The Board has released their survey for the new ranged peerage order, and the membership has some questions about the options on the poll. Why is Leopard an option? What the hell is a Banderole? Why do none of the names, badges, and regalia feel like they’re one cohesive concept?

Well, friends, this is what happens when the boss comes to your desk after hours and rummages through your trash bin, then presents your scrapped drafts to the shareholders as a finished product, and says it’s your idea.

To explain what I mean, let’s talk about the name “Banderole.”

I was part of the workgroup of heralds tasked by the Board (via Laurel Sovereign of Arms) with finding a name, badge, and regalia for the Order. Our work spanned several months, first to find good candidates for Board consideration, then to present those options to the populace with documentation and details. In the former task, I was involved from the beginning, and chaired the meeting at KWHSS that finalized the name, badge, and insingia. In the latter task, I crafted presentations and wrote several articles on the matter that were used to present .

The biggest struggle for this group was finding something that had meaning, but hadn’t been claimed yet. During the “Blue Sky” phase, where everyone was throwing out options, a lot of ideas were suggested and almost immediately shot down as being either too silly, too problematic, or too well-known as someone else’s thing.

In my research for other projects, I came across a chapter in Robert Gayre’s “Heraldic Standards and Other Ensigns” about an item called a banderolle. According to Gayre, a banderolle was the “proper name for the ribbons or streamers which hung from a crozier. In medieval paintings we observe similar banderolles hanging as streamers from the helms of mounted men. These streamers sometimes took the form of a stole, and appear to be worked with devices of one sort or another, and in others, they are long tasseled cords.” Gayre goes on to argue that the banderolle was a representation of a scarf-like favor from ladies to their champions, was tied around the top of the helm, and was the precursor to the torse (the twisted band of fabric that keeps the mantling in place).

As I’d never come across anyone using such an item as a piece of regalia in the SCA, I suggested it in the group and provided screenshots of Gayre’s chapter. “As regalia, it could be tied around the head and left to drape long over the shoulders, or kept reasonably short. Personalized with heraldry, or marked with whatever badge the Order chooses. I can’t imagine any kingdom is using this as regalia, so we could get parity with another white wrap-around-part-of-your-body item. This time doubling as headgear,” I said. I also mistyped the name in the chat as “banderole” with only one L.

The team, myself included, laughed at the idea of using headbands as regalia, with comparisons to The Karate Kid and Rambo following immediately after my suggestion. The idea was then scrapped; we had important work to do, and headbands weren’t to be a part of it.

Eventually the workgroup met at Known World Heraldic and Scribal Symposium in June 2024, reviewed all ideas that had been presented, and then finalized the plan for the name “Order of Esperance,” the badge, and the ermine garter regalia.

Our proposal was presented to the Board, who did not like the name at all. We had expected that if they were displeased, they’d contact us and suggest some actionable path forward. No such communication was received. The Board instead thanked the College of Arms for the first set but asked to be given more options.

We, who are not mind readers, thought that the Board wanted to know what ideas had been dropped, so that they could get a better understanding of the process that led us to our conclusion. So we showed what ideas had been discarded, attempting to show the Board that of the available options, the ones we’d presented were the best.

Among those ideas presented to the Board was my suggestion. Not for the headband, but the name that would only make sense when paired with said headband, misspelling and all.

The Board, without any of the context that would have made it clear why it was a bad idea, with none of the context of Gayre’s writings, and without the associated regalia, chose Banderole as one of the three finalists for the name, along with Mark and Leopard.

The rest of the survey is likewise filled with ideas that were scrapped by the workgroup for various reasons.

Names:

1. Order of the Banderole – See above
2. Order of the Leopard – Another idea brought up during initial brainstorming. Not only is there no association with the ranged martial community or its activities, there are two modern Orders of the Leopard, honors from Khazakstan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There is the added complication that the Order would not have a badge that reflected the Order name, due to numerous conflicts.
3. Order of the Mark – The term “mark” modernly refers to the target of a con artist, a gullible person.

