seven in number--gold or yellow, silver or white, red, blue, black,
green and purple. Medieval custom gave, according to a rule often
broken, "gules," "azure" and "sable" as more high-sounding names for the
red, blue and black. Green was often named as "vert," and sometimes as
"synobill," a word which as "sinople" is used to this day by French
armorists. The song of the siege of Carlaverock and other early
documents have red, gules or "vermeil," sable or black, azure or blue,
but gules, azure, sable and vert came to be recognized as armorists'
adjectives, and an early 15th-century romance discards the simple words
deliberately, telling us of its hero that
"His shield was black and blue, sanz fable,
Barred of azure and of sable."
But gold and silver served as the armorists' words for yellows and
whites until late in the 16th century, when gold and silver made way for
"or" and "argent," words which those for whom the interest of armory
lies in its liveliest days will not be eager to accept. Likewise the
colours of "sanguine" and "tenne" brought in by the pedants to bring the
tinctures to the mystical number of nine may be disregarded.
[Illustration: Grimston. Ingilby. Gobioun. Longchamp.]
A certain armorial chart of the duchy of Brabant, published in 1600, is
the earliest example of the practice whereby later engravers have
indicated colours in uncoloured plates by the use of lines and dots.
Gold is indicated by a powdering of dots; silver is left plain. Azure is
shown by horizontal shading lines; gules by upright lines; sable by
cross-hatching of upright and horizontal lines. Diagonal lines from
sinister to dexter indicate purple; vert is marked with diagonal lines
from dexter to sinister. The practice, in spite of a certain
convenience, has been disastrous in its cramping effects on armorial
art, especially when applied to seals and coins.
Besides the two "metals" and five "colours," fields and charges are
varied by the use of the furs ermine and vair. Ermine is shown by a
white field flecked with black ermine tails, and vair by a conventional
representation of a fur of small skins sewn in rows, white and blue
skins alternately. In the 15th century there was a popular variant of
ermine, white tails upon a black field. To this fur the books now give
the name of "ermines"--a most unfortunate choice, since ermines is a
name used in old documents for the original ermine. "Erminees," which
has at least a 15th-century authority, will serve for those who are not
content to speak of "sable ermined with silver." Vair, although silver
and blue be its normal form, may be made up of gold, silver or ermine,
with sable or gules or vert, but in these latter cases the colours must
be named in the blazon. To the vairs and ermines of old use the heraldry
books have added "erminois," which is a gold field with black ermine
fails, "pean," which is "erminois" reversed, and "erminites," which is
ermine with a single red hair on either side of each black tail. The
vairs, mainly by misunderstanding of the various patterns found in old
paintings, have been amplified with "countervair," "potent,"
"counter-potent" and "vair-en-point," no one of which merits
description.
No shield of a plain metal or colour has ever been borne by an
Englishman, although the knights at Carlaverock and Falkirk saw Amaneu
d'Albret with his banner all of red having no charge thereon. Plain
ermine was the shield of the duke of Brittany and no Englishman
challenged the bearing. But Beauchamp of Hatch bore simple vair, Ferrers
of Derby "Vairy gold and gules," and Ward "Vairy silver and sable."
Gresley had "Vairy ermine and gules," and Beche "Vairy silver and
gules."
Only one English example has hitherto been discovered of a field covered
not with a fur but with overlapping feathers. A 15th-century book of
arms gives "Plumetty of gold and purple" for "Mydlam in Coverdale."
Drops of various colours which variegate certain fields and charges are
often mistaken for ermine tails when ancient seals are deciphered. A
simple example of such spattering is in the shield of Grayndore, who
bore "Party ermine and vert, the vert dropped with gold." Sir Richard
le Brun (14th century) bore "Azure a silver lion dropped with gules."
[Illustration: Brittany. Beauchamp. Mydlam. Grayndorge.]
A very common variant of charges and fields is the sowing or "powdering"
them with a small charge repeated many times. Mortimer of Norfolk bore
"gold powdered with fleurs-de-lys sable" and Edward III. quartered for
the old arms of France "Azure powdered with fleurs-de-lys gold," such
fields being often described as flowered or flory. Golden billets were
scattered in Cowdray's red shield, which is blazoned as "Gules billety
gold," and bezants in that of Zouche, which is "Gules bezanty with a
quarter ermine." The disposition of such charges varied with the users.
