THE FIELD OF A SHIELD AND THE HERALDIC TINCTURES
The shield itself and its importance in armory is due to its being the
vehicle whereon are elaborated the pictured emblems and designs which
constitute coat-armour. It should be borne in mind that theoretically all
shields are of equal value, saving that a shield of more ancient date is
more estimable than one of recent origin, and the shield of the head of the
house takes precedence of the same arms when differenced for a younger
member of the family. A shield crowded with quarterings is interesting
inasmuch as each quartering in the ordinary event means the representation
through a female of some other family or branch thereof. But the real value
of such a shield should be judged rather by the age of the single
quartering which represents the strict male descent male upon male, and a
simple coat of arms without quarterings may be a great deal more ancient
and illustrious than a shield crowded with coat upon coat. A fictitious and
far too great estimation is placed upon the right to display a long string
of quarterings. In reality quarterings are no more than accidents, because
they are only inherited when the wife happens to be an heiress in blood. It
is quite conceivable that there may be families, in fact there are such
families, who are able to begin their pedigrees at the time of the
Conquest, and who have married a long succession of noble women, all of the
highest birth, but yet none of whom have happened to be heiresses.
Consequently the arms, though dating from the earliest period at which arms
are known, would remain in their simple form without the addition of a
solitary quartering. On the other hand, I have a case in mind of a marriage
which took place some years ago. The husband is the son of an alien whose
original position, if report speaks truly, was that of a pauper immigrant.
His wealth and other attributes have placed him in a good social position;
but he has no arms, and, as far as the world is aware, no ancestry
whatever. Let us now consider his wife's family. Starting soon after the
Conquest, its descendants obtained high position and married heiress after
heiress, and before the commencement of this century had amassed a shield
of quarterings which can readily be proved to be little short of a hundred
in number. Probably the number {68} is really much greater. A large family
followed in one generation, and one of the younger sons is the ancestor of
the aforesaid wife. But the father of this lady never had any sons, and
though there are many males of the name to carry on the family in the
senior line and also in several younger branches, the wife, by the absence
of brothers, happens to be a coheir; and as such she transmits to her issue
the right to all the quarterings she has inherited. If the husband ever
obtains a grant of arms, the date of them will be subsequent to the present
time; but supposing such a grant to be obtained, the children will
inevitably inherit the scores of quarterings which belong to their mother.
Now it would be ridiculous to suppose that such a shield is better or such
a descent more enviable than the shield of a family such as I first
described. Quarterings are all very well in their way, but their
glorification has been carried too far.
A shield which displays an augmentation is of necessity more honourable
than one without. At the same time no scale of precedence has ever been
laid down below the rank of esquires; and if such precedence does really
exist at all, it can only be according to the date of the grant. Here in
England the possession of arms carries with it no style or title, and
nothing in his designation can differentiate the position of Mr. Scrope of
Danby, the male descendant of one of the oldest families in this country,
whose arms were upheld in the Scrope and Grosvenor controversy in 1390, or
Mr. Daubeney of Cote, from a Mr. Smith, whose known history may have
commenced at the Foundling Hospital twenty years ago. In this respect
English usage stands apart, for whilst a German is "Von" and a Frenchman
was "De," if of noble birth, there is no such apparent distinction in
England, and never has been. The result has been that the technical
nobility attaching to the possession of arms is overlooked in this country.
On the Continent it is usual for a patent creating a title to contain a
grant of the arms, because it is recognised that the two are inseparable.
This is not now the case in England, where the grant of arms is one thing
and the grant of the title another, and where it is possible, as in the
case of Lord St. Leonards, to possess a peerage without ever having
obtained the first step in rank, which is nobility or gentility.
The foregoing is in explanation of the fact that except in the matter of
date all shields are equal in value.
So much being understood, it is possible to put that consideration on one
side, and speaking from the artistically technical point of view, the
remark one often hears becomes correct, that the simpler a coat of arms the
better. The remark has added truth from the fact that most ancient coats of
arms were simple, and many modern coats are far from being worthy of such a
description. {69}
A coat of arms must consist of at least one thing, to wit, the "field."
