Month: November 2017

Part five of my Field Only Armorial Roll project.

A bit more gyronny this time and then into the lozengy, including the triangular lozengy barry.

This set does contain one of the emblazons that I’m really not sure about and cannot find another version of anywhere online – Cwenhild of Cydllan Downs in the top left corner, “Gyronny raguly of four issuant from dexter chief ermine and vert.”. Raguly is the sawtooth lines of the green segments, but I’m unsure if the line difference should be on both sides of the central green section or just the top like I’ve done it.

Opinions or links to other emblazons of this device, please?

Favourites in this round would have to be Berndt Dichman’s “Paly chevronelly inverted purpure and Or” just for the striking design created by the stacked paly and chevronelly divisions, although I must confess I’m not usually a fan of purpure as a heraldic tincture for some reason. Michael de Quarmby’s “Paly dancetty vert and argent” also appeals, although I suspect I should have made the back-and-forth jagged edges of the dancetty a bit more prounounced for proper heraldic style – at a distance you could possibly mistake this for straight-up-and-down paly in the same colours.

Part the fourth of many.

Today we have gyronny, much loved by those who want to be Norse-inspired in their heraldry – Norse round shields have been found with similar radial divisions on them. Gyronny arrondi (or arrondy, depending on how you Anglicize it) is the wavy-edged version.

And then there’s the Society-specific “gyronny arrondi of three”, the mega-swirly pair in the bottom row. That’s actually a Germanic field division called, in German, “Schneckendreipass”. Literally translated, that’s something like “snail trefoil”. Calling it “gyronny arrondi of three” is the SCA College of Arms’ attempt at keeping all our blazoning English-only, which is a laudable goal, but leads to weirdness like this. Actual “gyronny arrondi of three” would look more like per pall with a wavy division line, I think. Thankfully the awesome folks on the Facebook Baby Heralds of the SCA group got me sorted out on schneckendreipass and other amusements!

Favourites in this batch? Gyronny of any sort is always striking, and Cerdic Weyfare’s “Gyronny arrondy of six gules and argent” is classically simple and, being only six divisions, maybe a bit easier to read than some of the other gyronny variants. I’m also always a sucker for the heraldic fur variants, so Adelheld von Katzenellenbogen’s “Gyronny erminois and pean” appeals.

Part the third of many!

If I do only the 165 Society devices (not the badges or real-world protected devices) there’s going to be eighteen or nineteen of these posts yet to come. I’m currently about seventy or eighty devices down the list so I’ll be staging these posts so I don’t run out of devices to show you.

We’re into the bendy, checky, and chevronelly this time, still going in alphabetical order by blazon. I’m genuinely surprised to see just the single checky device in this list, given what a striking (and easily reproduced!) pattern it is. I guess a lot of the checky armory in the Society is “checky plus things on top of it”.

Scaly shows up for the first time, as does the now-disallowed maily. Fesses, pales, and crosses formed of linked annulets (rings) have been found in historical armory, but an overall field treatment of mail rings was ruled out of order by the Society’s Laurel Sovereign of Arms at some point.

If any of these inspire you toward creating your own Society-legal device, it looks like there’s lots of design space around checky and chevronelly (regular or inverted) to explore!

My favourite of this set? Either Lancelot of Windhaven’s colourful “Chevronelly erminois and pean” (always a solid colour choice!) or Sybille la Chatte’s “Checky sable and ermine”. I would like to re-blazon Khalil ibn Abd’l-Wahid al-Katib’s “Bendy wavy argent and sable” at some point, as I don’t like how uneven the argent/sable divisions look in the current version. The sable wavy stripes should be slightly wider so the whole device is more evenly divided between argent and sable.

More soon, and as always, corrections and comments can be left below. Comments are moderated so they might not show up right away.

Here’s the second batch of what I’ve taken to calling the “Field Only Armoury Project”, which is basically a grandiose way of saying I intend to depict all of the field-only devices currently in the SCA’s Ordinary & Armorial. You can read a bit more about the details of this little personal project at the first post in this series.

Incidentally, if the ordering of these seems a bit random, it’s actually alphabetical by the blazon (description) of each device, so we started with “Argent, chapé ployé per pale gules and sable.” and will eventually end up with “Vert scaly Or” at the bottom of the list of 165 devices in my spreadsheet. The text below each device is SCA Name, Date of Approval, Kingdom of Approval, Blazon (Description), and finally any Notes filed in the O&A for that device.

We’re into the bendy (diagonal stripes) territory this time, with some really cool use of stacked field divisions in the devices of Alain of Littledale, Walraven van Nijmegen, and Pariselle Chouret. Lots of nice stripes!

As always, if you have comments, corrections, or tales to tell of the holders of these devices, please comment below!