Mathghamhain – Techniques of Digital Heraldry

Anno Societatis Conversions

With the arrival of spring, we are once again approaching the start of a new SCA year, or Anno Societatis (The Society calendar matches the Gregorian calendar’s months and days, but counts its years from the date of the first event of what became the SCA: the so-called First Tournament, which took place on May 1, 1966 in a backyard in Berkley, California.)

While conversions between the two calendars aren’t terribly confusing, it does always take me a moment or two to make sure I’m correctly adjusting for the differing start of the year, and I though it might be useful to have a visual reference, so I put together a pair of charts: one for moving from common dates to A.S. years, and the other for the reverse.

You can download printable versions of these in PDF format.

From A.S. Years To Common Dates

From A.S. Years To Common Dates

Report from Provincial Court at Bear’s Tavern

On the ninth day of March, Anno Societatis 58, their Excellencies of Østgarðr, the Viceréinas Angelica di Nova Lipa and Sofya Gianetta di Trieste, did venture to the northern woods of their domain to mingle with the commonfolk at Bear’s Tavern.

Seeing it well fit and felicitous to bring certain business before the populace, they did determine to hold court in that rustic setting, the proceedings of which I am by my avocation bound to record herein.

Machine-Printed “Silk Banners”

Colorful pennants and long standards fluttering in the breeze significantly enhance the ambiance of outdoor historical recreation events — but hand-painting silk can be a daunting project, and requires skills that I have not mastered.

To approximate the impression while leveraging my collection of digital images, I turned to a custom fabric printing service from Spoonflower. The results were satisfactory, so I’ve written up the process I used in case others would like to follow it.

KWHSS Panel Proposal: Software Roundtable

I’m hoping to organize a session at Known World Heralds in Philly this June to talk about the future of the software infrastructure that supports the College of Arms.

Here’s my draft panel proposal:

Personal Heraldic Title

When Wilhelm Laurel established the rank of Herald Extraordinary, he began the practice of personal heraldic titles:

Each Herald Extraordinary shall have a title that is his/her own personal title that s/he shall hold so long as s/he remains active.
Cover Letter, July 1981 Letter of Acceptances and Returns

Over the year since my elevation, I’ve struggled to think of an appropriate title to take on, until I was startled awake this weekend with a stroke of inspiration. The submission form has now been sent off and we’ll wait to see if the College will accept me as the “Gadfly Herald.”

Kingdom Sumptuary Laws for Heraldic Achievements

A recent question regarding allowable elements of a heraldic achievement sent me running for the best reference I know: a paper by Andreas von Meißen presented at KWHSS in 2013.

This document is admittedly out of date — among other things, it predates Avacal, and it does not include several changes that were made to the rules in Ansteorra the following year, based on Andreas’s recommendations — but I’m not aware of anything more recent or more authoritative, and so this remains a useful guide.

Corrections Wanted!

As noted prominently on the heraldicart.org website, the Book of Traceable Heraldic Art is not an authoritative source; in particular, despite the inclusion of art by a large number of contributors, the text is nearly all the work of one person, and indubitably contains numerous errors.

In hopes of saving the community from picking up any accidental misinformation, I’d love to have some help correcting those mistakes, and if you’re reading this, you’re invited to help out!

Kingdom Crown Calendar Comparison

A few days ago, after putting together an illustration of the East Kingdom’s annual cycle of crown/coronation events, I wondered what it would look like to compare those cycles across the other realms.

I asked some other heralds about this idea, and Ollivier Le Floch took the initiative in setting up a shared spreadsheet that allowed a bunch of people to quickly jump in and collaboratively fill in that data across all all twenty kingdoms. As the patterns emerged, I resolved to try presenting them in graphical form.

A Phylogeny of the Laurel Kingdoms

The Known World of the SCA is divided into twenty kingdoms which have emerged over its fifty-eight year history, as shown in this family tree.

A Modern Map of the Known World

There are many lovely maps showing the boundaries of the kingdoms of the Known World, but sadly most of them are out of date, with only a few properly reflecting the creation of Avacal in 2015.

Recently this gap was ably filled by Reddit user and avid YouTuber Emperor Tigerstar, who cut his teeth drawing animated maps of historical military campaigns.