Jane Fentoun, daughter and heir-apparent of Walter Fentoun of Baikie, bore a label in 1448, and dropped it after her father's death. This is apparently an instance quite unique. I know of no other case where the label has been used by a woman as a mark of difference.
In France the label was the chief recognised mode of difference, though the bend and the bordure are frequently to be met with.
In Germany, Spener tells us that the use of the label, though occasional, was not infrequent: "Sicuti in Gallia vix alius discerniculorum modus frequentior est, ita rariora exempla reperimus in Germania," and he gives a few examples, though he is unable to assign the reason for its assumption as a hereditary bearing. The most usual method of differencing in Germany was by the alteration of the tinctures or by the alteration of the charges. As an example of the former method, the arms of the Bavarian family of Parteneck may be instanced (Figs. 693 to 697), all representing the arms of different branches of the same family.
 Fig. 693.—Parteneck. |
 Fig. 694.—Cammer. |
 Fig. 695.—Cammerberg. |
 Fig. 696.—Hilgertshauser. |
 Fig. 697.—Massenhauser. |
Next to the use of the label in British heraldry came the use of the bordure, and the latter as a mark of cadency can at any rate be traced back as a well-established matter of rule and precedent as far as the Scrope and Grosvenor controversy in the closing years of the fourteenth century.
At the period when the bordure as a difference is to be most frequently met with in English heraldry, it never had any more definite status or meaning than a sign that the bearer was not the head of the house, though one cannot but think that in many cases in which it occurs its significance is a doubt as to legitimate descent, or a doubt of the probability of an asserted descent. In modern English practice the bordure as a difference for cadets only continues to be used by those whose ancestors bore it in ancient times. Its other use as a modern mark of illegitimacy is dealt with in the chapter upon marks of illegitimacy, but the curious and unique Scottish system of cadency bordures will be presently referred to.
In Germany of old the use of the bordure as a difference does not appear to have been very frequent, but it is now used to distinguish
