HERALDIC SCIENCE. 



The fabled Origin of Armorial Bearings. Heraldic Science during the Feudal Period. The First 

 Armorial Bearings in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries. The Meaning of the Colours arid 

 Divisions on the Shield. Kings of Arms and Heralds. Heraldic Figures. Quadrupeds, 

 Birds, Fishes. Plants, Flowers, Fruits. The Legend of the Fleur-de-lis. Emblematic Arms. 

 Prevalence of Armorial Bearings in the Thirteenth Century. Helmets and Crests. 

 Mottoes and Emblems. Traders' Sign-boards. Usurpers of Armorial Bearings. Decadence 

 of the Science of Heraldry. 



OME have endeavoured to trace back the 

 use of armorial bearings to almost the 

 very commencement of human society. 

 A writer on heraldry has not scrupled to 

 affirm that the posterity of Seth borrowed 

 their armorial bearings from the animal 

 and vegetable kingdoms, and that the 

 children of Cain painted upon their 

 bucklers implements of husbandry. An- 

 other person attributes their invention to 

 Noah when he came out of the ark, and 



in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was constantly being asserted that 

 ancient documents had disclosed the arms of Adam, of the first patriarchs, of 

 the prophets, of the Kings of Jerusalem, of the Virgin Mary, and of Christ 

 himself. 



As M. E. de la Bedolliere, in a very luminous treatise upon the origin of 

 heraldry, remarks, such blunders are not worth refuting. So far from being 

 contemporaneous with the earliest ages, armorial bearings were not even 

 known to the ancients. They had their national and hereditary symbols, 

 such as the Lion of Judah, the Golden Eagle of the Medes, the Owl of 



