Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 323

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 323

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/323

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 have on your arms, which are blazoned "Gules, on a bend sinister argent trefly vert between an increscent Or and a rose slipped and leaves bendwise sinister argent, a wolf's head erased sable."

As you suspected, these arms are busy--much busier than is permitted under the SCA rules for submission. We can approximate complexity by adding the types of charges and tinctures in your arms. Your total is 10, counted as follows:

Tinctures: Gules, Argent, Vert, Or, Sable (5)

Charge Types: Bend sinister, Trefoil, Increscent, Rose, Wolf's head (5)

The College of Arms generally returns arms which have a "complexity count" of 9 or more. Armory in the style which was used in most times and places has a complexity count of 2 to 5; although some cultures regularly used complex arms, we don't recommend using complex arms unless they're from a culture where they were common. Since you didn't mention that you were basing your arms on any specific culture, we're recommending that you make your arms significantly simpler.

Actually, there are many other elements in this design which are rare or unknown in period heraldry. Instead of going into a long explanation of each detail in your design, we'd like to find out more about your reasons for choosing different design elements. Once we have more specific ideas, we can make specific recommendations about possible changes.

Given the symbolism you gave for your various charges (all of which are related to your mundane life), it seems that you've created a coat of arms for your mundane life, not your SCA persona. SCA heraldry is meant to be like SCA garb--an attempt at recreating the Middle Ages. A coat with many references to your mundane life is great for the mundane world, but our mundane lives aren't meant to impact on the SCA in that way.

Depending on the culture and time period you're interested in, we can suggest different things about what you can do with your arms. Although it's not immediately relevant, we did want you to know the way in which the charges you used were used in medieval heraldry.

Wolves are generally found in the arms of people whose surnames mean "wolf" in their language. Wolves don't appear to have had a particular meaning other than that in medieval heraldry.

We assumed that your use of a crescent to show "I am a second son" is based on accounts which say that a crescent is used as a "mark of cadency" for the second son. The crescent was a popular charge throughout Europe, but it was used as a mark of cadency only in some places (most notably late-period England). Many second sons used other marks of cadency, and many people who weren't second sons used crescents either as marks of cadency (one heraldic treatise from period says that a crescent should be used by the oldest son) or for no reason at all. We could give you more information based on the culture and period you're interested in.

Even when the crescent was used, only the "crescent," with horns up, was used for this purpose. Also, the crescent (and other marks of cadency) were used in a very specific way--a son took the arms of the father and placed a crescent on them. Crescents aren't used to say "I am a second son," but to say "I am the second son of the man who bears these particular arms." In late period, it could also mean "I am the descendent of the second son of a man who bore these particular arms."

Arval D'Espas Nord, Rouland Carre, Elsbeth Anne Roth, Zenobia Naphtali, Evan da Collaureo, Walraven van Nijmege, Margaret Makafee, Pedro de Alcazar, Lindorm Eriksson, and Hartmann Rogge contributed to this letter.

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

In service,
Alan Fairfax
Academy of S. Gabriel