Armory – Page 8 – Techniques of Digital Heraldry

Name and Arms for Lady Angelica di Nova Lipa

Lady Angelica is an established member of the society, serving as the chatelaine of the Canton of Whyt Whey, but had never registered her name or arms, an oversight I was pleased to help correct.

Gules, eight fleurs de lys in annulo Or.

In our first round of consultation, Angelica identified red and gold as her preferred colors, and the Florentine fleur de lys as her desired primary charge, but pinning down the optimum arrangement required multiple iterations before this design emerged as the favorite.

Angelica di Nova Lipa is the name of a Northern Italian woman during the Renaissance whose family hails from the Slavic village of “New Linden” on the other side of the Adriatic Sea.

Angelica appears as a woman’s name in many parts of Europe during the late medieval period, including in northern Italy and adjacent areas of central Europe.

“Angelica” is a Florentine woman’s name dated to 1427. (In “A Listing of all Women’s Given Names from the Condado Section of the Florence Catasto of 1427” by Juliana de Luna.)

“Angelica” is a Roman woman’s name dated to 1527. (On p. 87 in “Sac de Rome,” by Jacques Bonaparte, 1830. Image)

“Angelica” is a Venetian woman’s name dated to 1615. (In “Names from Sixteenth Century Venice” by Juliana de Luna.)

“Angelica” is a Hungarian woman’s name dated to 1230/1356. (In “Nıi neveink az Árpád-korban” by Edina V. Jurkó, at University of Debrecen’s Department of Hungarian Linguistics.)

di <placename> is a rare but attested form for northern Italian names. (SENA Appendix A states “Locative bynames in the northern and central areas normally take the form da X, but de X and di X are rarely found.”)

Italian and South Slavic name elements may be used together for the period of 1100-1600, according to SENA Appendix C.

Nova Lipa is a village between Vinica and Črnomelj in the White Carniola region, adjacent to the historic Venetian province of Istria, now part of modern Slovenia. In the Slovene language, the name means “new linden” (like the tree) and is distinguished from Stara Lipa (“old linden”), another village centered one mile to the north. (There are also paired adjacent villages named Nova Lipa and Stara Lipa a hundred miles to the east, in modern Croatia.)

While we haven’t been able to find a period source that refers to the village by this exact name prior to 1600, we believe it has been continuously occupied for more than a thousand years, and has been known by this name for more than four hundred years, as shown below.

The area of the village has been inhabited for thousands of years, and was previously the location of a Roman-era settlement. (Archeological site identified in 2006; Image.)

The area of Nova Lipa and Stara Lipa are listed together in fourteenth and fifteenth-century German-language texts as Linten, Linden, Lindenn, Lynden, or Lindenn, with references such as “dacz der Linten”, 1334, and “czu der Lindenn,” 1463, both found under the heading “Nova Lipa, pri Vinici v Beli krajini” (or in English, “Nova Lipa, near Vinica in White Carniola”), in “Historična topografija Kranjske (do 1500)” by Miha Kosi, Matjaž Bizjak, Miha Seručnik, and Jurij Šilc, at the Milka Kosa Historical Institute. (Image)

The linkage of these historical listings to the modern location of Nova Lipa is justified by an accompanying note: “Lokalizacija glede na [Urb. Nemškega viteškega reda, f. 216] iz 1490, kjer gre očitno za Staro in Novo Lipo” (or in English, “located via page 216 of the ‘Estate Records of the Teutonic Knights of 1490,’ where it is clearly for Stara Lipa and Nova Lipa”), citing “Urbar Nemškega viteškega reda za posest v okolici Ljubljane, Metlike, Črnomlja in Velike Nedelje 1490,” Codex 164 at the Central Archive of the Teutonic Knights in Vienna, which provides a listing of properties owned by Teutonic Knights in the vicinity of Črnomelj.

These listings of Linden are recorded in German, the language of the ruling Habsburg family and other elites, but local farmers in the fourteenth century would have spoken a Slavic language, a predecessor of modern Slovene, in which the village name would have been “Lipa.” For example “de Lipa” appears as a locative byname for numerous Czech men in 1310–1404. (Including “Heinrecus de Lipa 1383-1386” p. 43, and “Wenceslaus pernář de Lipa 1404” p.171 in “Registrik jmen osobnich”, a registry of personal names, by Wacslaw Wladiwoj Tomek, 1875; Image, Image.)

