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The Award of the Sea Star

An estoile of five rays argent.

The Award of the Sea Star is a token given to recognize service at an event in the Crown Province of Østgarđr.

According to The Annals of Østgarđr, it may be awarded by the Viceroy, Vicereine, or Provincial Seneschal.

It is described in the Provincial Bylaws as:

The Honor of the Sea Star: Bestowed by the Viceregency upon individuals who have, on a particular occasion, served the Province well and ‘made things happen.’

An individual may receive this award more than once; indeed, it is not uncommon for a single person to have more than a dozen Sea Stars.

Token Photo by Kate Regina.

The token takes the form of a small starfish charm.

The Sea Star was introduced by Ian and Katherine on June 2, 2001, at the Riding of the Marches in Northpass. The Annals of Ostgardr report that “the first recipient was Alastair of Clan Campbell (from Rusted Woodlands), the event’s Head Chef.”

The heraldic registrations for the order’s name and badge were approved in 2014.

Former Viceroy Alexandre Lerot d’Avigne wrote in the Lochac wiki, Cunnan, that

In the reign of Ian and Katherine, the Seastar was traditionally awarded at events for service at that event. However, sometimes “back Seastars” were given at subsequent events. Alexandre and Eularia opted to award Seastars in Viceregal Court at a subsequent event to raise the profile of the honor.

During the reign of Gui and Johanne, Sea Star awards were given out more frequently, often to everyone who worked at an event, and at a few small, special events, to everyone who attended. Suuder and Lada have continued this tradition, awarding them in person during the course of an event rather than in a formal court session.

Due to the generous and informal distribution of Sea Stars, no complete list of their recipients exists.

Court Report, Whyt Whey Schola In The Solar

On October 28, A.S. LII, whilst his Excellency Suuder Saran, Il-Kha’an of Østgarđr, did lie abed recovering from a contagion, his fair lady Il-Khatun Lada Monguligin did venture forth unto her canton of Whyt Whey to attend a schola of arts and sciences, and there did share some of her talent in illumination with the populace, and did observe other displays of knowledge and partake in the feast that was set before her.

At the conclusion of the day, her Excellency held court, opening with kind words for the event and all who had attended.

Continue reading “Court Report, Whyt Whey Schola In The Solar”

The Østgarðrian Ladies’ Favor

The Østgarðrian Ladies’ Favor is a former martial award of the Crown Province of Østgarđr. It has fallen out of use in recent decades.

The Bylaws describe it thusly:

Bestowed by the Vicereine (if any) upon the person who has most distinguished him/herself both on and off the list field. She may, if she chooses, confer with the other Ladies of Østgarðr. The Favor is worn for one year and may be rebestowed on the same person.

Mordred Mjothvitner reports that he received this award for two consecutive years during the 1990s, and that it was given during the Provincial Champions event by the vicereine and her attendants.

The Order of The Silver Sea-Lion

Vert, in pale three sea-lions passant argent.

The Order Of The Silver Sea-Lion is the martial award of the Crown Province of Østgarđr.

It was created by His Excellency Gui Avec Chival (Viceroy AS XLVI–LI) to recognize both martial prowess and the leadership and training of others in the province in those skills.

The motto for the order is “I Go Forth, So That Others Might Follow”.

The heraldic registration for the order’s name and badge were submitted in 2011 and registered in 2012, although the name was returned and then accepted after a rule change. (I’ve previously posted the submitted image and other details of these registrations.)

The list of recipients of the Silver Sea-Lion in the East Kingdom’s Order of Precedence is sadly incomplete; a more accurate roster is set forth below.

On November 5, 2011, at Season’s Beatings in Brokenbridge, it was awarded to its principal:
• Llewyllen ap Rhys.

On February 12, 2012, it was given to:
• Valgard Stonecleaver, for armored combat.

On April 27, during Viceregal court at Crown Tournament in Østgarđr, it was awarded to:
• Suuder Saran, for archery.

On September 7, 2013, at the Feast of John Barleycorn in Northpass, it was given to:
• John the Bear, for thrown weapons.

On January 7, 2017, at Twelfth Night in Valhalla in Brokenbridge, it was awarded to:
• Alexander MacLachlan, for fencing.

On September 9, 2017, at the Feast of John Barleycorn in Northpass, it was granted to:
• Conor O’Caellaigh, for archery.

[Update, Dec 1:] The online Order of Precedence has been updated with this information and I believe it now has a correct and complete list of recipients as of this date.

The Order Of The Silver Lantern

I’m continuing my earlier series of posts on the orders and awards of Østgarđr with some more detailed writeups of each one. More should follow soon. — Mathghamhain

On a mullet vert a lantern argent.

The Order Of The Silver Lantern is an Arts & Sciences award of the Crown Province of Østgarđr.

The award was created by Her Excellency Johanne i Visby (Vicereine AS XLVI–LI) to “acknowledge skill, sharing and teaching in the Arts and Sciences.”

