Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 320

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 320

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/320

Some of the Academy's early reports contain errors that we haven't yet corrected. Please use it with caution.

Greetings,

Here's the information we found on your name "Dmitri Vasilievich Sirenev" and your arms, which are blazoned "Per pale sable and argent, a Russian Orthodox cross argent and a mullet vert." This letter contains significantly more information than you asked for, but we hope it will be helpful.

The best source we know on period Russian naming is the "Dictionary of Period Russian Names" by Paul Wickenden of Thanet. Based on his research, Paul concluded that the modern pattern of name formation which used a given name, patronymic, and surname, didn't develop until about 1500, and didn't become common until the 1700's. In your period, almost everyone was known with a given name and a patronymic.

Both "Dmitri" and "Vasilii" existed in Russian in your period, in those spellings. In his introduction, Paul says that the standard patronymic for your period would be "Vasil'ev," and the only example he cites from your period is spelled this way. Therefore, we recommend that you use the name "Dmitri Vasil'ev."

We encourage you to look at this dictionary; it has a wealth of information on Russian names and lists of dated forms and spellings of the name. The URL is:

http://www.sca.org/heraldry/paul/

Although the specific name of the charge you want to use is "Russian Orthodox cross," we recommend more changes to your arms.

Russia didn't adopt heraldry until the 19th century. Given that, you may not want to register arms at all. However, many SCA members with persona from non-heraldic cultures choose to register arms.

Each country and time period had different heraldic styles. Our advice below is based on a typical style of arms which could have been found in any time or place where heraldry was used.

It was common for a husband and wife who both had arms to display their arms side by side on a single shield--this is called "impaling." Your current coat of arms appears to be an impaling of "Sable, a Russian Orthodox cross argent" and "Argent, a mullet vert." In heraldic terms, you're saying that you have the right to bear two coats of arms. Since this isn't the case, it would be inappropriate for you to use this coat.

It would theoretically be possible for you to solve this problem by using a different field divison (such as "per fess" or "per bend.") However, any kind of design which can easily be split is unusual in medieval heraldry (although they're very common in SCA heraldry). We recommend that you change your arms so that they're clearly one coat of arms. You could create a new design which incorporates mullets and crosses in some form, but we recommend that you drop the cross altogether. Here's why:

We're guessing that you included a "Russian Orthodox cross" in your arms as a way of saying, "I'm Russian." This kind of practice generally isn't found in medieval heraldry. Many of the symbols we associate with nations (the French fleur-de-lys or the Scottish thistle) come from the heraldry of the king of the country. In period, the king's arms belonged to the king and weren't appropriated by his subjects. In other cases, the symbols have nothing to do with heraldry at all. Either way, it wouldn't occur to a medieval person that a coat of arms with a specific symbol on it said something about the nationality of the person.

Unfortunately, all designs using a single mullet will conflict with arms that are already registered. We can suggest the following designs:

Per pale sable and argent, two mullets counterchanged.

Argent, two mullets vert.

Per pale sable and vert, two mullets argent.

You might also want to choose arms in the local heraldic style of either Poland or Hungary. Neither of these styles is especially more appropriate to your persona, since there was no armory in Russia in your period, but one of these styles may appeal to you.

The Polish had a unusual style of armory, sometimes called "cypher heraldry". Their arms used abstract designs that look more like abstract symbols than like the arms of western Europe. For example, using the motifs from your original design, you might construct the arms "Sable, a patriarchal cross, the upper transverse terminating in two mullets of five points argent."

Hungary developed a style of heraldry in which most arms had a blue field with a green hill with something standing on the hill. We can design typical Hungarian arms using your motifs: "Azure, upon a mount vert a patriarchal cross and in chief two mullets argent."

As far as we can tell, none of these arms conflict with anything that's been registered.

Rouland Carre, Talan Gwynek, Arval D'Espas Nord, Pedro de Alcazar, and Lindorm Eriksson contributed to this letter.

We hope that this has been helpful, and that we can continue to assist you.

In service,
Alan Fairfax
Academy of S. Gabriel