HERALDRY 



3947 



HERALDRY 



sub-feudatory families or families 

 related to the great chief. A good 

 illustration of this is seen in the 

 golden wheatsheaves of Chester, 

 borne by the house of Meschines, 

 and found on the shields of a large 

 number of old Cheshire families, 

 including the Grosvenors. 



Until well into the 13th century, 

 many leading feudal families ad- 

 hered very imperfectly to the idea 

 of heredity in the matter of coat- 

 armour. These matters were in a 

 state of flux. Not only was there 

 often a considerable diversity 

 among different branches of a 

 family, even among brothers, but 

 also between father and elder son, 

 while the head of the family often 

 changed his bearings. Occasionally 

 this was due to the adoption of 

 other arms, or additional charges, 

 as the result of matrimonial or 

 feudatory alliance. 



Tinctures differed, and so did 

 charges. This was partly with the 

 deliberate design of differen- 

 tiating between the chiefs and 

 minor leaders, and gave rise to most 

 interesting systems of changing 

 within a narrow circle, so as to 

 produce compositions somewhat 

 distinct yet preserving a family 

 likeness. Good instances are the 

 early arms of the Nevills in the 

 reigns of Edward II and III, of the 

 Zouches in the 14th century, and 

 of the Cobhams. But the system 

 gave rise to some abuses and much 

 confusion, thus calling urgently 

 for regulation by the heralds. 

 Armorial Complication 



As time advanced the work of 

 the professional armorists, though 

 preventing chaos, introduced many 

 complications, doing away with 

 the charming simplicity of the 

 early feudal days. These restric- 

 tions and complications went on 

 steadily increasing, until in the 

 16th and 17th centuries the 

 original beauty and direct appeal 

 had vanished, too often under a 

 mass of meaningless absurdities. 

 Moreover, as blazoning and mar- 

 shalling of arms became more com- 

 plicated, so did the dexterity and 

 bold ' spiritedness of the heraldic 

 artist diminish. 



This deterioration of the science 

 and the art of heraldry persisted 

 side by side through the Common- 

 wealth, the reigns of the Stuarts, 

 and the era of the House of Han- 

 over, into and past the mid- 

 Victorian period. Then came a 

 revival of heraldry, a harking 

 back to the feudal examples, which 

 gave birth to a painstaking, com- 

 petent school of heraldic artists. 



In blazoning, heralds distinguish 

 four main divisions the field (the 

 surface of the shield or banner) ; 

 tinctures (colours, metals, and 



furs) ; charges (animated crea- 

 tures, celestial bodies, flowers and 

 plants, inanimate objects and con- 

 ventional figures placed as dis- 

 tinguishing ornaments on the 

 field) ; and the externals, which 

 include the crest and badge, helmet, 

 coronet or cap, supporters, mant- 

 ling and distinguishing devices. 



Degrees of Coat-armour 

 In coat-armour ten degrees were 

 recognized. 1. Arms of dominion, 

 belonging to a sovereign state. 2. 

 Arms of pretension, borne in their 

 entirety, in a shield of pretence 

 over the paternal arms, or quar- 

 tered, by a prince claiming domi- 

 nion over another state. 3. Arms 

 of community, belonging to reli- 

 gious, charitable, and scholastic 

 establishments, corporate bodies, 

 including cities and boroughs, 

 chartered guilds and companies. 

 4. Arms of patronage, or arms of 

 community and office borne by 

 certain holders of office, such as 

 bishops, abbots, heralds. 5. Arms 

 of succession, borne by inheritors 

 and grantees of fiefs and manors. 



6. Arms of assumption, or arms of 

 a vanquished foe assumed by the 

 victor (more often part of the arms 

 or crest were assumed). Some 

 heralds made another division for 

 arms of territorial assumptions, 

 or those borne by a non-ruling 

 claimant to a territory, which are 

 practically identical with No. 2. 



7. Paternal arms, descending from 

 father to children, and in certain 

 cases hereditable from the maternal 

 side. 8. Arms of alliance, or the arms 

 of a wife, borne in an escutcheon 

 of pretence (a small central over- 

 all or surtout shield) if she is an 

 heiress, or impaled otherwise ; the 

 arms of the heiress being quartered 

 by the children with their paternal 

 arms. 9. Arms of adoption, borne 

 by strangers in blood by virtue 

 of a gift by will or other deed, for 

 which sanction by the sovereign 

 is required. 10. Arms of conces- 

 sion, or arms of honourable aug- 

 mentation, being complete coats of 

 arms, parts of coats of arms or 

 special charges or devices (crests 

 or supporters) granted by the 

 sovereign as a special favour. 



The field or shield was plotted 

 out into various sections to facili- 

 tate blazoning. The left side, as 

 viewed by the spectator, is called 

 the dexter, the right the sinister, it 

 being assumed that the shield is 

 borne by the owner. The top is 

 the chief, or in chief ; the middle 

 the fess point ; the space between 

 this and the chief is the honour 

 point; and the bottom part the base. 



As regards tinctures, gold and 

 silver, together with the five 

 colours, red, blue, green, black, 

 and purple, to which a dark blood- 



red and orange were later added, 

 were universally recognized ; also 

 ermine and those quaintly con- 

 ventionalised other furs, vair and 

 potent. It was generally laid 

 down that metal should not rest on 

 metal, nor colour on colour, but 

 there are numerous exceptions; es- 

 pecially on the Continent. The 

 doctrine that a field must be 

 charged has also been frequently 

 ignored. Apart from the celebrated 

 plain, uncharged, ermine shield of 

 the ancient duchy of Brittany, 

 there are many other plain tinc- 

 tured shields. It must be said that 

 these, without the accompaniment 

 of a distinctive crest, were rather 

 a negation of the true aims of 

 heraldry. 



First among the great body of 

 charges come certain conventional 

 or geometric figures, broad bands, 

 crosses, whirls, called ordinaries. 

 These are spacious and very pro- 

 perly may bear other charges. In 

 early heraldry overloading was 

 avoided, yet the heraldic artists 

 always endeavoured to fill the 

 shield or banner. Thus if a king of 

 England bore a shield broad at the 

 top and narrowing to a point at 

 the base, the topmost lion was a 

 big, bold beast, the one beneath 

 a little smaller, and the third a tiny 

 animal. 



These fundamental ideas of the 

 design of a shield and the need to 

 fill space appropriately had their 

 influence on blazoning. Thus, 

 three charges on a shield, unless 

 special directions are given, are 

 borne two above and one below. 

 To do otherwise is to give a blazon 

 mal ordone, as the French say. 

 Bearing of Crests 



A coat of arms may be complete 

 without a crest. As a matter of 

 fact, crests were either borne by the 

 prescriptive right of long usage, or 

 were the subject of specific men- 

 tion in grants, the original assump- 

 tion being that they should be 

 borne only by warriors, or at least 

 by those entitled to levy or lead 

 men-at-arms. Consequently, no 

 woman except a sovereign princess 

 was entitled to use a crest. 



Apparently in the course of visi- 

 tations, applicants who considered 

 a crestless armorial shield incom- 

 plete, or those anxious to advance 

 pretensions, put forward old family 

 badges or personal devices and got 

 them recognized by the com- 

 plaisant presiding herald as gen- 

 uine crests. This abuse, and the 

 bad taste of the heralds, accounts 

 for so many absurd figures being 

 employed as crests, many of which 

 would be quite impossible orna- 

 ments to helmets intended for per- 

 sonal wear, which, of course, is the 

 test of the genuinely old. 