Badges:

1. A hammerbeam truss surmounted by a pair of arrows in saltire – A suggestion by one member of the workgroup who saw a charge that had been registered only once and thought it a good vehicle for a tinctureless badge. The original idea was to register multiple badges, each with a different weapons form to mark the bearer as an archer, engineer, thrower, etc. all superimposed over the truss. This idea was set aside because there would be no one badge that united the Order, and everyone would start using the unmodified truss as the de facto badge, an action that would conflict with existing armory.
2. A rustre fleury at the upper point – A simplified depiction of the committee’s suggested design, with none of the symbolism of the original.
3. A set of nesting scale weights within and conjoined to an annulet of rope  – An attempt to use the popular marco charge in a way that would clear conflict. It was quickly abandoned once depicted, because it looked like a modern steering wheel.
4. A winged mascle – An early contender and a distinctive badge, the design was eventually scrapped because it had little to no symbolism, and reminded some workgroup members of a flying vulva pilgrim’s badge (link is NSFW).
5. A set of nesting scale weights within and conjoined to a mascle fleury at the upper point. – This was the suggestion provided by the workgroup. An explanation of the design may be found here.

Regalia:

1. A garter ermine – This was the suggestion provided by the workgroup
2. A white loop of cord at the shoulder – This was an alternative idea from the workgroup. The idea was borrowed both from Ansteorra’s shoulder ribbon award regalia, and military shouldercords (which are more Napoleonic than medieval, but we were scraping the bottom of the barrel)
3. Two white vambraces or bracers – White items of regalia came up often in discussion, in an attempt to continue the pattern set forth by the white belt of Knights, the white baldric of Masters of Arms, and the white collar of Masters of Defense, as well as Grant-level Order regalia like the Order of the White Scarf. The white vambrace was suggested and then quickly scrapped, as the Order of the Grey Goose Shaft (An Tir, Avacal) and the Order of the Arc d’Or (Ansteorra) use this item of regalia. Adding a second bracer was a joke that should never have been brought to the Board.
4. A baldric erminois – Erminois, for those who don’t speak heraldese, is yellow with black ermine spots. Recolored items of regalia already used by existing peerage Orders, including a green bycocket/cap of maintenance and an erminois baldric. The decision was made to avoid existing regalia, as well as the location that regalia is worn, so that members of both Orders didn’t have to choose which item of regalia to wear.

Now don’t get me wrong. I support the Board’s decision to create this Order, as I believe that archers, throwers, and siege engineers should have a path to peerage. But I cannot support the Board’s decision to remove the name Esperance from their poll, and I am appalled that they have presented the castoffs of my workgroup as viable ideas supported by the College of Arms.

The College of Arms did our job, and we did it well. Our workgroup was populated by members of the ranged martial community. We frequently communicated with the Omnibus Peerage Group to ensure that the wishes of the greater community would be represented in our recommendations. We thoroughly vetted our recommendations to the Board after months of deliberations. The Board should, at the very least, present our proposal to the membership for feedback, rather than abandoning it because four Board members aren’t sold on the name.

If you have been moved by this article, please write directly to the Board of Directors:

Seat A: Krista Capps (Mistress Bricca di Ghelere), kcapps@director.sca.org

Seat B: Megan O’Shea (TH Lady Sumayya al Ghaziyya), moshea@director.sca.org

Seat C: Jonathan Foster (Bâro Iohannes Glenfidanus), jfoster@director.sca.org

Seat D: Joan Steurer (Rhianwen ferch Bran ap Gruffydd, KSCA, OP, OL), jsteurer@director.sca.org

Seat E, Heralds Ombudsman: Pug Bainter (Master Phelim Gervase), pbainter@director.sca.org

Seat F, Vice-Chair: KT “Shep” Sheppard (Graf Ulrich von Brandenburg), ksheppard@director.sca.org

Seat G, Chair: Mark Faulcon (Duke Martin Lochner), mfaulcon@director.sca.org