Too long; didn’t read: Heralds both organise courts for royalty, and record the events that occur in court. Here’s what to write up in your report, and where to send it.

Heralds are, first and foremost, communicators: they share information, especially between the crown and the people of Drachenwald.

An important part of the herald’s role is to organise courts, working closely with the royals. While royalty are responsible for their court, they regularly delegate the work of writing up the court events to their court herald. Reporting court events is part of heraldic work.

The kingdom Chronicler publishes court reports in the newsletter, Dragon’s Tale, and the reports also go to the Posthorn Herald, who keeps the order of precedence up to date.

Send a court report

If you are serving as herald for any of the royal family of Drachenwald, after the event, write up the court by email. Aim to send your report in the week after the event, while the court is still clear in your mind.

Who to contact

The best way to send a court report is by using the court report form. This ensures the report doesn’t get lost in email ands sends the report to the relevant officers (posthorn, relevant chroniclers, relevant signets, and relevant heralds).

If for some reason you can’t use the form, send your report to the following officers:

  • the royals who you were serving: the Crown, the Coronet, or your baron and baroness
  • Posthorn Herald
  • the kingdom chronicler or any local chronicler, for example for your principality or barony
  • the signet - the person who delegated the scroll commissions, and arranged for the scrolls to reach court. If you were officiating for the prince and princess of Insulae Draconis, for example, you send a copy to the principality signet.
  • Schwarzdrachen and any relevant principality or baronial herald

What to write

Broadly, court business is incoming (people are coming into court to say something or give something) and outgoing (the royals have gifts or presentations).

For incoming business, you can write something like:

‘Their Majesties received a presentation from their cousins of Caid, and welcomed the Caidan ambassador to their court.’

OR

’ Their Highnesses received the fealties of those officers present.’

Your record need not include every name of every person, unless it’s important to the report.

For outgoing business, the core pieces of information for records are:

  • who received awards, because we keep track in the order of precedence
  • did those recipients get a scroll? if they got a scroll, who made it?
  • did they get a token?

Here, you do need to know names of recipients, and what award they got. However, you and your royals should have a draft of this in the running order from when you organised court. This running order ideally includes the names of the scribes - scribes put their names on the back of the scrolls, or on their text ‘cheat sheet’.

Include both SCA names, and modern names in your report.

For a outgoing business court:

  • AoA: Asterix the Gaul (modern name Aster X. deGalle). Scroll by Genevieve, presented.
  • AoA: Obelix the Gaul (modern name John Redbeard). No scroll presented.
  • PCS: Getafix the Bard (modern name Caca Phonicx). Scroll by Ari Bona, presented.

If there was no scroll ready, the signet needs to know so they can either commission one to deliver ASAP, OR track down the one intended for delivery at that event.

We record who made the scrolls because they represent hours of volunteer artwork, and those artists who donate them deserve recognition for their time and their skills.

The activities of court may not be in a neat order of incoming and outgoing. You can choose to write your report of events as they happened, or separate the items into incoming and outgoing business.

Whatever you choose: you are sending this to several people including the royals you served, and your report will form part of the public record of Drachenwald in the newsletter and the order of precedence.

Make sure the report is as clear and complete as you can make it.

Notes about personal information

Sometimes you don’t know every recipient’s full name, either modern or SCA. Make a best effort, but do not hold up the report for the perfect delivery. Several of the people you send your report to can help fill out the details as needed.

For real-world concerns about how heralds use this particular information in the Order of Precedence, see the privacy policy.

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