Tuesday 4 March 2014

Heraldic Display in the SCA

Over the last few years I've tried to incorporate my arms or badge onto a lot of my creations, it seems like a good use of my arms and in a lot of cases very period practice for a nobleman. This year I'm aiming to put them on nearly every project I do even if it's just in a minor way. We had a tourney a while back with a heraldic theme and the site looked outstanding with banners flying, gonfallons gonfalloning and heraldic display everywhere. Something to be encouraged in my opinion.
So I need to get my badge registered so I won't lose it if someone else decides they prefer it instead. Time to contact a herald methinks.
In the past I've tended to go for some fairly obvious uses such as the ones below but this year it's time to step it up a bit.
This is a cloak I made a few years ago featuring my achievement of arms. Its cotton cloth appliqued onto a woolen cloak with faux pearls and pearl drops making up the ermine points and pearls on the baronial coronet on the helm. I added a piece of insignia to the front when I joined the chivalry. I'd like to do some more work to it still, maybe add award tokens and the like but I'm pretty happy with it in its current form.
The cloak is fastened using two pewter castings featuring
Caidan crosses to show my roots in Caid.
These are my arms displayed on a banner, Counter-ermine, between two ribbands argent a bend sinister wreathed argent and gules. As with the cloak I put a bit of texture on it by using pearls and tassels to make the ermine spots.
 I decided not to cover my whole shield with my arms but to surround them with an orle of my badge and the Caidan cross. The shield is T-6 aluminium but I've tried to mitigate the appearance by covering it with painted canvas and continuing the canvas right over the edging.
I've also incorporated elements of my arms into a series of silk standards to help add to the pageantry at events.
Now to plan where next to put them.

1 comment:

  1. One time when I asked about badges, some of the higher up heralds suggested discouraging registration of badges because it can make it hard to register devices. If you want to register a badge, I'd suggest including permission to conflict with it. The College won't let someone have something identical even with this permission.

    ReplyDelete