Although all of the residences in the area were originally considered to be a single village, some of the homes eventually formed a separate cluster on the southern side of the valley as residents shifted buildings to the hillsides to preserve open land for farming. (A sociological survey of patterns of town organization in the local area states that “Vas Nova Lipa (Bela krajina) je zato, da bi se ohranila rodovitna zemlja v bližnjem podolju, pomaknjena na višji, močno vrtačast svet, kjer hiše stojijo med vrtačami ali tik ob njih.” or in English, “New Lipa village (White Carniola), in order to maintain fertile soil in a nearby valley, moved higher, to an area of karst depressions where houses stand between sinkholes or adjacent to them.” In “Morfologija Vaških Naselij v Sloveniji” by Vladimir Drozg, 1995; Image.)

This southern group of buildings was soon recognized as a distinct place known as “Nova Lipa,” growing large enough by the 1600s to justify construction of its own church, the “Nova Lipa Church of the Holy Spirit.” (“Nova Lipa Cerkev sv. Duha,” dated to the 17th century by the Slovenian Cultural Ministry; Image.)

Although we do not have an exact date for the church’s construction, the village would have existed for a number of years prior to the building of the church, as churches were only erected in established population centers. Dr. Miha Kosi, a Slovenian historian with expertise in medieval geography of the region, believes the village was formed prior to 1600, during the Renaissance period: “When the village was divided, i.e. Nova Lipa was established, I don’t know, but obviously only after the middle ages, but before 17th c. (the building of the church of Holy Spirit).” (Personal communication, June 2017; Image.)

Intellectual Property Rights In Branch Armory

An interesting point came up as part of the recent discussion of copyright and armorial registrations: what rights does the SCA as an institution have with regards to the images and designs used in devices and branches?

The question was triggered by an element of the Society’s rules found in section XII of the SCA’s “Corporate Policies” document, which is inexplicably difficult to locate online, but which can be found in a revision markup for changes made in 2013.

XII. POLICY ON SERVICE MARKS
The names (group and award/order) and armory (devices and badges) registered by Laurel to the SCA or to branches are to be considered service marks of the SCA. This recognition is to formally recognize these marks and our use of them to the purpose the US Patent and Trademark Office terms “collective marks.”

(This clause appears to date from the first quarterly BOD meeting of 2005. The same phrasing also appears in the SCA’s Social Media Policy.)

Due to what seems to be a good-faith misunderstanding, some people seem to have misinterpreted this issue in a way that suggests that the SCA, Inc.’s central organization in Milpitas, sometimes referred to as the “Corporate Office,” owns the copyright to all armory registrations, e.g. to the artwork submitted via OSCAR for devices and badges, such that permission from that office would allow someone to use that artwork in a commercial venture, or conversely that permission from that office would be required before someone could commission an artisan to create a work that incorporated their own personal arms.

In short, none of that appears to be correct.

It may seem surprising that the service mark and copyright for a particular image belong to two separate entities, but they come from separate areas of law.

A service mark is like a trademark, but for services as opposed to products. Categorizing the arms of the society and its branches as service marks provides the society with institutional power to object if someone else uses them in a way that would trade upon the society’s reputation.

On the other hand, copyright is a protection for the creator of a specific embodiment of an original creative endeavor. In the United States and other countries which are signatories to the Berne Convention, all eligible works are immediately covered by copyright without any registration requirement, so if you draw something, other people can not distribute or sell copies of it without your permission.

For example, if a for-profit company decided they were going to run a “Middle Kingdom Renaissance Fair” and printed up advertisements with the Middle Kingdom’s arms, the SCA corporate office could file a legal action against them on service-mark grounds, even if there was no copyright infringement because that company had drawn their own illustration of the dragon featured in the Middle’s arms.

On the other hand, if the SCA corporate office grants a private leather-working business a license to sell belts imprinted with the arms of all of the kingdoms, that only covers the service-mark claims, and means the business has permission to create and reproduce their own illustrations of those designs — it does not mean the business can simply copy the branch arms out of OSCAR or from the kingdom websites without seeking permission to do so from whomever originally illustrated each of those images.

