HERALDIC SCIENCE. 2gg 



other. The metals, the or and the argent, were probably no more than colours 

 of yellow and white. The colours properly so called blue, red, green, black, 

 and violet had not received the names of azure, gules, sinople, sable, and 

 purpure, which were assigned them when emblazonry became an art or a 

 science (Figs. 209 to 220). The images or enigmatic figures which were 

 placed on the coloured or metallic ground of the escutcheon presented little 

 variety, and every one considered himself free to alter their colour and shape 

 as suited his fancy. In any event, the unvarying principle which consists 

 in never placing colour upon colour, or metal upon metal, in a coat-of-arms, 

 was not established during the feudal period. At about this epoch, however, 

 a few coats-of-arms, which at first were mere cognisances, began to become 

 hereditary, amongst them being the cross voided, cheque, and pannette, 

 which Raymond de St. Gilles affixed, together with his seal, to a deed dated 

 1088, and which remained part of the armorial bearings of the Counts of 

 Toulouse ; the two bars placed back to back which appear in the seal of 

 Thierry II., Count of Montbeliard and of Bar-le-Duc, and which were handed 

 down to his successors ; and the young lions which the Plantagenets Lad upon 

 their coat-of-arms in 1127, and which, under the name of leopards, are still 

 preserved in the royal arms of Great Britain. 



It was in the course of the twelfth century that the armorial bearings 

 increased in number, and this was no doubt attributable to the first Crusade, as 

 may be inferred from the choice of enamels used in them. The azure blue, or 

 lapis-lazuli, had just been imported from the East, and its name of ultramarine 

 is a reminiscence of the voyage to Palestine. Red got its name of gules 

 from the fur trimmings which the crusaders wore round the neck and the 

 wrists, and which were dyed red and purple (" murium rubrioatas pelliculas quas 

 gulas vocant," says St. Bernard, the apostle of the second Crusade). The 

 enamel sinople also received its name from the dye which the crusaders 

 brought from Sinople, a town in Asia Minor. 



Several divisions in the shield also recall the time when the chevaliers 

 were fighting " in the miscreant lands : " the martlet, a species of bird which 

 emigrates every autumn to warm climates, naturally recalled Jerusalem ; the 

 shell (coquille) appertains specially to the pilgrims ; the bezant d'or (a Saracenic 

 or Arab coin) was the ransom paid to the Infidels ; while the cross, which in 

 every conceivable diversity of shape appears in all the oldest coats-of-arms, 

 announced a participation in the Holy "War. 



