Middle Kingdom Pursuivants Handbook 2nd Edition - Midrealm ...

Charts of Standard Heraldic PosturesEditor’s Note:Mistress Éowyn’s charts of heraldic postures have appeared in various forms (with accompanying articles) in severalpublications, including Tournaments Illuminated, The Proceedings of the 1989 Caidan Heraldic Symposium, and TheCompleat Anachronist #61: An Encheiridion—the Education of a Scribe. I’ve found them to be extremely useful, especiallywhen asking a submitter to select a posture for a charge.These charts were designed in part as a guide for scribes, so most of the postures are shown as a four-step “how-todraw”process. This also emphasizes the positions of the limbs, making the differences more obvious.For some of the charts, two columns of text have been merged to better fit the page and margin dimensions of thishandbook, but the actual illustrations and text have been unchanged.The bird postures volant, stooping, and migrant have not been drawn consistently in SCA armory. Some years ago,Mistress Éowyn did a quick survey of registered SCA devices and several mundane sources to see how these postures haveactually been drawn. Her chart entries for each of these postures indicate how many examples she found of that style in bothregistered SCA armory and in mundane (“reference”) sources.Postures of AnimalsPosition &CommentsRampant(rampaging)ca. 1100 -1400Body Attitude Legs Head TailVertical back, downto leg; hind legs atright angles, forelegstowards chief, tail benttowards back, mouthclosed.Rampant (rampaging)ca. 1450 - 1600Back bendwise, legsmaximally spread out;far leg is usuallyparallel to ground, butboth hind legs may beon ground.Salient (leaping)1562Back slanted, forelegsat right angles, hindlegs parallel, tail benttowards back.Salient (leaping)SCAand modern formBack slanted, forelegstogether towards chief;hind legs together onground; tail fills space.96 Middle Kingdom Pursuivants Handbook2nd Edition - 2002