This is equivalent in ordinary words to the colour of the ground of the
shield. A great many writers have asserted that every coat of arms must
consist of at least the field, and a charge, though most have mentioned as
a solitary exception the arms of Brittany, which were simply "ermine." A
plain shield of ermine (Fig. 33) was borne by John of Brittany, Earl of
Richmond (d. 1399), though some of his predecessors had relegated the arms
of Brittany to a "quarter ermine" upon more elaborate escutcheons (Fig.
61). This idea as to arms of one tincture was, however, exploded in
Woodward and Burnett's "Treatise on Heraldry," where no less than forty
different examples are quoted. The above-mentioned writer continues: "There
is another use of a plain red shield which must not be omitted. In the full
quartered coat of some high sovereign princes of Germany--Saxony (duchies),
Brandenburg (Prussia), Bavaria, Anhalt--appears a plain red quartering;
this is known as the _Blut Fahne_ or _Regalien_ quarter, and is indicative
of Royal prerogatives. It usually occupies the base of the shield, and is
often diapered."
[Illustration: FIG. 33.--Arms of John (de Montfort, otherwise de Bretagne),
Duke of Brittany and Earl of Richmond. (From his seal.)]
But in spite of the lengthy list which is quoted in Woodward and Burnett,
the fact remains that only one British instance is included. The family of
Berington of Chester (on the authority of Harleian manuscript No. 1535) is
said to bear a plain shield of azure. Personally I doubt this coat of arms
for the Berington family of Chester, which is probably connected with the
neighbouring family in Shropshire, who in later times certainly used very
different arms. The plain shield of ermine is sometimes to be found as a
quartering for Brittany in the achievement of those English families who
have the right to quarter the Royal arms; but I know of no other British
case in which, either as a quartering or as a pronominal coat, arms of one
tincture exist.
But there are many coats which have no charge, the distinctive device
consisting of the partition of the shield in some recognised heraldic
method into two or more divisions of different tinctures. Amongst such
coats may be mentioned the arms of Waldegrave, which are simply: Party per
pale argent and gules; Drummond of Megginch, whose arms are simply: Party
per fess wavy or and gules; and the arms of Boyle, which are: Per bend
embattled argent and gules. The arms of Berners--which are: Quarterly or
and vert--are another example, as are the arms of Campbell (the first
quarter in the Duke of Argyll's achievement), which are: Gyronny or and
sable. {70}
The coat bendy argent and gules, the ancient arms of Talbot, which are
still borne as a quartering by the Earl of Shrewsbury, Waterford, and
Talbot; and the coat chequy or and azure, a quartering for Warren, which is
still borne by the House of Howard, all come within the same category.
There are many other coats of this character which have no actual charge
upon them.
The colour of the shield is termed the field when it consists of only one
colour, and when it consists of more than one colour the two together
compose the field. The field is usually of one or more of the recognised
metals, colours, or furs.
The metals are gold and silver, these being termed "or" and "argent." The
colours, which are really the "tinctures," if this word is to be used
correctly, are: gules (red), azure (blue), vert (green), purpure (purple),
and (in spite of the fact that it is not really a colour) black, which is
known as sable.
The metal gold, otherwise "or," is often represented in emblazonments by
yellow: as a matter of fact yellow has always been used for gold in the
Register Books of the College of Arms, and Lyon Office has recently
reverted to this practice. In ancient paintings and emblazonments the use
of yellow was rather more frequent than the use of gold, but gold at all
times had its use, and was never discarded. Gold seems to have been usually
used upon ancient patents, whilst yellow was used in the registrations of
them retained in the Offices of Arms, but I know of no instance in British
armory in which the word yellow has been used in a blazon to represent any
tint distinct from gold. With regard to the other metal, silver, or, as it
is always termed, "argent," the same variation is found in the usage of
silver and white in representing argent that we find in yellow and gold,
though we find that the use of the actual metal (silver) in emblazonment
does not occur to anything like the same extent as does the use of gold.
Probably this is due to the practical difficulty that no one has yet
discovered a silver medium which does not lose its colour. The use of
aluminium was thought to have solved the difficulty, but even this loses
its brilliancy, and probably its usage will never be universally adopted.
