[HS] Lesson 1: Where to find stuff

[Sara L Uckelman <liana@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings, everyone!

Today's lesson is on where to find things, or, more properly,
things whose URLs you should book mark because you'll need to
refer to them frequently throughout the "course".  (Think of
it as the books you need to buy, except these are all free).

SCA Heraldry website
http://www.sca.org/heraldry
        When in doubt, start here.  Any official document relating
to SCA-heraldry will be found here, as will many unofficial things
and pointers to further information.  In particular are the following:

Rules for Submission
http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/rfs.html
        Every submission that is sent through the process is judged
by these rules, and submissions that don't meet these rules won't be
registered.  If you're a group herald who helps locals with
submissions, you should be familiar with these rules.  They are
divided mainly into two parts - the first deals with names, the second
with arms.  In each part, style and construction issues are dealt
with first, and then conflict, and the presumption.  This is a handy
mind-set to work with.  When someone presents you with a tentative
submission, your first question should be "Is it stylistically
registerable?" and only if the answer to that is "yes" do you go on
to "Does it have any conflicts" and only if the answer to that is
"yes" do you go on to "Is it presumptuous"?  We'll go through the
RfS in more detail in future lessons

Precedents of the College of Arms
http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/precedents.html
        The RfS cannot handle every possible situation.  Regularly
the Soveriegns as they are making decisions on submissions have to
make decisions as to whether something is legal according to the
rules or not.  (Sorta like law cases).  These decisions are
compiled into collected precedents.  New precedents always supercede
older precedents, and so you should always start looking in the
most recent tenure when looking for specific precedents.  Most
precedents from the early 80's and the 70's should be taken with
a large grain of salt; when the new rules were introduced alot of
the terminology and processes previously used became outdated.  The
old precedents, however, are great fun to read if you have the time. :)

Administrative Handbook
http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/admin.html
        This deals with the administrative side of things, stuff
like how to prepare submissions to be sent to commentary, what the
branch herald has to do, etc.  Having a good working knowledge of
the Admin Handbook really only becomes necessary when you start
commenting, because you sometimes need to address administrative
issues of submissions (such as alphabetizing).  However, the
appendices contain alot of useful information, and should be perused
so that you're familiar with what's there

College of Arms Glossary
http://www.sca.org/heraldry/coagloss.html
        This has tables such as the standard default postures for
various animals, the default "proper" coloration for various
charges.  It also has tables on restricted charges (charges no one
can use) and reserved charges (charges only certain people can use),
as well as a general glossary of terms used in SCA heraldry - this
is a very useful place to go for quick reference

Medieval Names Archive
http://www.s-gabriel.org/names
        No books?  No decent library?  People in your group got names
questions?  Have no fear, the Medieval Names Archive is here!  The
archive has hundreds of articles on medieval names, arranged by
language/culture.  This should be your first stop when you're presented
with a names question.

Medieval Heraldry Archive
http://www.s-gabriel.org/heraldry
        While this is not as fully developed as the Medieval Names
Archive, it still has alot of very useful links, including many color
pictures of period rolls

Keythong and Compass's website
http://www.northshield.org/keythong
        Here's where you go to get submissions forms, check the status
of submissions, get iformation on how to submit, and other useful things

Northshield Commentary website
http://www.northshield.org/keythong/commentary/
        Here you can view submissions that are up for comment before
they are returned for further work or sent on to the next level of
commentary.  Reading the commentary is a great way to learn.  Commenting
yourself is an even better way to learn

Polaris's website
http://www.northshield.org/officers/herald/
        Other useful links for heraldry in Northshield can be found here

The Ordinary and Armorial
http://oanda.sca.org
        These are the databases of all registered items, which can be
searched to determine whether a proposed submission has any conflict

The Academy of S. Gabriel
http://www.s-gabriel.org
        The Academy is a group of volunteers, some SCA heralds, some not,
who focus on researching authentic medieval names and arms.  Their archive
of past reports is searchable, and the link to the search engine is at
the bottom of their page.

These are the URLs that I use most frequently; I don't think I'm
forgetting any.  If I am, I'll mention them in a future email.

Today's assignment: Browse some of the websites, bookmark them, and
start becoming familiar with the contents.  We'll visit them
frequently. :)

-Aryanhwy



-- 
vita sine literis mors est
http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/
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