The service-mark claim limits third parties from using branch arms, but it doesn’t create a restriction on SCA branches themselves using those designs (including those of other branches) or commissioning works from artisans, because as stated in the Social Media Policy:

4.c.ii. Kingdoms, principalities, regions, baronies, cantons, shires, etc. are all part of SCA, Inc. are entitled to use SCA trademarks and service marks without limit.

The service-mark claim does not appear to interfere with common situations in which individuals incorporate branch badges into their heraldic banners and similar displays, both because the branches typically have specifically granted permission to their populace to do so, and because those individuals are not at risk of passing off a product or service as an official SCA offering.

And as one would expect, none of this applies to individual armory, as noted in the Social Media Policy:

4.c.vi. Nothing here is meant to limit the use of individual badges or arms, which of course, belong to the individual member.

As with the last post, all of the above should be read with the knowledge that I am not a lawyer, and none of this should be taken as legal guidance — I’m just attempting to describe a somewhat-obscure issue as best I understand it.

If I’ve misinterpreted something, please let me know, and if there’s a clearer description of this topic posted somewhere else, I’d love to hear about it!

Copying Heraldic Art from OSCAR

I recently asked a group of heralds what the conventions were on copying heraldic art from OSCAR for re-use in other submissions, and thought it would be useful to write up some notes on the subject here for future reference.

Copying elements from previous submissions to use as clip art when creating new armory is not uncommon. While some heralds are great freehand illustrators, others are not (myself included), and being able to pull charges from an existing image and repurpose them allows those folks to assemble good-looking submissions for the registrants they are assisting.

This practice is widespread and I don’t know of any cases where someone has objected to their art being reused in this way. If you’re one of the many heralds who does this, please don’t take my commentary as a criticism or as pressure to do things differently

However, there is no formal license to do this, and legally each piece of art remains under the copyright of its original creator except where individual or blanket permission is granted for reuse. (Some earlier versions of the armory submission forms included a clause granting permission for use within the society, but the current ones do not.)

[Update, June 20]: The “Laurel v2.0” generation of forms, circa 2006, include the message “I understand that with my submission I automatically give permission for the Society for Creative Anachronism to use my artwork and armory for any and all internal heraldic and scribal purposes.” The “Laurel v3.0” forms, circa 2016, omit this language.

Writing to the original submitter and requesting permission seems like it would solve this problem, but this can be challenging because OSCAR does not expose the registrants’ contact information (sometimes Facebook searches or friend-of-a-friend inquiries will do the trick), and in some cases the registrant may not even know who created the artwork in the first place.

There are several libraries of heraldic images that do grant general permission for use in creating armory for the SCA without special arrangement or attribution, including Bruce Draconarius’s PicDic, Viking Answer Lady’s SVG Images for Heralds, Ailis Linne’s Pennsic Traceable Art book, and my own Book of Traceable Heraldic Art, but none of them is exhaustive enough to contain every possible charge in ever allowable position and style.

Note that all of the above presumes you are creating heraldry or artistic displays for non-commercial use within the society — if you plan to sell products with these images, use them for your business logo, or any other kind of commercial use you really must get in touch with the original creator and negotiate specific permission or you are opening yourself to both civil and criminal liability.

With all that said, finding several different examples of a charge from OSCAR, bringing them all to someone with a good hand, and asking them to draw something in the same vein should be safe as long as they’re using the material for inspiration and not directly tracing or copying them. Direct tracing of period illustrations or no-longer copyrighted armorial texts also shouldn’t create any problems, although you will need to verify that the style is compatible with current society practice.

(And of course, although it should go without saying, I am not a lawyer, and the above should not be taken as legal guidance.)

Badge for Lady Beatrice della Rocca

Lady Beatrice selected her badge in consultation with Erich Gutermuth, the deputy herald for Whyt Whey, and I was pleased to be able to assist them with the registration process.

A roundel counter-vair.

This design raised an interesting corner case where two of the SCA’s heraldic rules intersect:

Firstly, longstanding precedent holds that you can’t register a fieldless badge consisting of a shape which is a standard form for heraldic display, such as an escutcheon, billet, or roundel. The reason for this rule is that allowing such registrations would create the possibility for confusion; for example, when viewing a black and white square, one might wonder “is this a delf per pale sable and argent, or is it simple per pale sable and argent displayed on a rectangular object?”

