[Artemisia] Heraldic question

[Dan S.]

Greetings  Lord Conchobhar and others,

Please don't take me too seriously. This is an old annoyance of mine, and a
personal peeve of *many* in the SCA.

The fact is there are many who believe that Corporate should handle mundane
issues and the Kingdoms should handle the 'Medieval recreation ' parts. This
distinction goes back to the whole ill conceived concept of the BoD styling
themselves as 'Imperium' since they are obviously above the Crowns and
Kingdoms in the food chain.

bleck.

I feel that Corporate should just be Corporate and let the Kingdoms be
Kingdoms. This means that Corporate officers (such as the Corporate Herald)
does not just invent regalia on his own authority. Regalia and social status
flows from the Crown, not from Bureaucrats. For the first 20 some odd years,
the Society Herald was just another officer, just like the Society Exchequer
or Society Marshall. It was basically a mundane job title. Then (somewhere
around AS 25 or so) the Corporate Herald decided he was gonna start wearing
a HUGE crown. I mean a Crown that was An-Tir big. No King or Queen invested
him, he just did it all on his own.

A couple of years ago at Pennsic the heralds held a 'coronation' of their
new head honcho during grand court. Many of the REAL Crowns of the SCA
wanted to get up and leave but were too polite. I know if it had been me I
would have just walked out on them.

For me it is the same as the guy who shows up at an SCA with a white belt
and spurs claiming to be a knight when no sovereign of any Kingdom has given
him the accolade.

I view such pretenders with more than a little scorn.

If some Kingdom decided to start putting some sort of crown on their Kingdom
Herald to mimic a period practice that would be fine.

But the Society Herald just taking on a HUGE brass hat is just sad and more
than a bit offensive.

And none of the above should be taken TOO seriously. Like I said I'm mostly
re-hashing this out of a bit of fond memory of having this exact
'discussion' with Aldwin Longwalker before he passed away. HE used to spend
HOURs trying to convince me and others that the Imperial Margarine Crown for
the Society herald was ok.

Course he also used to be royally bugged that my device was 'in the process
of submission at the local level' in perpetuity :-)   (but only sorta
annoyed, just like I'm only sorta annoyed by the Heralds silly fake Crown).

In Service,

Sir Daniel