This is a pity, for the use of gold in emblazonments gives a brilliancy in
effect to a collection of coat-armour which it is a pity cannot be extended
by an equivalent usage of silver. The use of silver upon the patents at the
College of Arms has been discontinued some centuries, though aluminium is
still in use in Lyon Office. Argent is therefore usually represented either
by leaving the surface untouched, or by the use of Chinese white.
I believe I am the first heraldic writer to assert the existence of the
heraldic colour of white in addition to the heraldic argent. Years ago {71}
I came across the statement that a white label belonged only to the Royal
Family, and could be used by no one else. I am sorry to say that though I
have searched high and low I cannot find the authority for the statement,
nor can I learn from any officer of arms that the existence of such a rule
is asserted; but there is this curious confirmation that in the warrants by
which the various labels are assigned to the different members of the Royal
Family, the labels are called white labels. Now the label of the Prince of
Wales is of three points and is plain. Heraldry knows nothing of the black
lines which in drawing a coat of arms usually appear for the outline of a
charge. In older work such lines are absent. In any case they are only mere
accidents of draughtsmanship. Bearing this in mind, and bearing in mind
that the sinister supporter of the Prince of Wales is a unicorn argent, how
on earth is a plain label of argent to be depicted thereupon? Now it is
necessary also that the label shall be placed upon the crest, which is a
lion statant guardant or, crowned with the coronet of the Prince, and upon
the dexter supporter which is another golden lion; to place an argent label
upon either is a flat violation of the rule which requires that metal shall
not be placed upon metal, nor colour upon colour; but if the unicorn is
considered argent, which it is, it would if really depicted in silver be
quite possible to paint a white label upon it, for the distinction between
white and silver is marked, and a white label upon a gold lion is not metal
upon metal. Quite recently a still further and startling confirmation has
come under my notice. In the grant of a crest to Thomas Mowbray, Earl of
Nottingham, the coronet which is to encircle the neck of the leopard is
distinctly blazoned argent, the label to which he is previously said to
have had a just hereditary right is as distinctly blazoned white, and the
whole grant is so short that inadvertence could hardly be pleaded as an
explanation for the distinction in blazon. Instances of an official
exemplification of coats of arms with labels are not uncommon, because the
label in some number of families, for example Courtenay and Prideaux-Brune
and Barrington, has become stereotyped into a charge. In none of these
cases, however, is it either argent or white, but instances of the
exemplification of a coat of arms bearing a label as a mark of cadency are,
outside the members of the Royal Family, distinctly rare; they are
necessarily so, because outside the Royal Family the label is merely the
temporary mark of the eldest son or grandson during the lifetime of the
head of the house, and the necessity for the exemplification of the arms of
an eldest son can seldom occur. The one circumstance which might provide us
with the opportunity is the exemplification consequent upon a change of
name and arms by an eldest son during the lifetime of his father; but {72}
this very circumstance fails to provide it, because the exemplification
only follows a change of arms, and the arms being changed, there no longer
exists the necessity for a mark of cadency; so that instances of the
official use of a label for cadency are rare, but of such as occur I can
learn of none which has received official sanction which blazons the label
white. There is, however, one coat which is said to have a label argent as
a charge, this is the coat of Fitz-Simon, which is quoted in Papworth, upon
the authority of one of the Harleian Manuscripts, as follows: Sable, three
crescents, in chief a label of two drops and in fess another of one drop
argent; and the same coat of arms is recorded in a funeral entry in
Ulster's Office. The label is not here termed white, and it is peculiar
that we find it of another colour in another coat of Fitz-Simon (azure, a
lion rampant ermine, a label of four point gules).
[Illustration: FIG. 34.--Armorial bearings of Henry de Lacy, Earl of
Lincoln (d. 1311): Or, a lion rampant purpure. (From his seal.)]
Of other colours may be mentioned purpure (purple). This in English
heraldry is a perfectly well recognised colour, and though its use is
extremely rare in comparison with the others, it will be found too
frequently for it to be classed as an exception. The earliest instance of
this tincture which I have met with is in the coat of De Lacy (Fig. 34).
