February 2005 - Laurel LoAR - Ealdormere Submissions

Acceptances

EALDORMERE

Catarine of Renfrewshire. Name.

Submitted as Katerina of Renfrewshire, the submitter requested authenticity for 14th C Scotland. Talan Gwynek, "A List of Feminine Personal Names in Scottish Records," dates the form Catarine in 1360. The same source shows Katerina, but not until 1477. We have changed the given name to Catarine to comply with her request for authenticity. Although Renfrewshire is not an attested surname, we note that the placename Renfrew appears in that spelling in 1408. Renfrewshire is a reasonable late 14th/early 15th C construction based on this placename.

Gina Dragoni. Name (see RETURNS for device).

Gina is the submitter’s legal given name.

Greenhithe By TheWater, Canton of. Branch name.

Submitted as Greenhithe Bae The Wæter, Canton of , no documentation was submitted for either the spelling Bae or Wæter. Although wæter is an Old English spelling for water, the Oxford English Dictionary defines bae as an obsolete spelling of baa "the sound of a sheep." As the element Greenhithe is a Middle or Elizabethan English spelling, the Middle or Elizabethan English spelling by the Water is appropriate. We have, therefore, changed this placename to Greenhithe By The Water, Canton of .

Matthew de Bradenham. Name.

The submitter requested authenticity for 14th C England (Essex). The byname spelling is found in the 12th and 13th C, but no documentation was submitted and none found showing a 14th C form. This place was in continuous existence during our period, so some 14th C form exists; we just don’t know what it is. Therefore, while this name is likely to be authentic for the 14th C, we cannot guarantee that it is.

Wencenedl of Rokesburg. Device. Azure, a hart trippant reguardant contourny, on a chief embattled argent three dragonflies azure.

Returns

EALDORMERE

Andrew Cameron. Device. Per pale wavy argent and azure, a bear and a dog combattant counterchanged.

This device must be returned for redrawing. The wavy line of division has too many overly small waves, making it difficult to identify at any distance.

Gina Dragoni. Device. Or, atop a spectacled spagenhelm a dragon passant purpure.

The documentation provided for the primary charge does not show this helm with the cheek pieces or solid aventail as it is drawn here. The only other SCA registration of this type of helm, Helm Egilsson of Birka, Vert, a spectacled spagen helm affronty Or, on a chief argent a dragonfly volant inverted azure, winged sable, also has no cheek pieces or aventail. While Orle has provided evidence that the cheek pieces may be period for this type of helm, all documentation found shows a chain mail, rather than a solid, aventail. The submitter will need to either provide documentation for this depiction of the helm or redraw it to match her current documentation.

Nikolai Domingo de Vallejo. Badge. (Fieldless) A wolf’s head erased contourny argent.

This badge conflicts with Fáelán MacFergus, Per bend sinister wavy sable and checky Or and gules, in canton a wolf’s head erased contourny argent. There is a CD for fielded versus fieldless armory but nothing for the position of the wolf’s head on the field versus a fieldless badge.

Offangaard, Canton of. Branch name.

This name has several problems. First, the name is not formed using a documented Old Norse pattern for placenames. The summarization claims that ofan means "southward" or "from above." However, both "southward" and "from above" are adverbs, and no documentation was submitted and none found showing that Old Norse placenames were formed using the pattern "adverb+place." Barring such documentation, Old Norse patterns constructed using this pattern are not registerable.
Furthermore, the documentation shows the protheme as ofan, not offan and the deuterotheme as gadr or gaðr instead of gaard. No explanation was provided for why the documentation supported the submitted spellings.
If the submitters are interested in a name meaning "Southern Fortress", then Suðrgarð would be the correct Old Norse form. The Old Norse word suðr; appears in a few placenames in The Landnamabok:Suðreyjar ("the south island," the Hebridies). Suðrlönd ("Sutherland" in Scotland). Another placename uses a syðr, a comparative form of suðr meaning "southernmost": Syðradal, "the southernmost dale". Syðragarð would given the meaning "the southernmost fortress". Unfortunately both of these forms is an aural conflict with the registered group name Southron Gaard. However, because they are different in appearance, either form should be registerable with a letter of permission to conflict from Southron Gaard.
A warning about using the Northvegr website (www.northvegr.org). This site is not consistent in its use of accents or other international characters. In particular, the edh (ð) is usually transcribed as a "d" on this site, and no transcription convention is used to differentiate it from a true "d". Thus forms found on this site may not accurately reflect documentary Old Norse spellings.

