Unto Their Royal Majesties Phelan and Marianna; Lord Seamus McDaid, Aten Principal Herald; the Heralds in the Atenveldt College of Heralds; and to All Whom These Presents Come,

Greetings from Marta as tu Mika-Mysliwy, Brickbat Herald!

This is the January 2005 internal Atenveldt Letter of Presentation. It precedes the external LoI that will contain the following submissions that are presented here, asking questions of submitters and local heralds who have worked with them; if these questions are not addressed, the submission may be returned by the Atenveldt College of Heralds. I accept online commentary, in addition to questions pertaining to heraldry: brickbat@nexiliscom.com. Please have comments or questions to me, on any armorial matter, by 10 February 2005.

Submissions Website: You can send electronic commentary on the most recent internal LoIs through the site, in addition to any questions you might have. Current submission forms (the ONLY forms that can be used) can be found on the site. Please let your local populace know about the site, too: atensubmissions.nexiliscom.com.

Estrella War Consultation Table: At this time, there will be daily consultation hours Thursday-Sunday; there will be an addition Friday evening shift in conjuction with the Merchants' Midnight Madness. I will be onsite (and at the Table nearly exclusively) Friday through Sunday. While there will be consulting on Thursday, no submissions (paperwork or moneies)will be accepted for Atenveldt clients until I get there. There is a LOT of paperwork and fees generated at this Table, and I don't want it to go wandering (again, I'd rather take the responsibility for this rather than dumping it on some good soul who's volunteered to work on Thursday).

We need help at the Table. Two of our premier consulting heralds from the Kingdom of Artemesia will not be attending the War this year, and we’re likely to miss their expertise. Even if you are relatively new to the armory and onomastics end of heraldry, we can probably find a place for you at

the Table.

If you are a local herald, or know folks who are thinking about consulting and submitting at the War, I urge you to have them contact me prior to the event. A little advance “prep-work” before getting to the Table might mean less of a wait for a client, and if a submission can be settled on before the War, there is the possibility that a client can come up to the Table with a completed packet and just hand it in without having to wait in the consultation queue.

Heraldry Hut: The next Heraldry Hut is scheduled for Friday, 25 February 2005, beginning at 7:30 PM. If you are interested in attending, please contact me for more information. The main focus of this meeting will be preparing the Estrella War submissions packet.

News from Laurel: Atenveldt results from the August 2005 Letter of Acceptance and Return (those submissions found in the April 2004 Atenveldt Letter of Intent) are found at the end of this letter.

Please consider the following submissions for the February 2005 Atenveldt Letter of Intent:

Lucrezia di Bartolomeo (Tir Ysgithr): BADGE RESUBMISSION from Laurel, June 2004

Purpure, on a heart argent, a double-horned hennin gules, trimmed Or.

The name was registered July 1996.

The original submission Purpure, on a heart Or a double-horned hennin gules., was returned for conflict and because of issues with identifiability of the hennin; it was suggested that the hennin have a curved bottom and a band of some sort of trim on it, “a feature which greatly helps in identifying the object as headgear,” which matches the photocopied information that the client provided with her submission. I’ve included the tincture of the trim. Should this be found in conflict, might I ask that the alternate be checked for conflict: Purpure, on a heart Or, a double-horned hennin gules, trimmed argent, a bordure Or.

Sancha Galindo de Toledo (Tir Ysgithr): DEVICE RESUBMISSION from Laurel, April 2004

Azure, an owl contourny Or within an annulet of alternating mullets and roundels argent.

The submitter’s previous submission Per saltire argent and azure, six mullet argent., was returned for multiple conflicts. This is a complete redesign. One thing that needs to be dealt with is that this is a registered alternate persona name for the submitter; her registered primary persona name is Tatiana Laski Krakowska. A device can only be registered to the primary persona name. It isn’t a big deal to reorder which registered name ought to be designated as the primary persona name (nor is there a fee to do so), only this has to be clarified before the submission can proceed.

The following submissions appear in the January 2005 Atenveldt Letter of Intent:

This month’s commentary is provided by Ástríðr Þórgeirsdóttir [AÞ], Katherine Throckmorton [KT], Knute Hvitabjörn [KH], Maridonna Benvenuti [MB] and Marta as tu Mika-Mysliwy [MMM].

Anna de Wombwell (Iron Wood Loch): NEW DEVICE

Per fess argent and azure, a covered well argent with wooden supports proper and roofed vert.

