Registering an Order Name in the SCA
Ursula Georges
This article gives advice and references on constructing an order name for use in the Society for Creative Anachronism. The focus here is on registrable style. More information on knightly orders in the Middle Ages may be found in Juliana de Luna's article Medieval Secular Order Names, in the Non-Human Names section of the Medieval Names Archive, or in Darcy Jonathan Dacre Boulton's book The Knights of the Crown.
When constructing any name, one good place to start is the Rules for Submissions. Here's what the RfS have to say about the style of order names and awards:
ii. Names of Orders and Awards - Names of orders and awards must follow the patterns of the names of period orders and awards.
These are often the names of saints; others are similar to sign names (see RfS III.2.a.iii). Some examples are: the Order of Saint Michael, the Order of Saint Maurice and Saint Lazarus, the Brethren of the Sword, the Order of the Garter, La Toison d'Or (the Order of the Golden Fleece), the Order of the Golden Rose, the Order of the Star, the Order of the Swan, La Orden de la Jara (the Knights of the Tankard), the Order of Lilies.
The other really important piece of information in the RfS for our current purposes is that order names conflict with household, heraldic, and branch names, but not with personal names. (So, hypothetically, the Order of the White Bull would conflict with White Bull Herald but not with John Whytebull.)
Thus far, we've gained a bunch of examples of order names, and some information on conflict. Here are some more sources for order name style, in increasing order of specificity.
First, The Most General Principle: SCA order names are based on the names of period knightly orders. Most period orders had a patron saint and a badge, and were associated with a particular place. If you base the name of your SCA order on something that a period order would have done, it's hard to go wrong.
Next, there's an important precedent from August 2005 which gives a bunch of information about the style of order names. (One warning: the examples in the precedent are modern forms of order names.) Here's a list of "meta-patterns" of order names from that precedent:
- Orders named for deities and saints. These include "aspect" names, such as "Our Lady of Victory" or "Our Lady of the Lilies." Because we have no examples of orders named for non-Christian deities and saints, such names are considered one step from period practice.
- Orders named for places. These include the Order of Calatrava and the Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem.
- Orders named for objects of religious veneration. Examples are Shield of Saint George, and the Flag of the Danes, which, according to legend, fell from the sky on June 15, 1219 to the Danish King Valdemar II during his crusade to Estonia as a sign of divine favor. Orders named for objects related to non-Christian deities and saints are considered one step from period practice. Names of the form non-Christian deity or saint + associated object are still only one step from period practice; this is not an additional step for combining name+object.
- Orders named for virtues. These include Silence and Mercy.
- Orders whose name contains the given name of their founder or the secular person for whom the order is named.
- Orders named for heraldic charges or for items that, while not found in period as heraldic charges, may be used as heraldic charges. In comparing a list of Order named for creatures and objects, every Order so named uses the creature or object whose name it bears as a badge or as part of its regalia. These include the Order of the Garter, Order of the Toison d'Or (Golden Fleece), Order of the Unicorn, Order of the Dragon, and Order of the Ermine and the Ears of Corn. These names may contain the ordinary color names of any heraldic tincture. Note that the usual restrictions that apply to registering a hitherto unregistered heraldic charge also apply to naming an order after a heraldic charge that has not been registered before. The submitters must demonstrate that the charge has a standard, recognizable period form, and that the word(s) used to blazon the object is found in period with the appropriate meaning.
Most SCA order names follow the last pattern, "orders named for heraldic charges" (strictly speaking, orders named after their badges). Names following the other patterns would be stylish and stand out!
There are a several articles which give lists of period order names. You can find most of these articles in the Non-Human Names section of the Medieval Names Archive. The most detailed and reliable source of medieval order names is Juliana de Luna's article, Medieval Secular Order Names. This article is organized by "standard forms" which use the modern name of each order. You can find medieval and Renaissance forms of the order names by following the link for a particular order.
Once you have an idea for an order name, you need to document the individual words in that name. The type of documentation that you need will depend on the meta-pattern that you have chosen. If the order name is based on a saint's name or the founder's given name, you should show that your desired name spelling existed in our period: this process is similar to documenting a personal name for submission. Similarly, if your order is based on a place name, you must show that the place name is formed according to medieval patterns. If the order is based on a virtue or heraldic charge, you need to show that the words of the order name existed in our period in your desired spelling. For English words, either the Middle English Dictionary or the Oxford English Dictionary may be useful. The Middle English Dictionary is free. Using the OED online requires a subscription; many libraries are subscribers.