couchant lion or a dormant lion one must search far afield, although there are some medieval instances. The leaping lion is in so few shields that no maker of a heraldry book has, it would appear, discovered an example. In the books this “lion salient” is described as with the hind paws together on the ground and the fore paws together in the air, somewhat after the fashion of a diver’s first movement. But examples from seals and monuments of the Felbrigges and the Merks show that the leaping lion differed only from the rampant in that he leans somewhat forward in his eager spring. The compiler of the British Museum catalogue of medieval armorial seals, and others equally unfamiliar with medieval armory, invariably describe this position as “rampant,” seeing no distinction from other rampings. As rare as the leaping lion is the lion who looks backward over his shoulder. This position is called “regardant” by modern armorists. The old French blazon calls it rere regardant or turnaunte le visage arere, “regardant” alone meaning simply “looking,” and therefore we shall describe it more reasonably in plain English as “looking backward.” The two-headed lion occurs in a 15th-century coat of Mason, and at the same period a monstrous lion of three bodies and one head is borne, apparently, by a Sharingbury.
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| England. |
The lion’s companion is the leopard. What might be the true form of this beast was a dark thing to the old armorist, yet knowing from the report of grave travellers that the leopard was begotten in spouse-breach between the lion and the pard, it was felt that his shape would favour his sire’s. But nice distinctions of outline, even were they ascertainable, are not to be marked on the tiny seal, or easily expressed by the broad strokes of the shield painter. The leopard was indeed lesser than the lion, but in armory, as in the Noah’s arks launched by the old yards, the bear is no bigger than the badger. Then a happy device came to the armorist. He would paint the leopard like the lion at all points. But as the lion looks forward the leopard should look sidelong, showing his whole face. The matter was arranged, and until the end of the middle ages the distinction held and served. The disregarded writers on armory, Nicholas Upton, and his fellows, protested that a lion did not become a leopard by turning his face sidelong, but none who fought in the field under lion and leopard banners heeded this pedantry from cathedral closes. The English king’s beasts were leopards in blazon, in ballad and chronicle, and in the mouths of liegeman and enemy. Henry V.’s herald, named from his master’s coat, was Leopard Herald; and Napoleon’s gazettes never fail to speak of the English leopards. In our own days, those who deal with armory as antiquaries and students of the past will observe the old custom for convenience’ sake. Those for whom the interest of heraldry lies in the nonsense-language brewed during post-medieval years may correct the medieval ignorance at their pleasure. The knight who saw the king’s banner fly at Falkirk or Crécy tells us that it bore “Gules with three leopards of gold.” The modern armorist will shame the uninstructed warrior with “Gules three lions passant gardant in pale or.”
As the lion rampant is the normal lion, so the normal leopard is the leopard passant, the adjective being needless. In a few cases only the leopard rises up to ramp in the lion’s fashion, and here he must be blazoned without fail as a leopard rampant.
Parts of the lion and the leopard are common charges. Chief of these are the demi-lion and the demi-leopard, beasts complete above their slender middles, even to the upper parts of their lashing tails. Rampant or passant, they follow the customs of the unmaimed brute. Also the heads of lion and leopard are in many shields, and here the armorist of the modern handbooks stumbles by reason of his refusal to regard clearly marked medieval distinctions. The instructed will know a lion’s head because it shows but half the face and a leopard’s head because it is seen full-face. But the handbooks of heraldry, knowing naught of leopards, must judge by absence or presence of a mane, speaking uncertainly of leopards’ faces and lions’ heads and faces. Here again the old path is the straighter. The head of a lion, or indeed of any beast, bird or monster, is generally painted as “razed,” or torn away with a ragged edge which is pleasantly conventionalized. Less often it is found “couped” or cut off with a sheer line. But the leopard’s head is neither razed nor couped, for no neck is shown below it. Likewise the lion’s fore leg or paw—“gamb” is the book word—may be borne, razed or coupled. Its normal position is raided upright, although Newdegate seems to have borne “Gules three lions’ legs razed silver, the paws downward.” With the strange bearing of the lion’s whip-like tail cut off at the rump, we may end the list of these oddments.
Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, bore “Gules a lion gold.”
Simon de Montfort bore “Gules a silver lion with a forked tail.”
Segrave bore “Sable a lion silver crowned gold.”
Havering bore “Silver a lion rampant gules with a forked tail, having a collar azure.”
Felbrigge of Felbrigge bore “Gold a leaping lion gules.”
Esturmy bore “Silver a lion sable (or purple) looking backward.”
Marmion bore “Gules a lion vair.”
Mason bore “Silver a two-headed lion gules.”
Lovetot bore “Silver a lion parted athwart of sable and gules.”
Richard le Jen bore “Vert a lion gold”—the arms of Wakelin of Arderne—“with a fesse gules on the lion.”
Fiennes bore “Azure three lions gold.”
Leyburne of Kent bore “Azure six lions silver.”
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| Fitzalan. | Felbrigge. | Fiennes. | Leyburne. |
Carew bore “Gold three lions passant sable.”
Fotheringhay bore “Silver two lions passant sable, looking backward.”
Richard Norton of Waddeworth (1357) sealed with arms of “A lion dormant.”
Lisle bore “Gules a leopard silver crowned gold.”
Ludlowe bore “Azure three leopards silver.”
Brocas bore “Sable a leopard rampant gold.”
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| Carew. | Fotheringhay. | Brocas. | Lisle. |
John Hardrys of Kent seals in 1372 with arms of “a sitting leopard.”
John Northampton, Lord Mayor of London in 1381, bore “Azure a crowned leopard gold with two bodies rampant against each other.”
Newenham bore “Azure three demi-lions silver.”
A deed delivered at Lapworth in Warwickshire in 1466 is sealed with arms of “a molet between three demi-leopards.”
Kenton bore “Gules three lions’ heads razed sable.”
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| Kenton. | Pole. | Cantelou. | Pynchebek. |
Pole, earl and duke of Suffolk, bore “Azure a fesse between three leopards’ heads gold.”
Cantelou bore “Azure three leopards’ heads silver with silver fleurs-de-lys issuing from them.”
Wederton bore “Gules a cheveron between three lions’ legs razed silver.”
Pynchebek bore “silver three forked tails of lions sable.”
The tiger is rarely named in collections of medieval arms. Deep mystery wrapped the shape of him, which was never during