The heraldic registration for the order’s name and its badge were submitted in 2012, but the first design of the badge (which lacked the star) was returned for conflict and needed to be resubmitted before passing in 2013. (I’ve previously posted the submitted image and other details of these registrations.)

Medalion Photo by Godiva d’Mer

It is the only provincial order to not have the word “Sea” in its name, and as a result it is often mistakenly called the Order of the Sea Lantern.

The list of recipients of the Silver Lantern in the East Kingdom’s Order of Precedence is sadly incomplete; a more accurate roster is set forth below.

On February 21, 2015, at Lions In Winter, it was awarded to its principals:
• Alienor Salton;
• Godiva Eclipea Blackheart D’Mer.

On September 12, 2015, at the Feast of Barleycorn, it was awarded to:
• Aquilina of the Sea Cliffs, for brewing, workshops, and running the Barleycorn brewing contest;
• Oliver de Bainbridge, for excellence in brewing and teaching, along with the title “Brewer to the Vicereine”;
• Angelica de Nova Lipa;
• Friderich Grimm, for skill at cooking.

On September 10, 2016, at the Feast of Barleycorn, it was awarded to
• Ervald la Coudre the Optimistic, for bardic performance.

(Due to a scribal error in recording the previous year’s awards, it was also presented to Angelica de Nova Lipa for a second time, but as people may only receive this honor once, this is considered to have no effect.)

[Update, Dec 1:] The online Order of Precedence has been updated with this information and I believe it now has a correct and complete list of recipients as of this date, except for mis-stating the date of Lady Angelica’s award.

Name and Arms for Badr al-Abyārī

Badr is a rattan fighter in our province and had been working towards registering a name and device for some time. Along with with some of the other heralds on Facebook’s SCA Heraldry Chat group, I was glad to provide support as he worked through the process of selecting and combining name and armory elements.


Sable, the moon in her plenitude argent and on a chief Or a dragon passant gules.

Badr already had the outlines of his desired design worked out, and just needed a bit of support to find a combination of his favored elements that was registrable and clear of conflict.

The dragon image here comes from the Viking Answer Lady’s SVG Images for Heralds, while the moon image comes from Bruce Draconarius’ Pictorial Dictionary of Heraldry.


Badr al-Abyārī is the name of an Arabic-speaking man living along the Silk Road in the 13-14th century.

Badr is an Arabic masculine given name, or “ism.” The name “Badr” appears in Juliana de Luna’s “Andalusian Names: Arabs in Spain” (2001) under “Men’s given names that were found at least twice in these name lists.”

SENA Appendix A states that Arabic names may take an locative byname, using al- and the adjectival form of a place name. This type of name element is known as a “nisba,” and is often of the form al-<place>i.

Al-Abyārī is a locative byname in Arabic, meaning “from the wells”. (Abyār is used as the name of many places in the Arabic world where wells are found.) The name “al-Abyārī” appears in Juliana de Luna’s “Arabic Names from al-Andalus: Nickbynames by type” (2008).

Orders and Awards of Østgarđr and the East Kingdom

Following a recent discussion of kingdom and provincial orders and awards, I thought I’d try my hand and putting together a visual overview, in part to force myself to wrap my head around all of them, and also in hopes that the result might be of use to others.

My point of reference for this was the East Kingdom Awards Overview created by Tola knitýr, which is itself based on a similar chart created for the Middle Kingdom by Gebhard.

Rather than just copying the existing chart, I wanted to make sure I understood the underlying awards, but after looking at various write-ups online, it turned out that many of them were out-of-date following a significant reorganization of the East Kingdom award structure that took effect in October 2015.

The definitive source of information is Section IX of the Laws of the East Kingdom, which is the governing document that authorizes the current set of awards. The SCA’s main web site contains a friendlier presentation of that information, and the Awards page in the East Kingdom Wiki has a bunch of useful background information, as well as tangential material like lists of old, now-closed orders.

To this I added Østgarđr’s orders and awards. Some of these are described in section IV of the provincial bylaws, although an update will be required to address a few more-recently-created ones that are not yet mentioned there. I filled in the gaps by referring to my earlier writeup of the heraldic registrations for Østgarđr’s orders and awards.

The end result of that noodling around is attached as a 2-page, 162KB PDF file.

Caveat: this is a draft work in progress, and most assuredly contains some errors. Corrections and other feedback would be welcome.

[Update October 5:] I should note that there are a number of historical awards which have been discontinued and orders which have been closed. While these are still recognized, they are no longer granted to new recipients, and they are not included on this chart.

[Update October 10:] Thanks to some feedback on the Østgarđr Facebook group, I’ve learned more about a few of the awards and put together an updated version of this chart, now available as a 3-page PDF, or click the images below to zoom in.

Orders & Awards of the Crown Province of Østgarđr

Non-Martial Orders & Awards of the Society and East Kingdom

Martial Orders & Awards of the Society and East Kingdom

As noted above, this is a work in progress — let me know if you spot any errors or have suggestions for better ways to present this information!

 

Every Distinct Tincture, Fur, and Field Treatment

A discussion earlier this year led me to the calculation that there were 97 heraldically distinct tinctures, furs, and field treatments recognized in the SCA, and this evening I figured I’d go ahead and sketch them all out.

