place, so stapling them together isn't helpful and an occasional tetanus hazard! Please use paperclips, plastic sleeves or similar.

Gold and silver pen are also bad! They turn to glue with age and make a great sticky mess of the files. Other colours should all be clear heraldic tinctures. Basically, this means primary or secondary colour wheel shades only. Variations such as pastels or indeterminate toned shades can be grounds for return on an otherwise clear design.

If submitting a name under the mundane name allowance, please ensure that proof of the submitter's name is included. This means a photocopy of their driving license, birth certificate or similar legal document. Certification by a J.P. is not necessary.

And finally... Please save trees (and postage)! If a name being documented only occurs on one page of an article, there is no need to copy and submit the entire thing. The title and relevant page are all that are required. Double sided or 2-up printing is greatly encouraged.

That's really quite enough from me, except to give thanks to all who've assisted with commentary; scanning, filing or in any other way. I truly could not do this without you. Keep up the good work guys!

Kingdom returns this month

Submissions Forwarded to Laurel

Tamsyn Northover

(Talith Jennison)

4/25 Goble St

Niddrie

Vic. 3042

Australia

rocket@sca.org.au

Lochac Letter of Intent 14 May 2007

Unto Elisabeth de Rossingnol, Laurel Queen of Arms; Margaret MacDubhshithe, Pelican Queen of Arms; Jeanne Marie Lacroix, Wreath Queen of Arms, and the members of the College of Arms does Tamsyn Northover, Rocket Herald, send greetings!

The Lochac College of Heralds requests that the following items be considered for registration:

Ailis inghean Mhedhbha

New Name and New Device

Quarterly Or and sable, four dragonflies counterchanged.

The submitter desires a female name and cares most about an unspecified language/culture. She will accept NO changes.

Matronymic bynames in Irish Gaelic are registrable by precedent. “…Given the rarity of matronymics, and the narrow time and cultural frame in which they occur, they have been ruled registerable (though a weirdness), so long as they match the time and cultural frame in which the few known examples appear. Specifically, that results in two restrictions:

-the metronymic byname must be in Irish Gaelic.

-the mother’s given name used in the matronymic byname must be documented as having been used after 1200.” [Ana ní Muireáin 07/2002 R-Atenveldt]

<Ailís inghen Cormaic> is found in O’Brien, Kathleen M, Index of Names in Irish Annals http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/AnnalsIndex/Feminine/Alis.shtml with a date of 1285.

Meadhbh spelt <Medbh> and <Meadhbh> is also found in the Annals dated between 1444 and 1582.

http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/AnnalsIndex/Feminine/Meadhbh.shtml

We understand that the mother’s name in this position must be lenited and in the genitive case, but do not know if the submitted name is correctly formed.

Darton, Shire of

New Device

Sable, a hunting horn within a laurel wreath Or.

A letter of permission to conflict with Erinlin Aldhelm [Nov 2001 via Calontir] Sable, a hunting horn within a bordure Or has been provided.

A petition of support for the device is included.

Darton, Shire of was registered in April 2003.

Guilliaume Lavet

New Device

Per bend gules and sable, a winged lion rampant guardant and a bordure argent.

Guilliame’s name was registered on the January 2007 LoAR.

Hagen von Durnstein

Device Resubmission

Argent, a fox rampant within a double tressure gules.

Hagen’s previous submission, Argent a fox rampant within an orle gules was retuned by Laurel on the Sept 06 LoAR. “Unfortunately, this device must be returned for conflict with the device of Reynaud de Burgundy, Argent, a fox rampant proper maintaining in dexter paw three arrows inverted Or within a bordure embattled gules, which is reblazoned elsewhere on this letter. There is a single CD for changing the bordure to an orle, but nothing for changing from a fox proper to a fox gules or for removing the maintained charges.”

This resubmission changes the orle to a double tressure. This clears the previous conflict with 1 CD for type and another for number of secondaries.

Eleyne de Comnocke

Change of Device

Purpure, a rose and a chief ermine.

Eleyne’s name was registered in August 2004.

Her current device, Purpure, a saltire and on a chief argent, three roses purpure barbed vert and seeded Or, was registered Oct 04 and is to be released.

Eleyne de Comnocke

Blanket permission to conflict

“I, Clare Baldock, know in the SCA as Eleyne de Comnocke, waive the full protection of my registered armory “Purpure, a rose and a chief ermine”. I grant permission to any future submitter to register armory that is at least one countable step different from my registered armory. I understand that this permission can be withdrawn by written notice to the Laurel Sovereign of Arms, but that conflicting items registered while it is in force will remain registered.”

