Kingdom Law regarding the Order of Precedence

This is an excerpt of Kingdom Law as of December 26, 2005 (AS XXXIX) in the reign of King Uther VI and Queen Angharad VI

In addition to what is in the Kingdom Law, King Skeggi I and Queen Taisiia I signed the following Dexter Gauntlet policies on July 16, AS XL:

1. An honor for the purposes of this policy document is any award, token, or championship officially granted by any branch of the SCA.
1a. Sergeants, Yeomen, Gallants, Courtiers, and Lancers are considered baronial tokens and are included in the OP.

2. Neither a subject nor the Dexter Gauntlet office have any powers of editing or changing what actually happened regarding any honor. We only record the event.
2a. The Dexter Gauntlet office is free to correct mistakes in the OP at any time
2b. An unwanted honor, one that was accepted but is no longer wanted, will still be listed in the OP. It can be resigned
2c. A resigned honor will be listed in the OP as being received and resigned
2d. A refused honor, one that was never accepted in the first place, will not be listed on the OP
2e. A person may not edit the time an honor was received to be different than what actually happened

3. The date on the scroll is official, save extraordinary circumstances
It is assumed that the date on the scroll is the date that the honor was originally given out in court
3a. The receiver being absent from court and then receiving it later by proxy is not extraordinary
3b. If the event that the scroll's date corresponds to is not an official event, the date of the official event that it was either given or announced is the official date of the honor.

4. The Sovereign is ranked ahead of the Consort
The Sovereign is crowned first and thus holds precedence via receiving the award first

5. Royal Peerages default to ranking the man ahead of the woman, similarly but not exactly the same as the Sovereign/Consort policy.
5a. Exceptions:
If it is known that her Royal Peerage was granted first, she is ranked ahead of him.
If both specifically request her to be ranked ahead of him, she will be ranked ahead of him.

6. Precedence is determined by highest honor, earliest time receiving said honor, and entry of the person into the OP database.

7. Honors are given precedence from the moment in which they were received
Two honors of equal precedence given the same day do not have the same precedence, since one was received before the other one.
7a. Honors given to each subject in a group ceremony hold the exact same precedence. For example, if 5 people receive Forget-Me-Nots in a group ceremony, their Forget-Me-Nots are of exact equal precedence

8. To be eligible to be on the An Tir OP you must meet one of these two requirements:

i. Have lived in An Tir

8a. All SCA honors for every person eligible to be on the An Tir OP will be listed on the OP. An Tir honors all foreign SCA awards by Royal decree.

9. The Dowager Princess is ranked just behind the landed Coronets and ahead of the Coronet Heirs. This is an award granted by the society itself and any changes must come from that level.

10. Founding Barons and Baronesses receive that award on the date they step up as Landed Baron or Baroness. Former Barons and Baronesses receive that award the day they step down from being Landed Baron or Baroness.
8a. All Founding Barons and Baronesses receive the Former Baron or Baroness award when they step down as a Landed Baron or Baroness.

11. Kingdom Champions are given precedence behind the Coronet Heirs and in order that their given Championship was created. This order currently is the Champion of An Tir, followed by the Kingdom Protector, followed by the Kingdom A&S Champion, followed by the Queen's Champion of Rapier, and then the Kingdom Bardic Champion.

12. An individual person's first Magistrae Ithra, Lector Ithra, or Doctor Ithra will be listed. The remainder of an individual's Ithra awards will be listed in the Ithra awards roll which is separate from the An Tir OP.

13. The An Tir OP will list all honors granted by every branch in An Tir.
13a. A group must be at least incipient to qualify as a branch. Households, ships, proto-branches, Ducal retinues, and individuals do not qualify.

14. Non-Kingdom honors are ranked according to the precedence of the branch that grants the honor.
14a. That order is, from highest precedence to lowest: Principality, Crown Principality, Barony, Shire, College, Port, Stronghold, Canton, Incipient Shire, Incipient College, Incipient Port , Incipient Stronghold, and Incipient Canton.
14b. When a branch changes in status, it is free to move its honors to the new level of status that the branch holds. It is not required to do so.
14c. If a branch does not choose to change the rank of a given honor, the holders of that honor are ranked according to the former level of that honor.
14d. All honors hold some level of precedence during the time in which they are in effect.

15. People holding temporary awards, such as King, Landed Baron, or Champion of An Tir, hold precedence for that award only during the time they held the award.

16. Anyone with only temporary awards will be included on the OP only during the time in which those temporary awards are in effect. Permanent awards, such as an Award of Arms will put that person on the OP permanently

17. By default, people will show up on the branch OP of every branch listed with their individual entries.

18. A person can list whatever reasonable name he wishes on his OP entry.
18a. If he has a name registered with the College of Heralds, that must be included as either his main name or as an alias for identification purposes across Kingdoms and to help make sure that no one else is using his name by mistake
18b. The Dexter Gauntlet office has the right to refuse names for whatever reason they deem sufficient.
18c. Appeals to this can be made following the appeals process
18d. Foreign characters can be used so long as they don't interfere with the software needed to run the OP.

19. A person can list whatever branches he wishes as his current and former branches.
19a. This branch could be An Tir, should he not wish to claim a branch affiliation.
19b. If a person refuses to list any branch, the branch will be An Tir.
19c. The "Unknown" branch will be used only if it is truly unknown where the person is.
19d. The smallest branch will be used for the branch information in favor of larger branches as they are more specific. For example, if a person moves to The Barony of Iron Mountain in Meridies, the branch listed will be Iron Mountain rather than Meridies. The OP software will handle listing that Iron Mountain is in Meridies.

20. A subject can resign any honor at any time for any reason he deems sufficient.
20a. A resigned award is listed in the OP as having been resigned and preserved in the OP database as such

21. Principality OP deputies are free to amend these policies for their own Principality OP as long as the changes do not interfere with Kingdom or Principality Law.

22. Any appeals must first be made to the Dexter Gauntlet Herald. Dexter Gauntlet's decision can be appealed to the Black Lion Herald of An Tir who may refuse to hear the appeal. Black Lion's decision can be appealed to the Crown who may refuse to hear the appeal. The Crown's word is law.
22a. Should the Black Lion Herald or the Crown refuse an appeal, the decision of the lower level arbitrator, either Black Lion of the Dexter Gauntlet Herald, is final

23. The phrase "comes with an Award of Arms" means that the award is equal in precedence to an Award of Arms. The phrase "comes with a Grant of Arms" means that the award is equal in precedence to a Grant of Arms.
23a. The precedence of any award can be changed by Kingdom Law.
23b. Different awards that are triggered by the same event, Countess and Lady of the Rose, for example, will still be listed separately on the OP.

This is the web site of the An Tir College of Heralds of the Society of Creative Anachronism, Inc.
It is not a corporate publication of the Society for Creative Anachronism, Incorporated, and does not delineate SCA policies.