The Roll of Caerlaverock speaks of his
"Baniere ot de un cendall saffrin,
O un lion rampant porprin,"
whilst MS. Cott. Calig. A. xviii. quotes the arms: "_De or, a un lion
rampaund de pourpre_." The Burton coat of the well-known Shropshire family
of Lingen-Burton is: Quarterly purpure and azure, a cross engrailed or
between four roses argent. The Irish baronets of the name of Burton, who
claimed descent from this family, bore a very similar coat, namely: Per
pale azure and purpure, a cross engrailed or between four roses argent.
Two other colours will be found in nearly all text-books of English armory.
These are murrey or sanguine, and orange or tenné. The exact tint of murrey
is between gules and purpure; and tenné is an orange-tawny colour. They are
both "stains," and were perhaps invented by the old heralds for the
perpetration of their preposterous system of abatements, which will be
found set out in full in the old heraldry books, but which have yet to be
found occurring in fact. The subject of abatements is one of those pleasant
little insanities which have done so much to the detriment of heraldry.
One, and one only, can be said {73} to have had the slightest foundation in
fact; that was the entire reversal of the escutcheon in the ceremony of
degradation following upon attainder for high treason. Even this, however,
was but temporary, for a man forfeited his arms entirely by attainder. They
were torn down from his banner of knighthood; they were erased in the
records of the College of Arms; but on that one single occasion when he was
drawn upon a hurdle to the place of his execution, they are said to have
been painted reversed upon paper, which paper was fastened to his breast.
But the arms then came to an end, and his descendants possessed none at
all. They certainly had not the right to depict their shield upside down
(even if they had cared to display such a monstrosity). Unless and until
the attainder was reversed, arms (like a title) were void; and the proof of
this is to be found in the many regrants of arms made in cases where the
attainder has remained, as in the instances of the Earl of Stafford and the
ancestor of the present Lord Barnard. But that any person should have been
supposed to have been willing to make use of arms carrying an abatement is
preposterous, and no instance of such usage is known. Rather would a man
decline to bear arms at all; and that any one should have imagined the
existence of a person willing to advertise himself as a drunkard or an
adulterer, with variations in the latter case according to the personality
of his partner in guilt, is idiotic in the extreme. Consequently, as no
example of an abatement has ever been found, one might almost discard the
"stains" of murrey and tenné were it not that they were largely made use of
for the purposes of liveries, in which usage they had no such objectionable
meaning. At the present day scarlet or gules being appropriated to the
Royal Family for livery purposes, other people possessing a shield of gules
are required to make use of a different red, and though it is now termed
chocolate or claret colour by the utilitarian language of the day, it is in
reality nothing more than the old sanguine or murrey. Of orange-tawny I can
learn of but one livery at the present day. I refer to the orange-tawny
coats used by the hunt servants of Lord Fitzhardinge, and now worn by the
hunt servants of the Old Berkeley country, near London. _A propos_ of this
it is interesting to note the curious legend that the "pink" of the hunting
field is not due to any reasons of optical advantage, but to an entirely
different reason. Formerly no man might hunt even on his own estate until
he had had licence of free warren from the Crown. Consequently he merely
hunted by the pleasure of the Crown, taking part in what was exclusively a
Royal sport by Royal permission, and for this Royal sport he wore the
King's livery of scarlet. This being the case, it is a curious anomaly that
although the livery of the only Royal pack recently in existence, the Royal
Buck Hounds, was scarlet and gold, the Master {74} wore a green coat. The
legend may be a fallacy, inasmuch as scarlet did not become the Royal
livery until the accession of the Stuarts; but it is by no means clear to
what date the scarlet hunting coat can be traced.
There is, however, one undoubted instance of the use of sanguine for the
field of a coat of arms, namely, the arms of Clayhills of Invergowrie,[6]
which are properly matriculated in Lyon Register.
To these colours German heraldry has added brown, blood-red (this
apparently is different from the English sanguine, as a different hatching
has been invented for it), earth-colour, iron-grey, water-colour,
flesh-colour, ashen-grey, orange (here also a separate hatching from the
one to represent tenné has been invented), and the colour of nature, _i.e._
"proper." These doubtless are not intended to be added to the list of
heraldic tinctures, but are noted because various hatchings have been
invented in modern times to represent them.
Mr. Woodward, in Woodward and Burnett's "Treatise on Heraldry," alludes to
various tinctures amongst Continental arms which he has come across.
