On the Fur Trade, and Fur-hearing Animals. 315 



The four noble furs were " the sable, the ermine, the vair and the 

 gris." The three first were admitted into armorial bearings. " Er- 

 mine is' represented in Heraldry, by a white ground, with small black 

 lengthened spots. The vair Was a squirrel with a dove colored back, 

 from Hungary and the southern provinces of Russia, and when bla- 

 zoned was azure.* The sable is a rich dark color, between black 

 and brown, with a tinge of olive, and in heraldry was the black color, 

 in the arms of princes and nobles. The gris was probably a sqiur- 

 rel, but antiquaries are not confident to which variety it belonged. 



In the first crusade, in 1097, the most sumptuous display on re- 

 cord was made before the Emperor Alexius Comnenus, at Constan- 

 tinople. That city had not been overrun by the barbarians who des- 

 olated the countries of southern and western Europe. It was the 

 last resort of arts, of law, of letters, of elegance and refinement; the 

 strong hold of civilization. Here those martial devotees, the crusa- 

 ders, descendants of the Goths, amazed at the splendors of this al- 

 most oriental city, caught the graces of an accomplished and polished 

 people, and engrafted upon their own primitive tastes every congenial 

 improvement. The canon, Albert, describes in glowing colors, the 

 splendid vestments of purple, the cloth of gold, the robes of ermine, 

 the mantles of furs, of martin, gris, and vair, which the crusaders dis- 

 played in the court of the Emperor. It was more than three hundred 

 years from this era, before this resplendent city felt the withering arm 

 of the Turk.f In 1453, Mahomet II., in the insolence of victory gave 

 it over to pillage. After the work of desolation was completed, and 

 rapine and cruelty had done their worst, he entered the ruined palace 

 of the Constantines, and exclaimed, in the language of the Persian 

 poet, " the spider may weave his web in the prince's palace, and the 

 owl may sing his watch song on the towers of Afrasiah." 



For many centuries the furs of ermine and sable were among the 

 insignia of royalty, and the use of them was regulated by sumptuary 

 laws. They were denied to the common people, and permitted to 

 none but kings and princes, with a few exceptions in favor of distin- 

 guished nobles, certain state dignitaries, and the presiding magistrates 

 in the high courts of justice. They were not blazoned in heraldry as 

 mere ornaments, but as discriminating marks of high quality. They 

 were associated with the poetry and chivalry of the age ; and with 



* The skins of vair were imported from Hungary, according to Guill Le Breton, 

 t See Dearborn's Memoir on the Commerce of the Black Sea. 