The name appears in the 25 December 2004 Atenveldt Letter of Intent.

This is an inelegant blazon for a simple piece of armory, but it is significant to the design that the tincture of the roof is noted, and that the likely wooden parts of the well is also described.

Jane Kynesman of Northamptonshire (Tir Ysgithr): NEW DEVICE

Per pale azure and gules, three Saint Andrew’s crosses argent.

The name was registered July 1997.

Knut reblazons this as Per pale azure and gules, three saltorels argent., since a St. Andrew is throughout. [KH]

Consider Daniel Tuomaanpoika: Per pale azure and gules, a cup between three crosses formy swallowtail argent. This may conflict. We have 1CD for the addition of the cup, but if I recall correctly, a cross is a cross so we do not have a CD for the type of cross. I may be wrong especially in the case of a St. Andrew's cross. [AÞ] I’m being lazy, but I think a number of crosses do merit a CD between them. Still, there is 1 CD for type and number of primary charges (one cup vs. three saltorels) and 1 CD for the addition of a secondary charge group ( crosses formy swallowtail in Daniel’s). [MMM]

Mary Kate O'Malley (Atenveldt): DEVICE RESUBMISSION from Laurel, July 2004

Per saltire vert and sable, a lozeng argent charged with a wolf’s head cabossed sable.

The name was registered June 2004.

The original submission, Per saltire arrondy vert and sable, a lozenge argent charged with a wolf's head cabossed sable., was returned for having a

complex low-contrast line division overlain by a nonskinny charge. It therefore violates RfS VIII.3 which says in part: "For instance, a complex line of partition could be difficult to recognize between two parts of the field that do not have good contrast if most of the line is also covered by charges." Obscuring that intersection with a nonskinny charge makes it very difficult to distinguish between plain and arrondy, blurring the difference between two lines of division that have a CD between them. Making this a plain Per saltire... line of division corrects this problem.

Simon Kerbouchard (Atenveldt): NEW DEVICE

Per chevron azure and Or two decrescents and a dragon segreant contourny counterchanged.

The name was registered June 2000.

Wesley the Silent (Atenveldt): NEW NAME and DEVICE

Per pale azure and sable, in pale the capital letter Q and a roundel Or.

Boy howdy! Maridonna and Katherine really went to town on the name submission!

Other info from P H Reaney's The Origins of English Surnames, p. 254, Nicknames from moral characteristics mentions "Chaucer... similarly uses <Coy> (OFr coi, earlier quei, Lat. quietus 'quiet, still') for 'quiet', not in its modern sense of bashfil, with reference to the smile of the Prioress, 'ful sympl and coy'..." R&W, A Dictionary of English Surnames p.114, s.n. Coy, Coey gives <le Coi>, 1203; <le Coy> 1296; <Coye> 1301. Fr coi, earlier quei 'quiet, still', 'shy, coy' (c 1330 NED). Studies on Middle English Nicknames, I. Compounds by Jan Jonsjo, Lund Studies in English 55, Gleerup, 1979, p.75 <Mart. Coyman> 1230, 1250-59. <The Silent> is a tough one. Good luck to him! [MB]

And then....Maridonna commented some more!

There might be a big problem with this name. Legal Name Allowance is one weirdness. For the by-name please consider this precedent which Aryanhwy ferch Catmael brought to my attention: LoAR December 2003, Calontir Hannibal the Oblivious. Name. Over the last few years, there have been several rulings regarding abstract descriptive bynames, including: [returning the nickname the Arronious] Period nicknames tend to be straightforward and to use common words: Thynnewyt "thin [of] wit, stupid", le Wis "the wise", Badinteheved "bad in the head", le Wilfulle, le Proude "the proud", le Hardy "the courageous", le Sour, le Cursede, le Deuyle "the devil", Blaksoule "black-soul". The learned erroneous simply doesn't belong in this company. Although the adjective in question is not a past participle, we do not consider this case to be significantly different from those of Adam the Unexpected (East, returned 2/96) and Deirdre the Distracted (Ansteorra, returned 4/94), whose bynames were returned partly for being too abstract. Similarly, erroneous is too far from the common tongue to be at all believable as a period byname. (Aurelius the Arronious of Bikeleswade, 10/96 p. 8) Given this ruling, the byname the Oblivious is unregisterable if oblivious is "too far from the common tongue to be at all believable as a period byname". The only documentation provided for the byname the Oblivious in the LoI was:

Oblivious - Online Etymology Dictionary at www.geocities.com/etymonline/o1etym.htm states: oblivion - late 14c, from L. oblivionem (nom. oblivio) "forgetfulness," from oblivisci "forget" originally "even out, smooth over," from ob "over" + root of levis "smooth." Oblivious is c. 1450, from L. Obliviosus "forgetful," from oblivio. It has lost its original sense, however, and now means simply "unaware." While this information demonstrates that oblivious was a word in period, it does not address the issue of whether this term was in regular use in the common tongue. Oblivious is an abstract term of the same type as forgetful, erroneous, et cetera, which have been ruled to be "too far from the common tongue to be at all believable as a period byname". Lacking evidence that oblivious was a common term applied to people in period, this byname is not registerable. His armory has been registered under the holding name Hannibal of Calontir. [MB]

Katherine’s glimmer of hope: Given the recent return of Phillip the Skeptic I’m not optimistic about the odds of a late period English name using the pattern “X the Y”being registerable. On the other hand, there does not seem to be a problem with “the Silent” as a epithetical byname. I count 5 registrations between 2000 and 2004 alone. A listing of the names follows: Aedan the Silent , January 2004 via An Tir; Alwin the Silent February, 2003 via Aethlemarc; Eleanor the Silent December, 2000 via Artemisia; Garrand the Silent March, 2001 via Atenveldt; Varr the Silent October, 2003 via Atenveldt. Of these, only Varr the Silent includes a rationale for the epithet, noting that “The byname the Silent is a reasonable Lingua Anglica form of the Old Norse descriptive byname þegjandi 'silent'” I have no idea how the College as a whole would feel about a name that uses a combination of Lingua Anglica and the Mundane Name Allowance, but it might just work. In any case, given the numerous previous registrations of “the Silent” in the past I would think that Wesley the Silent ought to be registerable.

If it is important to the submitter to have an English name (as opposed to a name from another culture translated into modern English) I would suggest Coy which according to Reaney (sn Coy) can mean “quiet or still”. Wesley Coy(e), or Wesley le Coy(e) both bring this name closer to period practice. The submitter may also wish to consider selecting a first name that was used in period, and moving Wesley to its period position as a surname. X Wesley le Coy(e) or X Wesley Coy(e) would both be fine, period English names. [KT]

Knut reblazons this as Per pale azure and sable, the capital letter Q and in base a cartouche fesswise Or. I agree that the roundel is too ovoid to be a roundel (not the best cartouche, but closer to it than a roundel), and in base suggests that it is not of equal visual weight with the Q. [MMM]

Consider Alaric Drake: Per pale azure and sable, a roundel enchancré Or. There is 1 CD for the addition on the Q. I am not certain that there is a CD for the change to the roundel. [AÞ] Using Knut’s reblazon makes the letter the primary charge, so there is 1 CD type of primary (the letter Q vs. the roundel enchancré) and 1 CD for the addition of the secondary charge (the cartouche fesswise).

The following submissions were registered by the S.C.A. College of Arms at its August 2004 meetings:

Adrian Drake. Name and device. Per bend sinister vert and sable, a dragon segreant and a horse rampant contourny argent. This name does not conflict with Adrian Dragon, registered in August 1999. RfS V.1.a.ii says "Two names are significantly different if they look and sound significantly different." Although "dragon" and "drake" share a common etymology, they are not variants of the same name, and they are significantly different in sound and appearance.

Alewijn van Zeebrouck. Name change from Æðelfrið se hluda.

Nice name! His previous name, Æðelfrið se hluda, is retained as an alternate name.

Christine von Guttin. Name and device. Azure, a cat statant guardant and on a chief Or, three crosses formy sable.

Constance Audrey. Name and device. Per chevron azure and sable, a horse passant and a horseshoe inverted argent.

Nice name! Please instruct the submitter to draw the line of division higher: as drawn this is barely acceptable. With a more standard passant for the horse, raising the line would be more feasible.

Dionysus of Grantham. Badge. Argent, in pale a frog sejant affronty and a scourge bendwise sinister all within a bordure vert.

Elena Glamorgan. Device. Per pale argent and vert, a natural panther passant contourny and a bear passant counterchanged and on a chief azure three cinquefoils argent.

Gabrielle de Benon. Device change (see RETURNS for name). Gules, a bend sinister cotised Or between a dunghill cock and a basket of eggs argent.