Zouche as a rule shows ten bezants placed four, three, two and one on
his shield, while the old arms of France in the royal coat allows the
pattern of flowers to run over the edge, the shield border thus showing
halves and tops and stalk ends of the fleurs-de-lys. But the commonest
of these powderings is that with crosslets, as in the arms of John la
Warr "Gules crusily silver with a silver lion."
[Illustration: Mortimer. Cowdray. Zouche. La Warr. Cheyndut. Applegarth.
Chester. Rye.]
_Trees, Leaves and Flowers._--Sir Stephen Cheyndut, a 13th-century
knight, bore an oak tree, the _cheyne_ of his first syllable, while for
like reasons a Piriton had a pear tree on his shield. Three pears were
borne (_temp._ Edward III.) by Nicholas Stivecle of Huntingdonshire, and
about the same date is Applegarth's shield of three red apples in a
silver field. Leaves of burdock are in the arms (14th century) of Sir
John de Lisle and mulberry leaves in those of Sir Hugh de Morieus. Three
roots of trees are given to one Richard Rotour in a 14th-century roll.
Malherbe (13th century) bore the "evil herb"--a teazle bush. Pineapples
are borne here and there, and it will be noted that armorists have not
surrendered this, our ancient word for the "fir-cone," to the foreign
_ananas_. Out of the cornfield English armory took the sheaf, three
sheaves being on the shield of an earl of Chester early in the 13th
century and Sheffield bearing sheaves for a play on his name. For a like
reason Peverel's sheaves were sheaves of pepper. Rye bore three ears of
rye on a bend, and Graindorge had barley-ears. Flowers are few in this
field of armory, although lilies with their stalks and leaves are in the
grant of arms to Eton College. Ousethorpe has water flowers, and now and
again we find some such strange charges as those in the 15th-century
shield of Thomas Porthelyne who bore "Sable a cheveron gules between
three 'popyebolles,' or poppy-heads vert."
The fleur-de-lys, a conventional form from the beginnings of armory,
might well be taken amongst the "ordinaries." In England as in France it
is found in great plenty.
Aguylon bore "Gules a fleur-de-lys silver."
Peyferer bore "Silver three fleur-de-lys sable."
[Illustration: Eton College.]
Trefoils are very rarely seen until the 15th century, although Hervey
has them, and Gausill, and a Bosville coat seems to have borne them.
They have always their stalk left hanging to them. Vincent, Hattecliffe
and Massingberd all bore the quatrefoil, while the Bardolfs, and the
Quincys, earls of Winchester, had cinqfoils. The old rolls of arms made
much confusion between cinqfoils and sixfoils (_quintefoilles e
sisfoilles_) and the rose. It is still uncertain how far that confusion
extended amongst the families which bore these charges. The cinqfoil and
sixfoil, however, are all but invariably pierced in the middle like the
spur rowel, and the rose's blunt-edged petals give it definite shape
soon after the decorative movement of the Edwardian age began to carve
natural buds and flowers in stone and wood.
[Illustration: Aguylon. Peyferer. Hervey. Vincent.]
Hervey bore "Gules a bend silver with three trefoils vert thereon."
Vincent bore "Azure three quatrefoils silver."
Quincy bore "Gules a cinqfoil silver."
Bardolf of Wormegay bore "Gules three cinqfoils silver."
Cosington bore "Azure three roses gold."
Hilton bore "Silver three chaplets or garlands of red roses."
[Illustration: Quincy. Bardolf. Cosington. Hilton.]
_Beasts and Birds._--The book of natural history as studied in the
middle ages lay open at the chapter of the lion, to which royal beast
all the noble virtues were set down. What is the oldest armorial seal of
a sovereign prince as yet discovered bears the rampant lion of Flanders.