Secondly, SENA A.3.E.3. states that you can’t register an undivided field such as simply “counter-vair” as that would be too simple; all registrations need to contain at least a charge or a field division.

Conveniently in this case those two rules work together in Beatrice’s favor: because you could not register an undivided, uncharged field of counter-vair, there is no potential for confusion: the image above can only legitimately be interpreted as a roundel counter-vair.

This ruling was described in the April 2002 LoAR:

We do not register fieldless badges which appear to be independent forms of armorial display. Charges such as lozenges, billets, and roundels are all both standard heraldic charges and “shield shapes” for armorial display. The SCA has never protected armory consisting of plain tinctures… If we do not protect, and have never protected, the arms Or, we should not be concerned about the possible appearance of a display of Or by using a single lozenge Or as a fieldless badge. … Therefore, a “shield shape” which is also a standard heraldic charge will be acceptable as as a fieldless badge in a plain tincture…

As all of the vairs are considered a single tincture, this badge should be registrable.

Name and Device for Alaxandair Mórda mac Matha

Alax is is my son, and wanted a name that reflected his mother’s Scottish ancestry, and a device suggestive of his primary interest in the society: youth combat.

Sable, an escutcheon within an orle Or.

Black and yellow are the colors of the martial offices, and after trying dozens of different designs he settled on these nested shield shapes.

Alaxandair is a Gaelic form of Alexander, first recorded as the name of a Scottish king born at the end of the 11th century (Alaxandair mac Mael Choluim), as well as two 13th century successors (Alaxandair mac Uilliam and Alaxandair mac Alaxandair), and then appearing more widely in records in the 13th and 14th centuries.

Pronounced “AH-lek-SAHN-dare.” Later variants include Alasdar, Alasdair, Alustar, and Alasdrann. The name comes from the Greek Ἀλέξανδρος (Aléxandros), which loosely translates to “defender of the people.”

Medieval Gaelic names could include both a descriptive and a patronymic byname. “Descriptive bynames were sometimes used in both Gaelic Scotland and Ireland. These bynames were usually adjectives describing concrete rather than fanciful characteristics… In Gaelic Scotland and Ireland, when descriptive adjective bynames were used they were often combined with simple patronymic bynames.” (Krossa)

Mórda is Gaelic for “great,” “exalted,” or “lofty.” Our original plan was to submit this as the related “Mórail,” which is modern Gaelic for “great,” “magnificent,” or “majestic,” but we were unable to document this to period, and a consulting herald at Pennsic helped us find Mórda instead.

mac is the standard Gaelic patronymic marker, meaning “son of.”

Matha is a Gaelic form of Matthew, his father’s given name. It appears in the Irish annals in 1258, and then repeatedly in the 1300s. (Mari) Pronounced “MA-tha” or perhaps “MA-ha.”

Thus, one can read Alaxandair Mórda mac Matha as “Alexander the Great, son of Matthew.” In addition to the obvious reference to Alexander the Great, the name is intended to allude to his size, as he’s exceptionally tall for his age.

Name and device submitted at Pennsic Heralds’ Point in August 2016 and accepted on the April 2017 LoAR published that June.

Device for Christophe de Frisselle

Azure, a pale checky sable and argent.

Christophe was introduced to me through the East Kingdom’s “Ask a Herald” service. He already had a design in mind that was a good match for his 12th Century Sicilian Norman Crusader persona.

However, I soon discovered that, although visually distinct, it conflicted with the populace badge of the Shire of Caer Adamant, azure, a pale vert fimbriated Or, as the College of Arms does not consider fimbriation when calculating heraldic difference.

I contacted the shire’s herald, Don Simeon ben Iuçef de Alcaçar, and through him reached their seneschal, Baron Adolphus Benner, who consulted the local populace and officers and granted Christophe the necessary “permission to conflict” that would allow his arms to be registered.

[Update, Dec 2017: This device was accepted for registration.]

Arms and Badge for Lady Sofya Gianetta di Trieste

Or, a Florentine fleur-de-lys and on chief gules two mullets of eight points Or.

