West Kingdom College of Heralds

I Have Sent My Submission To The Heralds,
How Long Will It Take Before It's Registered?

Home Page > Information for Heralds > Book Heraldry > Submissions > Submitted ... Now What?

Now that you've submitted your items to the West Kingdom's College of Heralds, what can you expect, how long does it take, and what do you do if something is returned by the College?

What You Can Expect

At the quickest, it will take approximately 6 months for the processing of your submission to go through the College of Heralds and through the SCA's College of Arms. However it can take 7 months or more. Why so long? It goes like this:

• Your item is submitted either to: a local branch herald, a Principality herald, or you mailed it to the West Kingdom College of Heralds.
• The West Kingdom College of Heralds reviews submissions once every two months (on the current schedule). This process includes checking for conflicts and checking name research. At the fastest, this process will take approximately 1-2 months after you submit your item(s) depending on when the next meeting is (you can see the meeting schedule here: Heralds Meeting Schedule. If you submit just after the monthly meeting, it will take almost 2 months. If you submit via a local or Principality herald, it should take only 2 months at the most. That herald should pass the submission up to the Kingdom level within a month. You may want to check with the web page How to Track Your Submission to follow up with where your submission is.
• If the West Kingdom College finds a problem with your submission, you will get a Letter of Return sent to you after the meeting.
• Once the West Kingdom College has reviewed the submissions, all items that the College finds acceptable are placed in a Letter of Intent, and placed in the online system called OSCAR and presented to the College of Arms. The review process continues at the inter-Kingdom level, with heralds in each of the SCA's Kingdoms checking for errors, missing information, conflicts with other registrations, and so on. This stage usually takes about 3-4 months. In some cases, if paperwork gets mishandled, an item gets pended to another meeting, etc., this process can go up to as much as 6-8 months, but this is rare.
• The Laurel Sovereign of Arms holds a monthly meeting to review submissions that have passed through the commenting process described above. At this meeting, a final determination is made either to register an item, or why it is not to be registered. A Letter of Acceptances and Returns is sent out to the College of Arms, which includes the Vesper Principal Herald of the West. The LoAR will get published on the Laurel Website and sent to the Kingdom Heralds anywhere from 1 to 3 months after the meeting, depending on the Laurel Sovereign of Arms.
• The Vesper Principal Herald (or a designated deputy) is then able to write or have written Letters of Acceptance, and/or Letters of Return. These are usually sent out within a month of receipt of the LoAR.
• So, 1-2 months for decision by Kingdom, 4-7 months for decision by Laurel: total 5-8 months, or longer if delays occur, between submission and registration with the SCA.

NOTE: -- If your submission appears in the Herald's Minutes on this website as having been passed, please be sure that the place you see it listed under is the section noted as "EXCERPTS FROM THE LOAR" -- this is the Letter of Acceptances and Returns from the Laurel Sovereign of Arms. If the section you are looking at says "MINUTES-"(followed by a date), and on the next line it says "ACCEPTANCES", this is from the West Kingdom Herald's Meeting, and all that it means is that the Kingdom Herald's Office has decided to pass this on to the Laurel Sovereign of Arms for final consideration and processing. Another way to tell which part you are looking at -- the West Kingdom Herald's Minutes section tends to have a lot more detail about the submission, and if armory is included, a copy of the picture. If it was accepted by the Laurel Sovereign of Arms (and therefore is now official) -- in the Minutes you will see this listed as noted under the "EXCERPTS FROM THE LOAR", but even more importantly, you will receive a Letter of Acceptance from the West Kingdom College of Heralds, which tells you when it was registered, etc.

If You Do Not Hear From The Heralds Exactly 6 Months After Submitting ...

Don't Panic. It sometimes takes longer than 6 months. If, however, you do not hear after 8 months or more, then check with the heralds (specifically contact the Matins Herald, check the Contact Information page for current contact information). Sometimes something happens ... letters get lost by the Postal Service (not often, but it does happen), someone put it in a stack of "to do" items and forgot about it (human nature), etc.

If You Get a Letter of Acceptance

You don't have to do anything, except start using your new name or device or badge. It's now yours and is protected throughout the SCA -- meaning that no one can have exactly the same thing registered in the SCA (There is nothing to prevent someone from displaying the same item(s) in the SCA - although it's bad form to do so. On the other hand, nobody else will be able to have your registered armory on a Kingdom-issued award scroll. ) .

If You Receive a Letter of Return (LoR)

There are several reasons why something can be returned:

• Administrative: this means that usually it's a case of not enough forms, or not enough money, not on the correct forms, forms not properly filled out, or something of this nature.
• Not acceptable for some reason. The reasons are usually spelled out clearly in the LoR. "Not acceptable" is not the same as "conflict" -- see below.
  • Not acceptable could mean that the documentation for a name is not good enough (or incomplete)
  • The name is simply not documentable as a name used in the SCA period (other reasons may occur as well)
  • If the submission is armory, the reason could be "bad style" (modern rather than medieval, etc.), rules violations (color on color, etc.), the drawing is confusing (hard to tell what it is), and other reasons of this sort.
• Conflict: A conflict means that by the rules of the SCA College of Arms, a conflict of some sort exists between your submission and someone else's registration (or a protected non-SCA item). The Letter of Return usually will explain what the problem is, and may offer suggestions on how to correct it. In some cases the "how to correct it" is a recommendation to talk to the heralds directly, visit the consultation table, etc. If the conflict is with an SCA person's arms or badge, you may be able to get permission to conflict, depending on how close the arms or badge are (normally the LoR will tell you the degree of conflict). If you are not sure, ask the heralds.
• The Letter of Return normally will explain what the problem is, and how to correct it, although in some cases the "how to correct it" is to talk to the heralds directly, come see the consultation table, etc.

The Laurel "Letters of Acceptance and Returns" Archive
Note that the Laurel Sovereign of Arms has started keeping an archive of LoARs available online. The website for this is:

Laurel 'Letters of Acceptance and Return' (LoAR) Archive

This is aimed at heralds, but can be useful for those who want to see all the nitty-gritty details ...

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