HERALDRY
HERALDRY, though etymologically denoting all the business of the herald, has long in practice been restricted to one part of it only, and may be defined as the art of blazoning or describing in proper terms armorial bearings. It treats also of their history, of the rules observed in their employment and transmission, of the manner in which by their means families and certain dignities are represented, and of their connexion with genealogies and titular rank.
Particular symbols have in all ages been assumed by the various families of mankind, civilized and uncivilized. Such were the lion of the tribe of Judah, the S. P. Q. R. upon the standards of ancient Rome and the eagle surmounting them, the tattoo marks of the savages of America and the Pacific, the Danish raven, and the white horse of Saxony, which still remains carved upon the chalk downs of western England.[1] Heraldry, however, is a purely feudal institution, coeval with close armour, devised possibly in Germany, adopted and improved in France, Spain, and Italy, and imported into England by the Norman invaders and settlers. Its figures have little or nothing to do with the older symbols, though these have occasionally been incorporated into its charges, and an apparent connexion thus established between them. These symbols, as has been well said, were the precursors and not the ancestors of heraldic bearings. The supposed connexion, however, misled the credulous heraldic writers of the 16th and 17th centuries, and caused them to attribute coats of arms to the heroes of sacred and profane history, who were certainly as ignorant of heraldry as ever was Adam of genealogy.
" Arms " or " armories," so called because originally displayed upon defensive armour, and "coats of arms " because formerly embroidered upon the surcoat or camise worn over the armour, are supposed to have been first used at the great German tournaments, and to have reached England, though to a very moderate extent, in the time of Henry II. and Coenr de Lion. To " blazon," now meaning to describe a coat of arms, is the German " blasen," to blow as with the horn, because the style and arms of each knight were so proclaimed on public occasions. The terms employed in heraldry are, however, mostly French or of French origin. Though now matters of form and ceremonial, and subject to the smile which attaches to such in a utilitarian age, armorial bearings were once of real use and importance, and so continued as long as knights were cased in plate, and their features thus concealed. At that time leaders were recognized in the field by their insignia alone, and these—both figures and colours—became identified with their fame, from personal became hereditary, were subject to certain rules of descent, and to the laws of property and the less certain rules of honour.
Froissart mentions a case in which a knight of the Scrope family could with difficulty be restrained from putting to death a prisoner because he wore the same bearings with himself. The last De Clare owed his death on the field of Bannockburn to his having neglected to wear his cotte d'armes; had he been recognized, his great value as a prisoner would have saved him. Also the loss of the battle of Barnet was in part attributed to the similarity between the royal cognizance of a sun and that of John de Vere, a star with streamers,—Warwick charging Oxford by mistake for the king.
The best if not the only absolutely safe evidence for the origin of armorial bearings is that afforded by seals. Seals were in common use both before and after the introduction of armorial bearings, and they are not so likely as rolls of arms or monumental effigies to be the work of a later age. There are said by Courcelles to be extant, appended to charters of 1030 and 1037 a.d., two seals of Adalbert, duke of Lorraine, which bear on a shield an eagle with wings closed. This however wants confirmation ; but Anna Comnena, describing the shields of the French knights who visited Constantinople about 1100, gives their surfaces as of metal only, polished but plain ; nor have any decided traces of arms been discovered among the early crusaders. Louis le Jeune, who seems first of the French kings to have used the fleur-de-lys, caused it to be represented in gold over the azure mantle and chaussures worn by his son at his coronation. Also, in 1180, he seals with a fleur-de-lys, but it is placed in a circle, not upon a shield. Planche cites two seals of Philip, count of Flanders, one plain, in 1157, and another in 1164 charged with a lion, their subsequent bearing. Setou mentions the seal of John de Mundegumbri in 1170 as bearing a fleur-de-lys, which, like that of Louis, has two intermediate flower-stems, as seen on Florentine coins. He also gives the seal of Falconer (1170) as bearing a falcon; and that of Corbet bore two ravens perched upon a fleur-de-lys, while his brother bore them upon a tree. This indeed was at a period when fleurs-de-lys, stars, and various animals were commonly represented as mere ornaments on seals, but the peculiarity of the instances named is that the falcon and the raven, like the fleur-de-lys of France, were afterwards the heraldic bearings of those families. The seals of the close of the 12th century, though not generally heraldic, certainly betray many of the elements of heraldry. No doubt, when once introduced, armorial bearings were felt to supply a real and serious want, and came rapidly into use, but Wace, the poet of the reign of Henry II., although he tells us that
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can scarcely be seriously held to mention armorial bearings.