Lady Sofya came up with an initial design for her armory last year, but the submission paperwork was never finalized and she wanted to make a few tweaks.

Her persona resides in northern Italy and she’d previously selected the Florentine fleur-de-lys as her primary charge, as well as choosing red and gold as her personal colors. In the course of the design process she identified the eight-pointed star as a recurring theme in Italian heraldry and included that as well.

Or, a Florentine fleur-de-lys within an orle gules.

A second design which was developed during the consultation is being submitted as a personal badge.

It’s very reminiscent of the arms of Florence, which are argent, a fleur-de-lys gules.

The fleur-de-lys charge used here comes from Gunnvôr silfrahárr’s “SVG Images for Heralds” collection, and is the distinctively-Florentine version with visible stamens between the petals. While at one time the SCA blazoned this charge a “fleur-de-lys Florencee,” that practice seems to have become less common, and these may wind up being registered as generic fleurs-de-lys, with the particular styling an artistic variation visible only in the emblazon.

[Update, Nov 2017: This armory was accepted for registration.]

Arms for Lady Magdelena Caminante

Per bend sinister purpure and vert, a bend sinister argent, overall an inverted triangle Or.

Lady Magdelena’s armory registration was returned for a redraw as the submitting herald had made the triangular charge “barely overall.” She liked the design, so we adjusted the proportions to address the issue by ensuring that all three corners of the triangle lie on the field rather than on the bend, and it is now being resubmitted.

My Name and Device

My SCA persona is of mixed post-Viking Irish and post-Roman Welsh descent, living in northern Wales one thousand years ago, so I tried to select a name and armory that felt appropriate for that context.

Per fess argent and vert, a bear passant gules.

The Irish and Welsh of 1017 did not have a concept of personal armorial designs, which arrived in the British Isles with the Normans fifty years later, but heraldry is such a pervasive element in the SCA that I was willing to be anachronistic about it.

However, I still wanted to use a very simple design that was reminiscent of the earliest period of heraldry — per-fess fields with a single central charge are found by the twelfth century.

I also wanted a design that was suggestive of Ireland and Wales — the Welsh flag is white and green with a red dragon, and bears are important symbols in early Celtic mythology.

And the red bear makes a good symbol for me — I am heavyset, bearded, and somewhat red of face.

The above emblazon uses a bear illustration by Graham Johnston from Fox-Davies’s heraldry book of 1909. The submitted image uses a much cuter bear inspired by the “bear cub” cant mentioned below.

Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin is a plausibly authentic Irish Gaelic name for the eleventh century. It’s pronounced something like Mah-(g)huw-ahñ Oh-ah Roo-ahñ, where the stress is on the underlined syllables and the parentheses indicate a softened guttural sound.

The word “Mathghamhain” is an old Gaelic word for bear cub, formed from the roots “matu” or “math” meaning bear, and “ghamhain” or “ghamhuin” meaning calf. In later usage this word shifted from meaning specifically a bear cub to referring to bears in general.

(A discussion of the importance of the bear in Celtic mythology and the derivation of the name Mathghamhain is provided by “Recherches sur l’origine de la propriété foncière et des noms de lieux habités en France”, Henri d’ Arbois de Jubainville, 1890, pp. 389-390, in French here, and translated to English here by Jeff McMahon.)

An old collection of Irish records known as the “Annals of the Four Masters” lists a dozen influential men named Mathghamhain in the years from the late 900s through the 1100s, including the older brother of Brian Bóruma mac Cennétig, aka Brian Boru, high king of Ireland.

Other period spellings of the name include Matgamain, Mathgamain, Mathghamain, Mathgamhain, Matghamhain, Matgamhain, Mathgamuin, and Mathgamhuin. (Much of this spelling diversity stems from the use of H as a marker for lenition — in Gaelic, a consonant followed by an H typically sounds quite different from that same consonant alone, generally being voiced more softly, or sometimes becoming totally silent. In early written Gaelic, lenition was originally indicated by putting a dot above the letter, so in the year 850 the name might have been written Maṫġaṁain, but later orthography switched to using an H after the letter instead. This transition happened unevenly in different times and places, with intermediate periods in which the lenition was implicit, or where the marker was applied only to certain consonants, or only when written in certain typefaces — and as old records were copied by later scribes, they would sometimes preserve the original spelling and other times would convert it to their contemporary usage, leaving an inconsistent mess.)

