October 10, 2012
Greetings unto all who read these words from Meister Konrad Mailander, Rouge Scarpe Herald,
This is the Middle Kingdom Letter of Acceptances and Returns for the items on the September 4th ILoI.
My thanks to Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Magnus von Lübeck, Taran Saraev, Solveig Throndardottir, Tanczos Istvan, Gunnvor silfraharr, Alys Mackyntoich, and Hiordis Ragnarsdottir for their commentary.
Since the letters are now being posted on OSCAR with documentation and commentary open for all to see I will no longer be copying the documentation or commentary to this letter. If you would like to see the documentation or commentary for this letter please go to http://oscar.sca.org/kingdom/kingloi.php?kingdom=4&loi=1514
SENA refers to The Standards for Evaluation of Names and Armory. These are the new rules for submissions.
My decision and comments are prefaced with ROUGE SCARPE: and are in red. Items that are accepted will be forwarded to Laurel as a Middle LoI posted on OSCAR.
ROUGE SCARPE:
Forwarded to Laurel.
2:
Denewulf Ívarsson - New
Name.
ROUGE SCARPE:
Forwarded to Laurel.
3:
Katayoun al-Aurvataspa -
New Name
ROUGE SCARPE: Returned. Unfortunately there are difficulties with the
documentation sources used to create this name.
Both names come from the Parsi section of the
website used. These problems are covered
in the following precedents (sections bolded for emphasis):
[January 2009 LoAR,
R-Atenveldt]
Ainaiyra
al-Rashna. Name.
This name is returned for problems with the documentation and construction.
First, no documentation was provided on the LoI, and
none was found by the College, that Ainaiyra is a
period given name in any culture. The LoI documented Ainairya (note spelling) from "Avesta:
Zoroastrian Archives", but this website gives no evidence either Ainairya was used before 1600 or that, if it was, Ainaiyra is a plausible variant spelling. Lacking such
evidence, neither Ainairya nor Ainaiyra
is registerable.
Second, the byname al-Rashna was intended to mean
'the just'. Rashna was also documented from "Avesta: Zoroastrian Archives" as a masculine Parsi given name. Loyall notes:
The Parsi
names from the submitter's source are dated to the nineteenth century; unless
they can be shown to have been used in our period by another source, they are
not suitable for use in the SCA.
Even if Rashna was shown to be a period masculine
given name, al-Rashna is not a correct construction. Da'ud ibn Auda,
"Period Arabic Names and Naming Practices", lists various laqabs ("a combination of words into a byname or
epithet, usually religious, relating to nature, a descriptive, or of some
admirable quality the person had (or would like to have)") of the form
al-X, e.g., al-Rashid 'the Rightly-guided' and al-Fadl
'the Prominent'. These examples show that the pattern was used in Arabic, but
not that it was used in Persian. Because Arabic and Persian are distinct
languages with different grammar, orthography, name construction, and name
pools, patterns which are plausible in one language are not necessarily
plausible in the other. Lacking evidence
either that Persian words were used in Arabic al-X laqabs,
or that Persian used the construction al-X 'the X' to form bynames,
al-Rashna would not be registerable
even if Rashna was shown to be a period Persian word.
[February 2002 LoAR, R-Atenveldt]
Keshvar bint Afsar al-Mah.
Name.
This name is being returned for a number of problems.
Keshvar was documented from a Web site titled
"Zoroastrian names" (http://www.avesta.org/znames.htm). The names on
this site need to be used with care. On his "Medieval Names Archives"
website, Arval Benicoeur
includes an explanation of the sources for the "Zoroastrian names"
site provided by its author:
The Avestan names all occur in the Avesta itself, and thus can be dated to around 1000 BCE or
earlier. The Old Persian inscriptions are from around 500-600 BCE. The Parsi names
are from Dosabhai Framji
Karaka, History of the Parsis I, London 1884. pp.
162-3, and are names in use at that time. The Zoroastrian Irani names are from Farhang-e Behdinan, by Jamshid Sorush Sorushian, Tehran, 1956,
and are names used in Kerman and Yazd at that time. You will find many of the
names in current usage in the Pahlavi texts as well (ca. 9th ce CE), and in fact date to
ancient times, e.g. Av. manush-chithra -> Pahl. Minochehr -> modern menucher. If you
consider 9th ce[ntury] CE as medieval, I would
suggest looking through the Pahlavi texts for more names.
Keshvar is included under the "Parsi names" and "Irani Zoroastrian names" lists on this site. Therefore, Keshvar
is only documented to c. 1884 and c.
1956. Lacking documentation that it was used in period, it is not registerable.
The submitter
mentioned that they got the names through the Saint Gabriel site and therefore
made the assumption that the names were registerable
with the College of Arms. There are problems
with this assumption. There is no official
connection between Saint Gabriel and the SCA College of Arms. Also the Saint Gabriel site gave this warning
about the website that was used: “The
names are divided into four sections. The "Avestan"
and "Old Persian" names date to around 1000 BCE and 500-600 BCE,
respectively. Names from the other two sections are modern.” The names chosen came from one of the modern
sections and thus cannot be used to attest the names to period.
4: Maeve MacFarlane - New Name & New Device
Argent, a dragonfly azure
winged gules and on a chief gules three upturned crescents argent.
ROUGE SCARPE: Name forwarded to Laurel as <Meave MacFarlane>.
The spelling of the given name was changed to match the attested spelling
provided. The submitter indicated that if
changes had to be made they wanted a 14th Century name, the name as
it is being forwarded is fine for the 16th Century but there is no
evidence that these Anglicized forms were in use in the 14th
Century.
Device forwarded to Laurel with
the Blazon: Argent, a dragonfly azure
winged and on a chief gules three crescents argent.
5: Nicodemus Heathfield - New Name
ROUGE SCARPE: Forwarded to Laurel.
6: Norđheim,
Canton of - Resub Branch Name & Resub
Device
Per pale embattled sable and
Or two sea bucks counterchanged maintaining a laurel wreath vert.
ROUGE SCARPE: Name
forwarded to Laurel. Device forwarded to
Laurel with the Blazon: Per pale
embattled sable and Or, two sea bucks counterchanged maintaining a laurel
wreath vert.
7: Soffeke Stoterogghen - New Name
ROUGE SCARPE: Forwarded to
Laurel
In Service to Crown and College,
Meister Konrad Mailander,
OP
Rouge Scarpe:
Konrad Mailander
Dale Niederhauser
110 Dodge St.
Swanton, OH 43558
rougescarpe@midrealm.org