[antir-heralds] Semy musings

[Britt]

I just re-read 'An Essay on Semy' by Eowyn Amberdrake on the Laurel
Education page at
http://heraldry.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/semy/Seme.html

One quibble - that was written in the mid 1980s and really should have
the date of the writing on it so that people reading that the SCA then
considered a patter of semy charges as a field treatment don't think
we still do. Charges in semy have been charges since 1986.  Eowyn's
essay changed things in the SCA to the better.  The precedents of
Baldwin of Erebor under Semy are interesting reading.

Anyway, I'm going to add a personal observation to what Eowyn said.
I've been perusing period rolls of late and seem lotsa charges in semy
distribution. I find that when the 'cut from cloth' style is used, the
charges in semy are the only ones on the field other than the rare
peripheral charge. Once there's a primary charge group, the
secondaries semy on the field are arranged around it, though not
infrequently bits of the secondaries disappear beneath the primary and
are even cut off at the edge of the field. Even then, however, they're
not in a regular arrangement of rows or columns or anything, they're
simply placed asthetically to pattern the field around/under the
primary.

I'd be interested in others' observations along the same lines. Have
you seen 'cut from cloth' semy arrangements in period armory when
there's a primary present?  How about erratic when the charges in semy
are the primary charge group?

- Teceangl