Mathghamhain can be pronounced Mah-hoo-an, although the period pronunciation may have been closer to Mah-(g)huw-ahñ. In modern Gaelic it’s pronounced something like Mah-hoon, and it’s typically Anglicized as Mahon, although in some cases it may have been converted to Matthew.

Ua is the marker for a clan affiliation byname; originally meaning “grandson of,” it later shifted to mean “descendent of” some notable ancestor, or more generally “member of a lineage.” This usage of Ua began in the late 900s in Ireland; by the 1200s, it was more generally written O’. It’s pronounced somewhere between “Oh” and “Oo-ah” and “Wah.”

Ua Ruadháin was a family name in Ireland by the late 11th century, and was well established in western Ireland in the 12th and 13th century.

Spelling variations include Ua Ruadáin, Ua Ruadhán, and Ua Ruaidhín.

It is a genetive patronymic form of Ruadhán (“the red”, or “little red one”), which was in use as a first name centuries before that, including the 6th C. Saint Ruadhán and the 10th C. Bishop Ruadhan. (The personal name also appears as Ruadan and Ruadhan.)

There are a fair number of clergymen named Ua Ruadháin, including Aedh Ua Ruadhain (priest, north Ireland, –1105), Maol Ruanaidh Ua Ruadháin (bishop, Connacht, –1170), and Felix O’ Ruadhan (archbishop, Tuam, 1201–1235).

Ruadháin can be pronounced Roo-ahn, although the period pronunciation may have been closer to Roo-a(g)hañ or Roo-ain. Modern Gaelic pronunciations seem to include Roo-ahn, Roo-awn, and Roh-an. It’s typically Anglicized as Ruane or sometimes Rowan, although in some cases it may have been converted to Ryan.

Thus, loosely translated, the name Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin can be read as something like “bear cub of the little red one” or “bear, descendent of the red,” meaning that the device shown above acts as a rebus, or “canting arms,” which was a common practice in the medieval period, using a picture that suggests elements of the name either literally or via puns.

While the name would probably be Anglicized as Mahon O’Rowan, it’s not completely out of the question for it to have become Matthew Ryan — my given name and my mother’s Irish family name.

Name and device submitted at Pennsic Heralds’ Point in August 2016 and accepted on the January 2017 LoAR published that March.

The original blazon submitted described the central charge as a “bear cub,” as an attempted cant on the meaning of “Mathghamhain,” but this was declined on the grounds that SENA A2C1 forbids the registration of baby animals.

Due to a transcription error at Heralds’ Point, the byname was registered with one letter missing, which was corrected in an errata the following month.

The name and device were approved at the end of March, and I want to thank everyone who helped me as I worked through the process, including Alys Mackyntoich, who answered my EK “ask a herald” request early on in the process and helped me with Gaelic name elements; Seraphina Delfino, Rachael d’Amour, and Sigrith Vigdisardaater who checked my initial armory design in the Facebook SCA Heraldry Chat group and helped me figure out that turning the bear in my draft design would clear the only conflict; Frank Sloan and Brian Engler, who reviewed my Gaelic pronunciation; Gisela Vom Kreuzbach, who took my submission at Pennsic (as well as recruiting me to become a herald); Yehuda ben Moshe, who corrected a typo which I hadn’t noticed until much too late in the process; and the others whose names I’ve lost along the way — much appreciation to all.

Two Articles by Lothar von Katzenellenbogen

I am reposting two armory articles by Lothar von Katzenellenbogen (mka Thomas Barnes) which I think are interesting and useful: Authentic Heraldry Made Simple and A Critique and Ranking of Charges Found in the “Pictorial Dictionary of Heraldry As Used in SCA”.

They were written in the 1990s and archived at the Academy of Saint Gabriel, but were only available in a plain-text format that wasn’t very readable — the versions I’ve posted have had modern web styling applied to them and will hopefully be easier to scan.

These are over two decades old, and somewhat out of date, and they’re very opinionated, but they also contain some useful information, and I feel there’s value in them if they’re considered in context rather than taken as an authoritative reference.