The Standards for Evaluation of Names and Armory - SCA Heraldry

The Standards for Evaluation of Names and Armory:The Rules for Submissionsetc.) of the armorial design must be documented as appropriate for the armorial style of a single time andplace within the temporal scope of the Society. Elements which would be considered a step from periodpractice under the Core Style rules may only be used under the Individually Attested Pattern rules whendocumented as being used in the time and place as the rest of the submission.Non-European armorial designs often do not fit into the core style rules, and thus may need to use theIndividually Attested Pattern rules in order to be registered.B. Blazon and Emblazon: The image of the armory is known as the emblazon, and the written heraldicdescription of the image is known as the blazon. We register the emblazon, rather than the blazon. Anydiscrepancies between the image and the description will be resolved by changing the description to match theimage. The Laurel office reserves the right to change the description of an image at any time, even afterregistration. The image will never be changed by the Laurel office. For this reason, we do not consideralternate emblazons included with a submission.C. Reproducibility: We require that the emblazon be describable in heraldic terms. This means that thesubmitted emblazon must be reproducible by a competent heraldic artist, with only normal heraldic variation,from the written blazon. Designs which depend on careful alignment of items in a way that cannot be reliablyblazoned using standard period heraldic terms will not be registered. This is discussed in more detail in A.3.Fbelow. Designs which use elements (charges, postures, orientations, tinctures, arrangements, etc.) that cannotbe blazoned using standard period heraldic terms will not be registered.D. Recognizability: Because we register the image and not the words, we require that the elements in the imagebe recognizable from their appearance. We are willing to give some allowance for poor drawing, butdepictions which are ambiguous as to tincture, the identity of a charge, the posture or orientation of anelement, the arrangement of a group, etc. cannot be reliably blazoned and will be returned for a redraw. Thisis discussed in more detail in A.2.C below.A.2. Armory ContentA. Definitions: Armorial elements include tinctures, charges, lines of division, complex line treatments,postures/orientations, arrangements, and the like. Essentially, each piece of an armorial submission is anelement.On first registration of any particular element, documentation must be presented that the element and itsdepiction may be registered. This means presenting evidence that the element is eligible to be registered andthat the specific depiction is attested or is otherwise compatible with period style. Elements which have beenregistered without comment in the last decade or are listed in one of the Appendices as acceptable elementsdo not usually need to be documented in a new submission. Items which have not been registered in over adecade, have only been registered a few times, or have recent registrations only via the Grandfather Clausemay need to be documented. Occasionally new research will require new documentation of a more recentlyregistered element.B. Standards for Elements: To be used in armorial submissions without penalty, armorial elements must meetone of the following standards.1. Attested Elements: Armorial elements are registerable if they are attested in period European armory.Designs found in a period roll of arms or a treatise on armory meet this standard, even if it is unclear fromthe treatise if the element was used in actual heraldry. Elements used in arms, in badges, and in crests allmeet this standard. Elements must be used and combined in the same ways they were used in periodStandards for Evaluation of Names and Armory – April 29, 2012 - Page 36 of 73