Ordinary of Arms
In dealing with arms in general, and arms registered or used by The Augustan Society, Inc., it is often necessary to be able to search for the armiger by using the image of the emblazonment alone. The tool for doing so is called an Ordinary of Arms. This task is presently assigned to the Online Armorial & Ordinary Study Group.
The Ordinary is presently being built in conjunction with the Online Armorial, with an entry being made in the Ordinary each time an achievement is added to the Armorial. This incremental process is in its infancy, and experience may well prove that major changes may be needed as it evolves.
The standard for reference is Dictionary of British Arms by Thomas Woodcock and Sarah Flower. For those unfamiliar, this is a long-awaited update to Papworth.
The issue even this standard does not sufficiently answer is the order in which charges are to be listed in the blazon. This is something that must be standardized in order for the Ordinary to work predictably, and is a topic that will require extended consideration and debate (assuming more than one member cares).
To ease the coordination of Armorial and Ordinary, the blazons in the former, as well as those used in Registration of Arms, must be adjusted to conform to the sequence dictated by the Ordinary. This may oblige the Society to rephrase blazons granted by various agencies. In our defense, those agencies had centuries in which to establish such a standard, and they do not appear to have done so.
As the Armorial is intended to eventually include all arms registered or published by the Society (and then perhaps those of other agencies), the Ordinary will become a very large structure, and the two may at some point require their own website. At this point, the Coordinator of the Online Armorial & Ordinary Study Group does not feel that to be warranted, and he believes that a transfer will be a minor issue when that time does come.
