HERALDRY 



659 



of F.ngland mi the Bayeux Tapestry (q.v.) contains 

 on i he si, ;,. MS of both Saxons and Normans figures 

 of a semi urinoriiil character, including dragons, 

 crosses, roundles, irregularly arranged, also striped 

 banners ; Inn there is no attempt to individualise 

 thearms of the dillt'ivnt heroes of the fight. Yet the 

 null- dc\ ices mi these .shields seem to have leen the 

 precursors of systematic armory; and in the later 

 naif of i In- 12th century similar figures tegan to 

 assume the permanent or hereditary character which 

 is essential to the idea of armorial ensigns. Their 

 use began with the French and (lermans, and soon 

 spread from France to England. The other nations 

 of Knrope followed ; and their nearly simultane- 

 ous adoption seems to have been in part the result 

 of the intimate intercourse which the crusades 

 brought ateut between the chief sovereigns and 

 warriors of Europe. Tournaments helped to bring 

 arms into fashion, and tefore long the tearing of 

 hereditary arms on shields and banners became one 

 of the most prominent features of medieval life. 

 Some sort of armorial insignia were certainly de- 

 picted on the shields borne in the third crusade, 

 whieh took place in 1189 ; and in the same century 

 originated the fleurs-de-lis of France, and the lions 

 or leopards of England." In the 13th century the 

 practice was introduced of embroidering the family 

 insignia on the surcoat worn over the hauberk or 

 coat of mail, whence originated the expression coat- 

 of -arms. Arms were similarly embroidered on the 

 jupon, cyclas, and tabard, which succeeded the sur- 

 coat, and also enamelled or otherwise represented 

 on furniture, personal ornaments, and weapons. 

 Sealing had, before the introduction of heraldry, 

 become a legal formality necessary to the authenti- 

 cation of a deed, and from the 13th century onwards 

 the seals of all persons of noble or gentle birth 

 represented their armorial ensigns (see SEAL). 

 Those seals, appended to charters, are among the 

 most valuable materials for tracing the history of 

 heraldry, though they labour under the disadvan- 

 tage of not indicating colours, as the arms on 

 painted windows do. 



Among important adminicles for the study of 

 English heraldry are certain extant rolls or records 

 of arms of the times of Henry III., Edward I., 

 Edward II., Edward III., and also of later reigns, 

 in the British Museum, Heralds' College, and else- 

 where a good many of which have been published 

 or privately printed. The earliest of these, of 

 date 1240 to 1245, show that heraldry had at 

 that date been reduced to a systematic shape. 

 In most cases the arms on these rolls are verbally 

 described ; in a few instances they are drawn. 

 Along with the rolls of arms may be classed a 

 heraldic poem known as the Roll of Caerlaverock, 

 in which are recited in Norman- French the names 

 and arms of the knights-banneret who were present 

 at the siege of that fortress in 1300. It was edited 

 by Sir Harris Nicolas (1828), and by Thomas 

 Wright (1861). Only a little later in date is a 

 manuscript armorial of all Christendom, the work 

 of a Flemish herald of the middle of the 14th 

 century, preserved in the Royal Library at Brussels, 

 in which the shields are beautifully illumined in 

 colours, with, in many cases, the addition of helmets 

 and crests ; it has been reproduced in fac-simile 

 by M. Bouton. A valuable Swiss roll of the same 

 century has been fac-similed in the same way by 

 the Antiquarische Gesellschaf t of Zurich. Authentic 

 materials of this kind enable us to trace the steps 

 l>y which the usage of arms reached the still more 

 systematised form which it assumes in the works of 

 the established writers on heraldry. In the hands 

 of these authors, the earliest of whom wrote at the 

 end of the 14th century, the historical part of the 

 subject had been obscured by a tissue of fictions, 

 which had a very misleading effect down to a quite 



recent time. The arms assigned to our forefather* 

 . \ilam and Noah, to the old Jewish and pagan 

 worthies, and to the Apostles, have long oeaieo to 

 lie Kelieved in ; but till a very recent date the coat* 

 of Kdward the Confessor and of William th < 

 i|iieror wen- regarded as thoroughly historical. No 

 less spurious than the arms of Kdward t lie Confessor 

 are those given by (George Kiixner, herald to the 

 Emperor Maximilian I., in lii- '/'////////< //,,/<// to 

 knights of Germany of the 10th century, and hi* 

 /.t'f/ctt hantiludialeti of Henry the Fowler, who 

 flourished two hundred yearn tefore the earliest 

 germs of heraldry, one of which laws made it ini|er- 

 ative for the combatants in tournament*) to have 

 borne ' insignia gentilitia ' for four generations. 

 These laws of Henry the Fowler have imposed not 

 only on the German armorialiste of last century, 

 but on Mr Ellis, who in his ingenious plea for tfie 

 antiquity of heraldry, appeals to them with full 

 faith in their genuineness. Modern German critics, 

 however, reject them as a palpable forgery. 



In the infancy of heraldry every knight seems to 

 have assumed what arms he pleased. Animals, 

 plants, imaginary monsters, things artificial, and 

 objects familiar to pilgrims and Crusaders, were all 

 fixed on ; and whenever it was possible, the object 

 chosen was one whose name bore sufficient resem- 

 blance in sound to suggest the name or title of the 

 bearer of it. The charge fixed on was used with 

 great latitude, singly or repeated, in any way 

 which the bearer of the shield chose, or which the 

 form of his shield suggested. But as coats-of-arms 

 multiplied, different knights occasionally fixed on 

 the same symbol, and tne confusion wfiich arose 

 from the similarity of coats-of-arms could only te 

 obviated by a restraint being placed on the tearer's 

 fancy, and regulations being introduced regarding 

 the number, position, and colour of the charges, 

 and the attitudes of the animals represented. As 

 heraldry became more and more consolidated into 

 a system, the true origin was lost sight of, and the 

 fertile imagination of the early armorialists led them 

 to invest the most common charges with mystical 

 meanings, and to trace their original adoption to 

 the desire of commemorating the adventures or 

 achievements of the founders of families. The 

 legends ascribing an origin of this kind to early 

 armorial bearings have, wherever it has been pos- 

 sible to investigate them, proved fabrications. For 

 the first few centuries of the existence of heraldry 

 a very large number of the insignia, both of families 

 and of kingdoms, were, as already remarked, armes 

 parlantes, though the allusion can now in many 

 cases be traced with difficulty. The lion of Leon 

 and Lou vain, the castle of Castile, the bear of 

 Berne, the column of the Colonna family, are well- 

 known continental examples ; and in England 

 we have three fountains for Wells, a whirlpool 

 (gurges) for Gorges, a calf for Vele. At the 

 same time commemorative heraldry, which became 

 common in later times, was not absolutely unknown 

 in the 14th century, one of the earliest instances 

 being the heart introduced into the Douglas coat, 

 in memory of the pilgrimage of the good Sir James 

 with the heart of his royal master, found on the 

 seals of the Douglas family as early as 1356. 



As no two families in the same kingdom were 

 allowed to bear the same arms, the right to tear a 

 particular coat sometimes l>ecame a matter of fierce 

 dispute. It lay in England with the constable and 

 marshal, as judges in the Court of Chivalry, to 

 decide questions of this kind, with a right of appeal 

 to the king ; and one of the most famous contests 

 before them was that between the families of Scrope 

 and Grosvenor, in 1385, for the right to tear tne 

 coat azure, a bend or ; when John of Gaunt waa 

 one of the witnesses examined, and the undifler- 

 enced coat was adjudged to Scrope. 



