(See also: “Someone else is making/selling stuff with the device instead of the badge – why aren’t you?”)
I do a lot of surface-design work with populace badges for SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) groups: On Spoonflower I have allover patterns, banners/gonfalons, cut-and-sew badges, mug rugs (mini-placemats big enough for a mug and a snack), and banding (cut-and-sew trim) for every SCA group that has a registered populace badge and many that don’t. On Zazzle, Redbubble, and CafePress, I have buttons and stickers and car magnets and tote bags and coffee mugs and t-shirts… You get the idea.
Anyway, about the device vs. badge issue. It’s like this: At any given time, only a group’s leader(s) – the king/queen, prince/princess, baron/baroness, seneschal, or someone acting specifically on their behalf at that time (a herald at an event, for example) – has the right to use the full device with the laurel wreath(s) and all.
Many groups have a populace badge that’s basically the same as the group’s device except without the laurel wreath. (That laurel wreath is how you know it’s a group device instead of a personal one.) Some use an isolated element from their device, and some have a populace badge that seems to have nothing to do with their device (see: the Kingdom of the East, which has neither anything blue nor a tygre in their device, but their populace badge is… a blue tygre). Either way, if it’s not registered, it doesn’t count.
“Why can’t I just use my group’s device if I want to, instead of the populace badge? Does it even matter?”
From the heraldicart.org website:
In the context of the SCA, the July 1980 letter from Wilhelm von Schlüssel, then Laurel Sovereign of Arms, states “the arms of a branch are reserved to the head of the branch. In the case of a kingdom, principality or barony this is the King, Prince or Baron. In all other cases it is the seneschal. … At any event held in a branch the arms of the branch may be displayed whether or not the head of the branch is present, to indicate that the branch is hosting the event. In grand marches the arms of branches may be carried by groups marching as those branches. Otherwise nobody can display the arms of a branch as if they were personal arms.” […] As Lord Hubert de Stockleye says “A branch’s populace badge may be worn by any member of the group. … A populace badge is a badge designed specifically for members of the branch to display on their clothing, banners, and other items.”
I see a lot of “SCA merch” online with the full devices, and friends, I’m here to tell you that there are never that many people at any given time who are allowed to display those devices, and two or three people per group just isn’t big enough a market to make it worth the bother (which is possibly why the merchants selling heraldically incorrect stuff do it anyway). If you’re Baron of the Barony of West Hogglenose-in-the-Dale (a totally made-up name, by the way – there is no West Hogglenose-in-the-Dale), you can display the device of West Hogglenose-in-the-Dale while you’re Baron, but once you step down, it’s time to dig out the stuff with West Hogglenose-in-the-Dale’s populace badge and use that instead. (You also shouldn’t use the barony’s device to mark your personal stuff even while you’re Baron.) I used to think that those heraldically incorrect items were being sold by people who are not actually members of the Society for Creative Anachronism and thus have no clue what our rules are (like the non-SCAdians who sell “SCA legal” armor that’s nothing of the sort), but my own observations of SCAdians have taught me that actually, a lot of real SCAdians either don’t know what the rules are concerning use of a group’s device vs. badge (because their group’s herald is a slacker who can’t be bothered to tell them – or even to know it themself), or they just don’t care (and their group’s herald and leader(s) can’t be bothered to tell them… or the herald and the group’s leader(s) are the ones setting the bad example, as is sometimes seen.) completely ignoring our hobby’s rules about how/when certain types of heraldic display are permitted is how we end up with a group’s device on the loaner shields, for example, or tabards made to throw over curious modern folk who wander into one of our events.
Not all SCA groups have a registered populace badge, of course, and that’s another problem. It is a commonly held and incorrect belief that the badge is automatically ‘just like the device but without the laurel wreath’ and thus doesn’t need to be registered if that it what the group decides to go with. If it’s not registered with the Society heralds, it doesn’t count. (If you don’t know whether your group has a populace badge, ask your local herald. If they don’t know, either, they should look it up. If they decline to look it up, you can go to Name Pattern Search Form and look it up yourself. Be aware that sometimes a populace badge may not be listed specifically as a populace badge; I know of at least one case in which the herald who sent a submission did label the badge as ‘for the populace’ but it somehow didn’t get listed that way later in the official Letter of Acceptance. *shrug*) Of the more than 600 current SCA groups, fewer than half have a registered populace badge; a high percentage of these sans-badge groups are baronies, which means they’ve been around more than long enough to have gotten their act together and registered a populace badge. (Yes, they usually have many badges registered, just not one for use by the general populace to indicate membership in the barony.) If your group doesn’t have a registered populace badge, consider badgering your local herald until this lack is remedied.
