Society level award
In the SCA a society level award is an award which is recognised throughout the known world. The three armigerous awards are all society level. These are the Award of Arms (AoA), Grant of Arms (GoA) and the Patent of Arms (Peerage).
The Patent of Arms is awarded with recognition of becoming a Royal Peer at the conclusion of a succesful reign (Duke, Duchess, Count, or Countess) or with induction into:
(people who receive the Patent of Arms are also known as 'peers')
Many Kingdoms will tie a Kingdom award to a Society award. This can be done with either AoAs or GoAs, Patents being reserved to the Peerages alone. Plain AoAs are fairly standard SCA wide, but how and when GoAs are awarded varies a lot from place to place (see InterKingdom Anthropology). In some places a plain "Grant of Arms" is seldom awarded, it is usually granted as part of a Kingdom award that is given for a more specific achievement; in some Kingdoms, GoAs are almost never awarded at all; and in some places naked GoAs are no unusual at all, often being given to folks like ex-Kingdom officers.
It is worth noting that not all Kingdomshave Kingdom Level Awards that carry GoAs, although I believe that all the Kingdoms have AoA level awards.
