Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/725

TINCTURES.] HERALDKY 691 tinguished on the paternal side. Paternal arms are of very various dates and origin. There seem, however, always to have existed certain recognized rules which the earl marshal had power to enforce. One of the most important of these was that no two persons in the same kingdom should bear the same arms, a practice clearly subversive of the main use of such insignia. Many were the disputes and challenges that arose out of this regulation, of which two of the most remarkable have already been mentioned. 6. Arms of Alliance or heirship were used when those of a great heiress were allowed to supersede the paternal coat. Thus the heiress of Mandeville, earl of Essex, married Say, and their heiress, Beatrice de Say, married Geoffrey Fitz Piers. Geoffrey (died 14 John) became earl of Essex, and their descendants took the name and bore the arms of Mandeville exclusively. William II., earl Warren (died 1148), left a daughter and heiress Isabel, who married Hamelin, natural son of Geoffrey of Anjou and brother to Henry II. He became earl of Surrey, and bore the name and arms and continued the line of Warren. The De la Bisse family, who claimed to descend from the male stock of the De Clares, bore the 3 chevrons differenced with a label of 3 points, though when, in the reign of Richard II., they intermarried with the Staffords, they laid this aside, and adopted "a chevron between three roses." When Gilbert Talbot (died 1274) married Gwenllian, or Gwendo line, the heiress of the Welsh prince Rhys ap Griffith, he laid aside his paternal coat, "bendy of 10 pieces, argent and gules," and adopted that of the lady, " gules, a lion rampant or, within a border engrailed of the field," as still used by the earls of Shrewsbury. 7. Anns of Attribution are altogether fictitious, and such as the heralds of the 15th and 16th centuries indulged in to an absurd extent, providing every hero of antiquity with a coat of arms. The same age that represented the Virgin Mary as versed in the canon law declared that Solomon, us the wisest of men, must have been a good herald, and described the armorial bearings of Achilles and Hector. Perhaps the most extravagant example of this fashion is contained in the work of Dame Juliana Earners, who says : " Of the offspring of the gentielman Japhet, comes Habre- ham, Moyses, Aron, and the profetys, and also the kyng of the right lyne of Mary, of whom the gentilman Jhesus was borne, very God and man ; after his manhode King of the londe of Jude, and of Jues, gentilman by is modre Mary, prynce of coat armure ;" and again, " The four doctors of holy chirch, Seynfc Jeromy, Ambrose, Augustyn, and Gregori, war gentilmen of blode and of cotarmures." At an earlier period, in the reign of Richard If., it was believed that many of the bearings in use had been borne ever since the Conquest, as appears from the evidence in the Scrope and Grosvenor controversy. Almost all the older genealo gists attribute coats of arms to ancestors long before they were in use. On the tomb of Queen Elizabeth are em blazoned the arms of William the Conqueror and Matilda of Flanders, and of Henry I. and Matilda .of Scotland, all of course pure inventions. It is only of very late years, since a critical spirit has found its way even into heraldry, that these absurdities have been exposed. 8. Canting Arms, the " armes parlantes " of French heraldry, are common to all the preceding classes of arms, and most common in those of the earliest date. Such were the castle and lion for Castile and Leon, the fers de cheval of Ferrers, the lion (Ib we) of Louvaine, the luces of Lucy, the sharp-pointed row of fusils of Montacute, the corbeau or raven of Corbet, the herons of Heron, the falcon of Falconer, the greyhounds (levriers) of Mauleverer, the barnacles of Bernak, the castle of Chastil, the swine s head of Swinbourne, the penfeathers of Coupenne, the hirondelles of Arundel, the storm-finches of Tempest, the hammers of Hamerton, the tyrwhits of Tyrwhitt, the hanks of cotton of Cotton, the fusils of Trefusis, the oxen of Oxenden, the fer de moline of Molyneux, the hazel leaves of Hazlerigge, the Danish axes of Hakluyt, the bozons or bird bolts of Bol- tesliam and Bozon, the bend wavy of Wallop, or Well-hope, the whelk-shell of Shelley, and many more, mostly early coats, and borne by considerable persons and families. In fact the practice was introduced whenever the name ad mitted of it, and sometimes when the allusion is very far fetched indeed, as in the boar pig "verres," the crest of De Vere, and the cock for Law, alluding to his cry, cock-a-leary- law ! Canting arms were equally common in other countries. In Italy the Colonne, Frangipani, and Ursini families bore a column, a piece of broken bread, and a bear. They were also common in France, Spain, and Germany. TINCTURES. Tinctures (in French, emaux) include metals, colours, and furs. The Metals are Or Yellow Argen White The Colours Topaz Pearl Sol. Luna. Azure Gules Furpure Sable Vert The Furs Blue, azur Red, gueules Purple, pourpre Black, sable Green, sinople Sapphire Ruby Amethyst Diamond Emerald Jupiter. Mars. Mercury. Saturn. Venus. Ermine, Vair, Ermines or Counter-ermine. Erminois, Erminites, Pean, Vair-en-point, Counter-vair, Potent- counter-potent. Gules is thought to come from the Persian c/nl, " a rose," but more probably from gula, "the throat." The .other terms are French. To the older colours have been added " sanguine " and " tenne" " or tawny, a compound of red and yellow. They are almost unknown in English heraldry, and are symbolized, the one by sardonyx and dragon s tail, and the other by jacinth and dragon s head. The blazoning by precious stones and planets, and even by the virtues, was a foolish fancy of the heraldic writers of the 16th cen tury, and applied to the arms of peers and princes. Gwillirn condescends to use it. A shield is rarely of one tincture only. In the roll of Caerlavrock, however, Sir Eurmenious de la Brette " La baniere eut toute rougeate," The original bearing of the Gournays of Norfolk seems to have been sable. De Barge of Lorraine bore " azure." The Captal de Buch, who figures in Froissart as a Guyenne knight, bore "or," and Boguet, a Norman knight, bore "argent." The furs (fig. 2) are all supposed to be formed of the skins of small animals fastened together. Ermine and vair were long the only furs acknowledged, and even now the rest are not com mon. Ermine (a) repre sents the skin of the animal of that name, and is white powdered with black spots. In vair (b) the skins in shape resemble small es cutcheons, the wings repre senting the forelegs and the point the tail. The fur is that of a sort of squirrel, bluish-grey on the back and white on the belly, and thence called " varus." The skins are arranged alternately argent and azure ; and if of other colours they must be specified. There are varieties of vairs, as vair-en-

FIG. 2. Furs.