Arms in Action: Barony of Caer Anerth Mawr (SCA)

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Arms in Action: Barony of Caer Anerth Mawr (SCA)

The Barony of Caer Anerth Mawr is the name for the GTA within the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA).  The SCA is a huge club mostly in the United States that devotes itself to a fun recreation of the medieval world.  They have a very active heraldry component, although that also usually comprises acting as a literal herald: making announcements and declaring things loudly at events.

Caer Anerth Mawr is one of many baronies that are part of the Kingdom of Northshield; it is currently run by Baron Abelard die Elster & Baroness Ysolt Pais de Cuer, with other officers in the club who run things like their frequent archery competitions, their poetry events, and so on.  Their current herald is a woman named Katie.  They do a great deal, really, and it's impressive when you consider that this is just one small part of one small part of the SCA -- here's a sample of a newsletter with just one month's worth of news.  Here's what their borders look like:



And the achievement for the barony as a whole is Azure, a tower between in chief three mullets one and two argent and issuant from a trimount vert.

Katie of Caer Anerth Mawr presumably helps process their "Heraldric Device Consultation" form (PDF), in conjunction with the other heralds of Northshield.  That form governs how they help the prospective armiger, and instructs them (among other things) to pick a favorite metal, one to three favorite colors, zero to two favorite furs, some favorite charges by category, and an interesting division from a provided chart.  Many of their rules and guidelines will appear very familiar to us, like the complexity number of 8, since a lot of Talossan heraldry was drawn from SCA guidelines when it was formalized.

Another thing they have in common is that they only formally register blazons, not emblazonments.  Here are a random sample of some of the hundreds of Northshield registered blazons.  I'd provide Caer Anerth Mawr blazons specifically, but unfortunately I couldn't find a way of parsing those out, since blazons are issued by the larger "kingdom" level club.

Albrecht of Caer Anterth-Mor bears
Azure, a gryphon segreant argent and on a chief Or three fountains, overall a bordure counterchanged.
and has two badges also registered:
Or, a fountain and on a chief azure three ermine spots Or, overall a bordure counterchanged.
Per fess wavy Or and azure, a mermaid helmed and maintaining in her dexter hand a sword and in her sinister hand a round shield, a bordure counterchanged.

Ciana Scolari de Polcenigo bears
Azure, an elephant rampant maintaining in its trunk a goblet argent.

Edmond Cambell bears
Paly Or and azure, on a chief embattled sable three roundels Or.
and has two badges registered:
Or, a dragon displayed and in base two swords in saltire gules, a bordure rayonny sable.
Paly Or and azure, on a chief embattled sable three roundels Or.

Æsa Olafskona bears
Per saltire azure and sable, three swans naiant contourny and a bordure argent.

Anpliça Fiore has not been granted arms, but has two registered badges (bearing the distinctive quality of "whoops maybe this is better actually, let me try again sorry")
Per bend azure and purpure, a Great Dane dog's head couped counterchanged argent and Or.
Per bend azure and purpure, a boarhound's head couped counterchanged argent and Or.

Faolan mac Brain bears
Per pale wavy argent and sable, in pale a raven volant wings addorsed and a wolf courant counterchanged.

If you've never bothered to investigate SCA heraldry at all, you're doing yourself a disservice.  The tone is definitely different, but they work incredibly hard and it's one of the biggest group of people in the world who are interested in heraldry in any kind of serious way.  https://heraldry.sca.org/welcome.htmlIt's worth checking out.

-NRH

[Sir Txec dal Nordselvă, UrB]

We may not be as big as SCA, but I'm quite proud of our more humble College of Arms. For what we have, we do great work and our collegiality is a role model for the larger kingdom!

-REH

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

This is very fascinating. I actually work closely with someone who is in the SCA but I did not know their activities were this extensive. She tells me just now she is in the Mid-Realm from which Northshield separated amicably.