In England we know of no royal shield earlier than that first seal of
Richard I. which has a like device. A long roll of our old earls, barons
and knights wore the lion on their coats--Lacy, Marshal, Fitzalan and
Montfort, Percy, Mowbray and Talbot. By custom the royal beast is shown
as rampant, touching the ground with but one foot and clawing at the air
in noble rage. So far is this the normal attitude of a lion that the
adjective "rampant" was often dropped, and we have leave and good
authority for blazoning the rampant beast simply as "a lion," leave
which a writer on armory may take gladly to the saving of much
repetition. In France and Germany this licence has always been the rule,
and the modern English herald's blazon of "Gules a lion rampant or" for
the arms of Fitzalan, becomes in French _de gueules au lion d'or_ and in
German _in Rot ein goldener Loewe_. Other positions must be named with
care and the prowling "lion passant" distinguished from the rampant
beast, as well as from such rarer shapes as the couchant lion, the lion
sleeping, sitting or leaping. Of these the lion passant is the only one
commonly encountered. The lion standing with his forepaws together is
not a figure for the shield, but for the crest, where he takes this
position for greater stableness upon the helm, and the sitting lion is
also found rather upon helms than in shields. For a 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.
[Illustration: PLATE IV.
THE BEGINNING OF A ROLL OF THE ARMS OF THOSE JOUSTING IN A TOURNAMENT
HELD ON THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD. BESIDES THE ARMS OF THE KINGS OF
FRANCE AND ENGLAND ARE TWO COLUMNS OF "CHEQUES," MARKED WITH THE NAMES
AND SCORING POINTS OF THE JOUSTERS.
_Drawn by William Gibb._
_Niagara Litho. Co., Buffalo, N. Y._]
[Illustration: 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 Crecy 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."
[Illustration: 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."
[Illustration: 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."
[Illustration: 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 the middle ages
standardized by artists. A crest upon a 15th-century brass shows him as
a lean wolf-like figure, with a dash of the boar, gazing after his vain
wont into a looking-glass; and the 16th-century heralds gave him the
body of a lion with the head of a wolf, head and body being tufted here
and there with thick tufts of hair. But it is noteworthy that the arms
of Sir John Norwich, a well-known knight of the 14th century, are
blazoned in a roll of that age as "party azure and gules with a tiger
rampant ermine." Now this beast in the arms of Norwich has been commonly
taken for a lion, and the Norwich family seem in later times to have
accepted the lion as their bearing. But a portion of a painted roll of
Sir John's day shows on careful examination that his lion has been given
two moustache-like tufts to the nose. A copy made about 1600 of another
roll gives the same decoration to the Norwich lion, and it is at least
possible we have here evidence that the economy of the medieval armorist
allowed him to make at small cost his lion, his leopard and his tiger
out of a single beast form.
Take away the lions and the leopards, and the other beasts upon medieval
shields are a little herd. In most cases they are here to play upon the
names of their bearers. Thus Swinburne of Northumberland has the heads
of swine in his coat and Bacon has bacon pigs. Three white bears were
borne by Barlingham, and a bear ramping on his hind legs is for Barnard.
Lovett of Astwell has three running wolves, Videlou three wolves' heads,
Colfox three foxes' heads.
[Illustration: Lovett. Talbot. Saunders.]
Three hedgehogs were in the arms of Heriz. Barnewall reminds us of
extinct natives of England by bearing two beavers, and Otter of
Yorkshire had otters. Harewell had hares' heads, Cunliffe conies,
Mitford moles or moldiwarps. A Talbot of Lancashire had three purple
squirrels in a silver shield. An elephant was brought to England as
early as the days of Henry III., but he had no immediate armorial
progeny, although Saunders of Northants may have borne before the end of
the middle ages the elephants' heads which speak of Alysaunder the
Great, patron of all Saunderses. Bevil of the west had a red bull, and
Bulkeley bore three silver bulls' heads. The heads in Neteham's
14th-century shield are neat's heads, ox heads are for Oxwyk. Calves are
for Veel, and the same mild beasts are in the arms of that fierce knight
Hugh Calveley. Stansfeld bore three rams with bells at their necks, and
a 14th-century Lecheford thought no shame to bear the head of the ram
who is the symbol of lechery. Lambton had lambs. Goats were borne by
Chevercourt to play on his name, a leaping goat by Bardwell, and goats'
heads by Gateshead. Of the race of dogs the greyhound and the talbot, or
mastiff, are found most often. Thus Talbot of Cumberland had talbots,
and Mauleverer, running greyhounds or "leverers" for his name's sake.