Rising Waters, Barony of. Award name Fiona’s Pearl.

This name does not follow period Order name patterns. The precedent against Order names using the pattern "secular name+object" was last confirmed in July 2004:
The question raised here is whether an order name using the secular name+object pattern is consistent with period naming practices for Order names. To determine this requires an examination of known Order names and the practice of Order naming within the Society.
Is there evidence that names of regular people were used to form Order names in period? Neither the submitter nor the College have provided any. The earliest Order named for a secular person we were able to find evidence for was the Order of Maria Therese founded in 1758, well outside our period. Meradudd Cethin, "Project Ordensnamen" has one possible counterexample, Order of Godefroy. However, this seems to be a misinterpretation of the source, Great European Orders, http://www.chivalricorders.org/vatican/holysep.htm, which says of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher, "Several historians of the Order have attributed the actual foundation of the Order to Godefroy, Duke of Bouillon, first Christian King of Jerusalem, after the liberation of Jerusalem in 1099."
Is there evidence that Saint’s names appeared in Order names or in common usage or Order names without the word Saint? There are no examples in the "Project Ordensnamen" collection showing a Saint’s name without the
identifying title.
So, the formation is not found in period, but does it follow a period pattern? That depends on how you interpret the available examples. Take, for example, The Order of Saint James of the Shell. On one level the pattern for this order name is holy-name + object. On this level, the jump to non-holy-name + object seems to be only a single step. However, there is an alternative and somewhat more descriptive interpretation: Saint or Object of Religious
Veneration; the formation holy-name + object then becomes an interpretation of the structure of the saint’s or relics signifier, not an intpretation of the structure of the Order name itself. Under this interpretation, the formation secular name+ object bears far less similarity to a period order name formation. Because Order names of the form secular name + object are not found in period and do not follow period models, they are not registerable.
Even if the construction "secular name+object" were valid for Order names, this Order name would still be two steps from period practice. If this construction was registerable, it would still be at least one step from period practice because it is an unattested formation. In addition, Fiona is an SCA-compatible name, and its use in a name is also one step from period practice.

Rising Waters, Barony of. Award name Fiona’s Pebble.

This name does not follow period Order name patterns. The precedent against Order names using the pattern "secular name+object" was last confirmed in July 2004:
The question raised here is whether an order name using the secular name+object pattern is consistent with period naming practices for Order names. To determine this requires an examination of known Order names and the practice of Order naming within the Society.
Is there evidence that names of regular people were used to form Order names in period? Neither the submitter nor the College have provided any. The earliest Order named for a secular person we were able to find evidence for was the Order of Maria Therese founded in 1758, well outside our period. Meradudd Cethin, "Project Ordensnamen" has one possible counterexample, Order of Godefroy. However, this seems to be a misinterpretation of the source, Great European Orders, http://www.chivalricorders.org/vatican/holysep.htm, which says of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher, "Several historians of the Order have attributed the actual foundation of the Order to Godefroy, Duke of Bouillon, first Christian King of Jerusalem, after the liberation of Jerusalem in 1099."
Is there evidence that Saint’s names appeared in Order names or in common usage or Order names without the word Saint? There are no examples in the "Project Ordensnamen" collection showing a Saint’s name without the
identifying title.
So, the formation is not found in period, but does it follow a period pattern? That depends on how you interpret the available examples. Take, for example, The Order of Saint James of the Shell. On one level the pattern for this order name is holy-name + object. On this level, the jump to non-holy-name + object seems to be only a single step. However, there is an alternative and somewhat more descriptive interpretation: Saint or Object of Religious
Veneration; the formation holy-name + object then becomes an interpretation of the structure of the saint’s or relics signifier, not an intpretation of the structure of the Order name itself. Under this interpretation, the formation secular name+ object bears far less similarity to a period order name formation. Because Order names of the form secular name + object are not found in period and do not follow period models, they are not registerable.
Even if the construction "secular name+object" were valid for Order names, this Order name would still be two steps from period practice. If this construction was registerable, it would still be at least one step from period practice because it is an unattested formation. In addition, Fiona is an SCA-compatible name, and its use in a name is also one step from period practice.

Torquil McGloid of Harris. Name.

This name is presumptuous of the head of the clan MacLeod of Harris; McGloid is a form of the name MacLeod.