[antir-heralds] some questions of Piles and Tridents

[Jillian Bower]

Morning!

I think that if there are several examples of something available, and a herald or client is unsure of which to use, they have the following options:

1. Look at which submission is the most recent, and then find other submissions that were registered around the same time. See what comments were made about the submissions. In the case of the pile, there are several precedents that have affected rulings on properly drawn piles that have warranted returns in the past. I quoted one such precedent when I did my internal commentary on the submission in question.

2. If they are still unsure, ask local heralds or appeal to this list for advice :)

Generally, I have found that you can learn a lot about how the rules for heraldry have evolved by reading the precedents and Laurel letters. Oftentimes, very old SCA heraldic art is not a very good measure for how heraldic art should be submitted nowadays. This is very noticable when you do a search, for example, of "sinister gore" on the An Tir Roll of Arms - one of those submissions has a sinister gore that originates from the fess line which is not an acceptable depiction of a sinister gore in the here and now :) It is from the 80's, whereas the other depictions are more recent.

--
In joyful service to the Summits and An Tir,
Lady Elizabeth Turner de Carlisle (who was Áine Steele)
Löwenmähne Herald
Protégé to Master Finngall McKetterick, OP

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Caitrina Lions Blood <Caitrina at shaw.ca>
> Thank you Tecangl.  The example you chose of a pile is an excellent one.  I
> believe some of the confusion could have been due to one of the examples
> given to me which shows a very different rule of measure.
> http://www.sca.org/heraldry/primer/ordinaries.html 
> 
> Another good question posed is how is a herald or client to know which
> example they should use if they differ? 
> 
> Caitrina
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Britt [mailto:tierna.britt at gmail.com] 
> Sent: Monday, October 01, 2007 5:25 AM
> To: Caitrina Lions Blood
> Cc: antir-heralds at antir.sca.org
> Subject: Re: [antir-heralds] some questions of Piles and Tridents
> 
> > 1) With regards to a Pile fimbrated, where exactly should the two upper
> > points of the pile terminate? And how does the fimbriation affect this?
> > (Meaning, should the fimbriation end at the corners? Or in some other
> > location).
> 
> Any ordinary fimbriated should be exactly the same proportion as the
> same ordinary not fimbriated.  Fimbriation should be slender, but not
> so skinny as to be invisible from any distance.
> 
> A correctly-drawn pile is three-fifths of the shield wide at the top,
> with one-fifth of the width being field on either side.  The device of
> Alphonse de Lorraine on the kingdom Roll of Arms is an extremely good
> example of proper pile width and a well-fimbriated pile:
> http://badger.cx/heraldry/roll/display.php?id=422
> 
> 
> > 2) If a trident was on said pile and since a pile is an ordinary, does it
> > 'maintain' the trident and therefore carry no heraldic weight? Or can it
> in
> > and of itself be used as a CD?
> 
> It is a tertiary charge and subject to CDs under RfS X.4.i. and X.4.j.
> depending on what's in the other armory.
> 
> A maintained charge is one held by another charge and usually lies on
> the field (or whatever the other charge lies on).
> 
> The Glossary of Terms has definitions of primary, secondary, tertiary
> and maintained charges.  http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/regs.html
> 
> - Teceangl
> 
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