The alaund, a big, crop-eared dog, is in the 15th-century shield of John
Woode of Kent, and "kenets," or little tracking dogs, in a 13th-century
coat of Kenet. The horse is not easily found as an English charge, but
Moyle's white mule seems an old coat; horses' heads are in Horsley's
shield, and ass heads make crests for more than one noble house. Askew
has three asses in his arms. Three bats or flittermice are in the shield
of Burninghill and in that of Heyworth of Whethamstede.
As might be looked for in a land where forest and greenwood once linked
from sea to sea, the wild deer is a common charge in the shield. Downes
of Cheshire bore a hart "lodged" or lying down. Hertford had harts'
heads, Malebis, fawns' heads (_testes de bis_), Bukingham, heads of
bucks. The harts in Rotherham's arms are the roes of his name's first
syllable. Reindeer heads were borne by Bowet in the 14th century.
Antelopes, fierce beasts with horns that have something of the ibex,
show by their great claws, their lion tails, and their boar muzzles and
tusks that they are midway between the hart and the monster.
[Illustration: Griffin.]
Of the outlandish monsters the griffon is the oldest and the chief. With
the hinder parts of a lion, the rest of him is eagle, head and
shoulders, wings and fore legs. The long tuft under the beak and his
pointed ears mark him out from the eagle when his head alone is borne.
At an early date a griffon rampant, his normal position, was borne by
the great house of Montagu as a quartering, and another griffon played
upon Griffin's name.
[Illustration: Drake.]
The wyver, who becomes wyvern in the 16th century, and takes a new form
under the care of inventive heralds, was in the middle ages a
lizard-like dragon, generally with small wings. Sir Edmund Mauley in the
14th century is found differencing the black bend of his elder brother
by charging it with three wyvers of silver. During the middle ages there
seems small distinction between the wyver and the still rarer dragon,
which, with the coming of the Tudors, who bore it as their badge, is
seen as a four-legged monster with wings and a tail that ends like a
broad arrow. The monster in the arms of Drake, blazoned by Tudor heralds
as a wyvern, is clearly a fire-drake or dragon in his origin.
The unicorn rampant was borne by Harlyn of Norfolk, unicorn's heads by
the Cambridgeshire family of Paris. The mermaid with her comb and
looking-glass makes a 14th-century crest for Byron, while "Silver a bend
gules with three silver harpies thereon" is found in the 15th century
for Entyrdene.
Concerning beasts and monsters the heraldry books have many adjectives
of blazonry which may be disregarded. Even as it was once the pride of
the cook pedant to carve each bird on the board with a new word for the
act, so it became the delight of the pedant herald to order that the
rampant horse should be "forcene," the rampant griffon "segreant," the
passant hart "trippant"; while the same hart must needs be "attired" as
to its horns and "unguled" as to its hoofs. There is ancient authority
for the nice blazonry which sometimes gives a separate colour to the
tongue and claws of the lion, but even this may be set aside. Though a
black lion in a silver field may be armed with red claws, and a golden
leopard in a red field given blue claws and tongues, these trifles are
but fancies which follow the taste of the painter, and are never of
obligation. The tusks and hoofs of the boar, and often the horns of the
hart, are thus given in some paintings a colour of their own which
elsewhere is neglected.
As the lion is among armorial beasts, so is the eagle among the birds. A
bold convention of the earliest shield painters displayed him with
spread wing and claw, the feat of a few strokes of the brush, and after
this fashion he appears on many scores of shields. Like the claws and
tongue of the lion, the beak and claws of the eagle are commonly painted
of a second colour in all but very small representations. Thus the
golden eagle of Lymesey in a red field may have blue beak and claws, and
golden beak and claws will be given to Jorce's silver eagle upon red. A
lure, or two wings joined and spread like those of an eagle, is a rare
charge sometimes found. When fitted with the cord by which a falconer's
lure is swung, the cord must be named.
Monthermer bore "Gold an eagle vert."