[Artemisia] Sir Daniel's Heraldic question plus a few other items

[drchelm]

It is not my intent to disparge what is obviously a well-thought out 
and heart-felt position on this matter.  Personally, I really don't 
have much feeling about the Laurel Sovereign of Arm's crown - but for 
what it is worth, such crowns for sovereigns of arms from approximately 
1300
AD onwards were worn and used and acknowledged by all as the right of 
the herald holding the sovereign-of-arms positions.  The historical 
documents of the English College of Arms are the easiest accessible 
period sources you can get your hands on with illustrations of these 
crowns, used and worn in period.  For a sovereign of arms to have and 
wear a crown is as authentic a practice as you might find, and just to 
be a pain, I will note that it is a more authentic practice than any 
choosing or crowning of any SCA king or queen.  It is not my purpose to 
belittle our coronation practices - any thing but (if I really felt 
that way, I wouldn't play SCA) - my point is that complaining about a 
period practice because it does not conform with one's vision of 
sovereignty in the SCA, when that sovereignty institution (ie, the 
picking and creating of kings and queens) is less authentic and far 
less documentable is a complaint which commits the unwitting (in this 
case) splooge of what I call "selective authenticity."  Like much of 
the discussion of court last week, the acts of selective authenticity 
in the SCA is one of the things that drives me bats about this club.

The roots of the selective authenticity problem are as old of the SCA.  
It comes from the paradox of trying to fit the flawed attempt of 
reinventing a 15th century tourney society and then trying to stuff it 
into the romance and myth driven mold of an Morte d'Arthur-style 
kingdom shortly afterward - I make this statement based on the research 
I've done on the beginnings of the SCA (much of which is summarized in 
my most recent TI article published a year-ago last fall)

So I would contend that from an historical viewpoint and from a stand 
of trying to recreate a real period practice, there is nothing wrong 
with the Laurel Sovereign's crown.  From the point of view of our 
historical-romance-not-strict-history-driven view of crown and kingdom 
and our now-more-than-30-year-old traditions, the whole public crowning 
bit of the new Laurel sovereign of arms was not a good idea and was 
completely contrary to our oldest and most basic tradition which it 
flew in the face of, ie the institution of the Sovereign by Right of 
Arms (capital letters intentional).  Bad move on the part of the 
College of Arms, not well thought out and certainly politically-blind 
to the realities of certain SCA traditions.

By the way, I believe the statement that the corporate herald's 
position was more administrative-than-not even in the bad old days is 
not really correct.  I would refer you to the details contained in 
Master Wilhelm von Schussel's history of the college of heralds of the 
West, which is the same as the early history of the college of arms of 
the SCA by virtue of the fact the West was the SCA for the first three 
years.  I would also refer you to the West Kingdom History site which 
contains the bulk of Wilhelm's history on-line, plus materials on the 
history of the earliest West (including lots of photos).  The bottom 
line is that our primary sources on the origins of heraldic practice in 
the SCA will reveal that the earliest heralds were the creators and 
performers of our first courts, ceremonies, list-field pagentry, etc., 
many in ways more publicly and more prominently than one can experience 
now in most kingdoms today.  It took Karina of the Far West, sometime 
around year 5 or so, to create the bureacracy of arms registration that 
transformed the College of Arms into the administrative monster it is 
today.

Personally, I think one of the things they did better in the earliest 
bad old days that we do much less well now is heraldic pagentry of all 
types, both by heralds in their practice of list-field and court 
heraldry and by the rest of us in our laxitude and neglect of heraldic 
display.  In part, I think this is the result of not making the 
recruitment and training of folks with good theatre sense a priority 
task for growing good list-field and court heralds.  And in part, I 
think it is a consequence of not emphasizing more historical forms of 
tourneys that include room and time for period displays of heraldry, 
like serial elimination tourneys, Feats of Arms tourneys and pas 
d'Armes tourneys, all of which were held in Western and Central Europe 
in the high to late Gothic, and these more-period and more colorful 
tourney forms all have increasingly given place over the years, even in 
my short memory, to non-period "sport" style formats that maximize 
fight time to the detriment of other field activities (Helm-Schau, 
anyone? ;-) like the <sarcasm on> ever-so-historical historical formats 
of bear pit, war lord, and round robin <sarcasm off>.

When not actually fighting myself, I used to be able to spend a happy 
afternoon watching a tourney, sipping the pageantry visually like every 
other connoisseur of the list field, to appreciate the form, verbal 
virtuosity and fine vocal timbre of a properly attired list-herald; the 
theatre of the salutes and the start of the combat; the well-trained 
marshals who could manage the flow of combat and still know where to 
stand or kneel for the benefit of spectators; the beauty of period 
armour worn correctly, with period fighting clothes to match; the art 
of the shield, tabard and banner; the poignant and usually silent 
interplay of the fighter and the gentle watching whose favor was being 
fought for on the list field; the unrehearsed spontaneous honor of an 
act of chivalry or valour (they are different, folks!) on the field 
being acknowledge by the Queen; the combat itself; a well-done pageant 
of "dueling" heralds preceding the final bout of a Crown Tourney; court 
heralds AND royalty who know how to do a court right; Gothic pavillions 
and shade shelters to sit under, with gonfalons and wyns and standards 
flapping in the breeze.

So maybe my memory has colored the grass greener that it was one some 
of those days - that is the nature of memory, to keep the rememberence 
green.  But it is this "thing" that is at the root of what we do, this 
is the font of the SCA, the basic Rite of choosing a king and queen by 
"right of arms and inspiration" (to quote our founder) in the ceremony 
of a "Feat-of-Arms" tourney.  Remove this one thing, and we are no 
longer the SCA.  And that is why the public crowning of a sovereign of 
arms, while historically authentic, feels wrong, while the historically 
unjustifiable tourney to make a king and queen by right of arms and 
inspiration feels so very right.  The winning of the crown by a noble 
knight for his lady fair speaks to our hearts in ways that history will 
never touch - and that is why we are the SCA and not the Fifteenth 
Century Western European Armoured Combat and Re-Creation Club.

Want my honest opinion?  (well, you really don't but you're going to 
get it anyway).  Want to know why I think we lose a lot of old members 
and fail to recruit and retain new ones?  I believe it happens when we 
lose sight of the fact that the Rite of the Crown Tourney is the most 
important thing we do.  We are not the SCA without it.  Everything we 
are springs from it.  How can we justify treating its venue with 
anything less than our best efforts and pageantry?  If we treat the 
business of a crown tourney, an event that should be the showcase of 
every kingdom, like some lesser adjunct event whose purpose is to pick 
a king and queen to show off at some war somewhere, then what are we 
telling ourselves about how important our own origins and our own local 
events are?  If the Crown Tourney is the showcase it should be, then 
EVERYTHING ELSE will follow.  Take it for granted or treat is as some 
lesser event compared to Uprising or Estrella or Pennsic, and watch the 
consequences surround you.

Trying to be all things for all people in some attempt to do historical 
"re-creation" is wrong if it is done at the expense of the one thing 
that makes us what we are.

Just my two cents for the day.

ttfn,
Grumpy Old Timer (formerly Therasia)