[Sig.]

Helen Wentworth

Change of Name and New Device

Ermine, a satyr dancing on a base sable.

Change of name from <Eline Wentworth> to <Helen Wentworth>

The submitter desires a female name, and will NOT accept changes.

Helen is found as a header form in Withycombe and “came in at the Renaissance.” Reaney & Wilson have <Helen Bonfela> dated 1438 and <Helen Macartney> 1588.

Wentworth is a header form in Reaney & Wilson. This element is grandfathered to the submitter.

The name <Eline Wentworth> was registered in April ’04 and is to be released.

Isabelle Winter

New Name and New Device

Azure, a horseshoe argent.

The submitter desires a female name and will NOT accept major changes.

Isabelle can be found in England dated to 1473, Lovelace, Janell K., Brass enscription index, http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/brasses/women.html

Winter is dated to 1113, 1185, & 1195 in Reaney & Wilson s.n. Winter.

This name is clear of Elizabeth Winter of White Forest [Jul. 1990 via Calontir] by removal of the element <of White Forest>.

Maria Bianca Casini

New Name and New Device.

Per fess vert and purpure, in fess three ducks naiant Or.

Internal commentary on this device produced numerous rubber ducky bath toy jokes. These aside, we do not believe that there is a substantial issue with the depiction of the ducks on this device.

The submitter desires a female Italian name and cares equally about sound and Language/Culture. She will NOT accept major changes.

Maria is found in Florence in the 14^th and/or 15^th century. Drake, Jo Lori, Italian renaissance women’s names, http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/italian.html

Bianca is found in 14^th century Venice, Mittleman, Josh, & Scott, Brian M., Fourteenth century Venetian personal names, http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/arval/venice14given.html

Casini occurs 8 times in LaVolpe, Ferrante, Family names appearing in the Catasto of 1427, http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/ferrante/catasto/family_names.html

Orlando the Pure

New Name and New Device

Vert, a Latin cross Moline fitchy between in chief two mullets argent.

The submitter desires a male name and will NOT accept changes.

Orlando occurs 5 times in LaVolpe, Ferrante, Italian Renaissance Men's Names, http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/ferrante/catasto/names.txt

Pure The Oxford English Dictionary Online http://www.dictionary.oed.com “Free from moral defilement or corruption; of unblemished character or nature; unstained or untainted with evil; guiltless, innocent; guileless, sincere. Rarely const. of (obs.), from (arch.). Often absol., the pure (sc. persons).”

a1340 HAMPOLE Psalter xxiii. 4 He..at is pure in werkis and clen in thoghtis. 1481 CAXTON Myrr. I. xiv. 48 To saue his sowle whiche God hath lent to hym pure and clene to thende that he shold rendre it such agayn. 1526 TINDALE Matt. v. 8 Blessed are the pure in herte. Ibid., Acts xx. 26, I am pure from the bloud of all men. Ibid., Titus i. 15 Unto the pure are all thynges pure.

The combination of English and Italian elements is a step from period practice.

Sveinn inn kyrri Grimsson

New Name

The submitter desires a male name and will accept NO changes. He wishes to have a 9^th or 10^th century Viking name meaning “Steve the quiet madman”.

All elements of this name can be found in Geirr Bassi Haraldsson, The Old Norse name.

Sveinn is found on p. 15.

inn kyrri meaning “quiet, gentle” p. 25.

Grímr is found on p. 10 with the patronymic construction Grímsson on p. 17.

“As Old Norse names may use or not use accents, we have left them off.” [Ethelfleda Daviðsdottir, 12/01, A-Atlantia]

This name as submitted consistently omits accents.

Geirr Bassi does not give a meaning of ‘madman’ for any element of this name. Where the submitter found this meaning remains a mystery.

William Cumyn

New Name

The submitter desires a male name and makes no other requests. He will NOT accept changes.

Withycombe s.n. William states that William was “introduced into England by the Normans in the 11^th C, from which time it has held its place as one of the commonest men’s names.”

Cumyn is found in Reaney & Wilson s.n. Cuming, Cumings, Cumine, Cummin …[etc] with “ William Cumyn 1230 P (Ha).

This letter contains 6 new names, 7 new devices, 1 device resubmission, 1 change of device, 1 change of name, and 1blanket permission to conflict. The office of Crux Australis Herald will forward the appropriate monies to Laurel in the usual manner.

Here ends Lochac’s May 14th letter of intent.

Yours in Service,

Tamsyn Northover

Rocket Herald