"Besides the metals, tinctures, and furs which have been already described,
other tinctures are occasionally found in the Heraldry of Continental
nations; but are comparatively of such rarity as that they may be counted
among the curiosities of blazon, which would require a separate volume.
That of which I have collected instances is Cendrée, or ash colour, which
is borne by (among others) the Bavarian family of Ashua, as its _armes
parlantes: Cendrée, a mount of three coupeaux in base or_.
"_Brunâtre_, a brown colour, is even more rare as a tincture of the field;
the MIEROSZEWSKY in Silesia bear, '_de Brunâtre, A cross patée argent
supporting a raven rising sable, and holding in its beak a horseshoe
proper, its points towards the chief_."
"_Bleu-céleste_, or _bleu du ciel_, appears occasionally, apart from what
we may term 'landscape coats.' That it differs from, and is a much lighter
colour than, azure is shown by the following example. The Florentine CINTI
(now CINI) bear a coat which would be numbered among the _armes fausses, or
à enquérir: Per pale azure and bleu-céleste, an estoile counterchanged_."
"_Amaranth_ or _columbine_ is the field of a coat (of which the blazon is
too lengthy for insertion in this place) which was granted to a Bohemian
knight in 1701."
Carnation is the French term for the colour of naked flesh, and is often
employed in the blazonry of that country. {75}
Perhaps mention should here be made of the English term "proper." Anything,
alive or otherwise, which is depicted in its natural colours is termed
"proper," and it should be depicted in its really correct tones or tints,
without any attempt to assimilate these with any heraldic tincture. It will
not be found in the very ancient coats of arms, and its use is not to be
encouraged. When a natural animal is found existing in various colours it
is usual to so describe it, for the term "proper" alone would leave
uncertainty. For instance, the crest of the Lane family, which was granted
to commemorate the ride of King Charles II. behind Mistress Jane Lane as
her servant, in his perilous escape to the coast after the disastrous
Battle of Worcester, is blazoned "a strawberry roan horse, couped at the
flanks proper, bridled sable, and holding between the feet an Imperial
crown also proper." Lord Cowper's supporters were, on either side of the
escutcheon, "a light dun horse proper, with a large blaze down the face,
the mane close shorn except a tuft on the withers, a black list down the
back, a bob tail, and the near fore-foot and both hind feet white." Another
instance that might be quoted are the supporters of Lord Newlands, which
are: "On either side a dapple-grey horse proper, gorged with a riband and
suspended therefrom an escutcheon gules, charged with three bezants in
chevron." The crest of the family of Bewes, of St. Neots, Cornwall, is: "On
a chapeau gules, turned up ermine, a pegasus rearing on his hind legs of a
bay colour, the mane and tail sable, winged or, and holding in the mouth a
sprig of laurel proper."
There are and were always many occasions in which it was desired to
represent armorial bearings in black and white, or where from the nature of
the handicraft it was impossible to make use of actual colour. But it
should always be pointedly remembered that unless the right colours of the
arms could be used the tinctures were entirely ignored in all matters of
handicraft until the seventeenth century. Various schemes of hatchings,
however, were adopted for the purpose of indicating the real heraldic
colours when arms were represented and the real colours could not be
employed, the earliest being that of Francquart in Belgium, _circa_ 1623.
Woodward says this was succeeded by the systems of Butkens, 1626; Petra
Sancta, 1638; Lobkowitz, 1639; Gelenius; and De Rouck, 1645; but all these
systems differed from each other, and were for a time the cause of
confusion and not of order. Eventually, however, the system of Petra Sancta
(the author of _Tesseræ Gentilitia_) superseded all the others, and has
remained in use up to the present time.
[Illustration: FIG. 35.]