The math works out as follows:

  • 7 solid tinctures (2 metals plus 5 colors) +
  • 10 neutral furs (every combination of 2 metals x 5 colors) +
  • 20 ermine furs (2 metals ermined of 5 colors each, plus 5 colors ermined of 2 metals each) +
  • 20 masoned (2 metals masoned of 5 colors each, plus 5 colors masoned of 2 metals each) +
  • 20 papellony (2 metals papellony of 5 colors each, plus 5 colors papellony of 2 metals each) +
  • 20 scaly (2 metals scaly of 5 colors each, plus 5 colors scaly of 2 metals each).

(There are more blazonable neutral furs than that, because there are multiple variations of vair and potenty, as well as plumetty and the papelony fur, but all of these are considered heraldically equivalent when counting differences.)

In other words, each of the 97 squares below is considered to be a heraldically distinct tincture/treatment, each worth a full DC from every other possibility.

Adding field treatments (to your field or a charge) is thus an easy way to clear almost any conflict, as long as you can emblazon them in an identifiable fashion, although the results may be so eye-searing that you quickly come to regret the choice!


Update Aug 28: Following some interesting discussion on Facebook, it turns out this collection is incomplete.

Firstly, we allow registrations of “vairy ermine and counter-ermine” and other such combinations — so instead of 10 heraldically distinct neutral furs, there are at least 20, and more likely 180! 

This came as a surprise, partly because SENA doesn’t say “a fur may combine any two tinctures with good contrast” — it states that “a fur may combine any listed color with any listed metal,” which supports the “only ten combinations” interpretation, and suggests that the “vair of ermine” furs would require IAP documentation. But nonetheless, the existence of these two registrations (and lack of IAP notice in the LoARs for them) suggests such a thing is allowed:

  • Rowen Killian. Quarterly vairy azure ermined argent and argent ermined azure and vairy erminois and pean. (OSCAR, LoAR 2010/05)
  • Taran the Wayward. Vairy erminois and pean, an ermine spot vair. (OSCAR, LoAR 2016/11)

That got me thinking — could one register a “vairy ermined”, such as “vair ermined gules,” with the ermine spots being placed overall the vair pattern? I searched the armorial without finding any examples, and a similar search for examples of field treatments applied to furs also came up empty. I can’t tell whether that means that these combinations are disallowed, or whether it just means that nobody has been crazy enough to try it!

And it turns out that we also register vairs of three or four tinctures, further exploding the set of possibilities! To date, all of the registrations so far have been with the same combination of four tinctures, but if we allow any one or two metals combined with any one or two colors, that gives us another 35 combinations, just using solid tinctures — plus hundreds more if we allow ermines.

Here’s a image (also available as downloadable PDF) that includes the extra vairs, but leaves out the “vairy of ermine” and other possible combinations.

Update Aug 29: Thanks to Wendi King for pointing out another registration of a vair containing ermine spots. This one predates the other two, and the LoAR mentions a historical example of its use.

  • Gauvain Eisenbein. Vairy en point erminois and azure, a bordure gules. (LoAR 2004/04, Emblazon)

Note that this one has ermine spots in just one of the vair tinctures, and uses ermine spots that do not match the other side. Taken to its logical extreme, this means that there are thirty-two thousand possible vairs, each heraldically distinct!

Examples of Individually Attested Pattern Registrations

[Update, December 2020:] For the latest version of this document, see A Catalog of Individually Attested Pattern Submissions which includes additional items not listed below.

The SCA’s current rulebook for heraldic submissions, The Standards for Evaluation of Names and Armory (or SENA), establishes a common set of requirements called the “Core Style,” based on armorial practices that were common across late-medieval Europe and on Anglo-Norman conventions in particular.

However, it also provides an escape hatch — you can register designs which do not meet the core style rules if you can show that all of their elements were part of established heraldic practice in some particular time and place. This mechanism is known as an “Individually Attested Pattern” (or IAP), and allows for registration of designs which are typical of German, or Italian, or Japanese, or other heraldic cultures but which would not be registrable under the Anglo-Norman-influenced core style rules. Continue reading “Examples of Individually Attested Pattern Registrations”

Traceable Art at Pennsic

The Book of Traceable Heraldic Art made its premier appearance at Pennsic’s Heralds’ Point art tent this year.

I brought printouts of the full thousand-plus page collection with me, which was sleeved into page protectors by the volunteers at the point. While the new collection is not yet complete enough to retire the old Pennsic Traceable Art book, I was pleased to see that it was of practical use for many of the hundreds of armory submissions generated this year.

Throughout the week of activity, the team in the art tent generated useful notes about areas that needed more work, and as the Point was closing up, Signora Beatrice Domenici della Campana and Master Kryss Kostarev took several hours of their time to sit with me and systematically work through the first 430 pages identifying designs which needed correction or could be safely omitted from the version to be used on site next year.

I look forward to incorporating that feedback and continuing to expand the collection over the coming year.