Please advise the submitter to draw the bend wider. Her old device, Per pale gules and argent, a sea-horse within a bordure semy-de-lis all counterchanged, is retained as a badge. Submitted under the name Melissa the Poulteress.

Grigour MacEnelly. Badge. (Fieldless) A dragonfly per pale sable and vert.

Hraban Peterov. Name.

The given name was documented from a book of Russian names, but it is, in fact, a German name. Metron Ariston notes "One of the most famous encyclopedists of the medieval period was Hraban Maur whose name usually appears in the Latinized form Hrabanus Maurus, abbot of Fulda and archbishop of Mainz. I strongly suspect that the listing in Moroshkin from which Goldschmidt draws refers to him since it is dated to 847 when he was elected archbishop of Mainz." Wickenden includes names of foreigners found in Russian contexts, so it is highly likely that this is a German name found in a Russian document. Therefore, this name mixes German and Russian in a single name, which is one step from period practice.

Ívarr bjarnherðar. Device. Vert, a chevron inverted engrailed and in chief a beehive Or.

Please advise the submitter to draw the chevron a bit higher and with fewer and larger engrailings.

Mihil von Brandenburg. Name and device. Per pall inverted sable, vert and argent, three stag's heads cabossed counterchanged argent and sable.

This name combines an English spelling for the given name with a German byname, which is one step from period practice.

Orion Storm Bruin. Name (see RETURNS for device).

This name combines a Russian given name with two English bynames. Combining English and Russian is one step from period practice.

Oslaf of Northumbria. Name and device. Sable, in chief three pallets couped argent.

Sæunn kerling. Name.

Seán Codlatach. Name and device. Or semy of triquetras, a lion dormant contourny sable.

There was some discussion whether Codlatach, 'sleepy', was a word found in period. MacBain, An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language, s.n. cadal (sleep) says "Irish codladh, Old Irish cotlud." A search of CELT, http://www.ucc.ie/celt, finds examples of "cotlud" in Old/Middle Irish contexts and "codladh" in Early Modern Irish contexts. Codlatach is a reasonable adjectival form of Codladh; therefore, we are giving the submitter the benefit of the doubt and registering this name as submitted.

Sorcha inghean Dhara mhic Seachnasaigh and Muirgheal inghean Raghailligh mhic Seachnasaigh. Joint badge. Per fess azure and vert, a fret argent within a bordure Or.

Thomas Godefroy. Device. Per fess gules and sable, two griffins addorsed and a Maltese cross argent.

The following submissions are returned by the College of Arms for further work, August 2004:

Brian Sigfridsson von Niedersachsen. Device. Argent, three bendlets azure each charged with a mullet of six points palewise Or, a bordure counterchanged.

Commentary from the College of Arms overwhelmingly indicated that this combination of multiple bends and bordure is excessive counterchanging. The following precedents are relevant:

It was not unusual for barry or paly fields in period to be drawn with an odd number of traits (which we'd blazon as bars or palets); see, for example, the arms of Mouton (Multon, Moleton) found both as Barry argent and gules. and Argent, three bars gules. (Dictionary of British Arms, Volume 1, pp 59, 88; Foster, p.145) and the arms of von Rosenberg, whose Per fess field has in base either three bends or bendy depending upon the artist's whim (Siebmacher, p. 8; Neubecker and Rentzmann, p. 290). Even when the distinction is worth blazoning, it's worth no difference. [Dec 1997, Ret-Atlantia, Aron Nied{z'}wied{z'}]

[Bendy sinister vert and Or, a hawk striking contourny argent a bordure counterchanged] The commentary from the College of Arms overwhelmingly indicated that the combination of bendy sinister and bordure is excessive counterchanging. In general, we would like to see documentation for any charge counterchanged over a multiply divided field, such as barry or gyronny. [Tvorimir Danilov, 08/01, R-An Tir]

As three bends are equivalent to a bendy field and bordures cannot be counterchanged across a bendy field, couterchanging a bordure over three bends is excessive. Lacking documentation for counterchanging a bordure across three or more ordinaries in period armory, this must be returned.

Melissa the Poulteress. Name change from Gabrielle de Benon.

The summarization stated that the submitter's legal given name is Melissa; however, no documentation was supplied supporting this claim. This means that the name Melissa must be documented to be registered. The LoI documented this name from ancient and early medieval Greece. However, Greek/English combinations were ruled unregisterable in January 2003: "No evidence was presented that England and the Byzantine Empire had significant contact in period. Lacking such evidence, a name mixing English and Byzantine Greek is not registerable." The name Melissa appears in the 16th C Italian poem Orlando Furioso. Unfortunately, the Melissa in Orlando Furioso is a fairy, not a human. Precedent of February 1999 says for a literary name to be registerable "it has to be a name of a human being in the story. God/dess, elf, dwarf, etc. names aren't usable."

Some questions were raised whether the byname Poulteress was registerable. The OED dates poulteress to 1723. However, the OED s.n. -ess says, "By writers of the 16th and succeeding centuries derivatives in -ess were formed very freely." The OED shows a large number of such names prior to 1600, most towards the end of the 16th C. Examples include laundresse 1550, cokysse/Cookesse 1459/1552, poetess 1530, and presbyteresse 1546 (we note this denotes the wife of a presbyter or priest). Given this pattern, Poulteress should be registerable, even though there are no dated examples prior to 1732.

Her armory was registered under the name Gabrielle de Benon.

Mikolaj Bękart. Name.

Although the cited Web site shows that Bękart is a modern Polish word meaning "bastard", no documentation was provided and none found to suggest that the word Bękart was used as a byname in period, that it follows a pattern found in descriptive Polish bynames in period, or that it is even a period word. Barring such documentation, this byname is not registerable.

Although not reason for return, Nebuly Herald points out a few minor problems with the given name which the submitter may want to consider: The standard modern spelling for the given name is actually Mikołaj (note the l-slash). From the numerous citations in the SSNO (s.n. Mikołaj), it appears that Micolay was the standard period spelling until 1450. There is a 1479 citation of Mykolayem (in a non-nominative case), which would justify the use of a k in the name. However, I find no evidence for spellings with a final -j in period.

Orion Storm Bruin. Device. Per fess azure and vert, on a bend cotised between a bear passant and a heart Or, four gouts inverted palewise gules.

The gouttes as drawn are not identifiable as such; making them palewise and inverted on the narrow bend reduces their identifiability past the breaking point. This is in itself cause for return.

Furthermore, this device is overly complex. Several commenters argued that the complexity count of this device should include the bend and its cotises as separate charge types. This is not the case, given that period blazons often used the descriptions a bend cotised and a bend between two bendlets interchangeably to describe the same armory. But while the complexity count is only eight, that does not necessarily help, in accordance with precedent: [Returning Per pale argent and vert, a thistle and a drawn bow reversed and nocked with an arrow counterchanged, on a chief gules three goblets Or] However, because the "complexity count" of types + tinctures is a rule of thumb, rather than a hard and fast rule, it doesn't strictly matter whether we decide that the number of tinctures and charges in the design adds to nine (counting the bow and the arrow separately) or eight (counting the bow and arrow together as a "bow and arrow") charge. Inspection of this armory shows that it has "crossed over the line" for allowable complexity, and must be returned. [Sep 2003, Ret-Caid, Brian McRay]

Likewise, in the present case it doesn't strictly matter whether we total the number of tinctures and charge types as nine (counting the cotises separate from the bend) or eight (counting bend and cotises as the same type). Inspection of the present submission shows that it too has "crossed over the line" and must be returned.

Wilhelm Ludwig von Rabeslautern. Name (see PENDS for device).

No documentation was submitted and none found of a pattern of usage for the deuterotheme -lautern. Although the documentation included the period placename Kaiserslautern, this was the sole example of this usage located so far. This does not support a pattern, nor does it support givenname+lautern as a byname or placename pattern. We would change the byname to von Lautern, but the submitter will not accept major changes. His device is pended under the holding name William of Tir Ysgithr.

Wilhelm Zugspitzer. Name.

No evidence was submitted and none found that German locative bynames were formed from the names of mountains in period. While we note Berg was used as a topographic byname, this is not the same as using the name of a specific mountain to form a byname. Furthermore, no documentation was presented and none found that Zugspitz was the name for this mountain in period. To register Zugspitzer, we would need documentation of both the specific mountain name and the pattern of forming bynames from names of mountains. If such documentation were presented, we note that Zugspitzer would be the expected form for this byname.

Thank you again for your hard work and dedication to the Atenveldt College of Heralds. I hope to see many of you at the War!

Marta as tu Mika-Mysliwy

c/o Linda Miku

2527 East 3^rd Street, Tucson AZ 85716

brickbat@nexiliscom.com; atensubmissions.nexiliscom.com