Upon this point Herr Ströhl in his _Heraldischer Atlas_ remarks: "The
system of hatching used by Marcus Vulson de la Colombière, 1639, in the
course of time found acceptance everywhere, and has {76} maintained itself
in use unaltered until the present day, and these are shown in Fig. 35,
only that later, hatchings have been invented for brown, grey, &c.; which,
however, seems rather a superfluous enriching." None of these later
creations, by the way, have ever been used in this country. For the sake of
completeness, however, let them be mentioned (see Fig. 36): _a_, brown;
_b_, blood-red; _c_, earth-colour; _d_, iron-grey; _e_, water-colour; _f_,
flesh-colour; _g_, ashen-grey; _h_, orange; and _i_, colour of nature. In
English armory "tenné" is represented by a combination of horizontal (as
azure) lines with diagonal lines from sinister to dexter (as purpure), and
sanguine or murrey by a combination of diagonal lines from dexter to
sinister (as vert), and from sinister to dexter (as purpure).
[Illustration: FIG. 36.]
The hatchings of the shield and its charges always accommodate themselves
to the angle at which the shield is placed, those of the crest to the angle
of the helmet. A curious difficulty, however, occurs when a shield, as is
so often the case in this country, forms a part of the crest. Such a shield
is seldom depicted quite upright upon the wreath. Are the tincture lines to
follow the angle of the smaller shield in the crest or the angle of the
helmet? Opinion is by no means agreed upon the point.
But though this system of representing colours by "hatching" has been
adopted and extensively made use of, it is questionable whether {77} it has
ever received official sanction, at any rate in Great Britain. It certainly
has never been made use of in any _official_ record or document in the
College of Arms. Most of the records are in colour. The remainder are all
without exception "tricked," that is, drawn in outline, the colours being
added in writing in the following contracted forms: "O," or "or," for or;
"A," "ar," or "arg," for argent; "G," or "gu," for gules; "Az," or "B" (for
blue, owing to the likelihood of confusion between "ar" and "az," "B" being
almost universally used in old trickings), for azure; "S," or "sa," for
sable; "Vt" for vert, and "Purp" for purpure. It is unlikely that any
change will be made in the future, for the use of tincture lines is now
very rapidly being discarded by all good heraldic artists in this country.
With the reversion to older and better forms and methods these hatchings
become an anachronism, and save that sable is represented by solid black
they will probably be unused and forgotten before very long.
The plain, simple names of colours, such as red and green, seemed so
unpoetical and unostentatious to the heralds and poets of the Middle Ages,
that they substituted for gold, topaz; for silver, pearl or "meergries";
for red, ruby; for blue, sapphire; for green, emerald; and for black,
diamond or "zobel" (sable, the animal, whence the word "sable"). Let the
following blazonment from the grant of arms to Mödling bei Wien in 1458
serve as example of the same: "Mit namen ain Schilt gleich getailt in
fasse, des ober und maister tail von Rubin auch mit ainer fasse von
Berlein, der under thail von grunt des Schilts von Schmaragaden, darinneain
Pantel von Silber in Rampannt"--(_lit._ "Namely, a shield equally divided
in fess, the upper and greater part of ruby, also with a fess of pearl, the
under part of the field of the shield of emerald, therein a panther of
silver, rampant"); that is, "Per fess gules and vert, in chief a fess
argent, in base a panther rampant of the last."
Even the planets, and, as abbreviations, their astronomical signs, are
occasionally employed: thus, the _sun_ for gold, the _moon_ for silver,
_Mars_ for red, _Jupiter_ for blue, _Venus_ for green, _Saturn_ for black,
and _Mercury_ for purple. This aberration of intellect on the part of
mediæval heraldic writers, for it really amounted to little more, had very
little, if indeed it had any, English official recognition. No one dreams
of using such blazon at the present time, and it might have been entirely
disregarded were it not that Guillim sanctions its use; and he being the
high priest of English armory to so many, his example has given the system
a certain currency. I am not myself aware of any instance of the use of
these terms in an English patent of arms.
The furs known to heraldry are now many, but originally they were only two,
"ermine" and "vair." Ermine, as every one knows, is of {78} white covered
with black spots, intended to represent the tails of the animal. From
ermine has been evolved the following variations, viz. ermines, erminois,
pean, and erminites. "Ermines" is a black field with white ermine spots
(the French term for this is _contre-hermin_, the German,
_gegen-hermelin_). A gold background with black ermine spots is styled
erminois, and pean is a black ground with gold ermine spots. Planché
mentions still another, as does Parker in his "Glossary of Heraldry,"
namely, "erminites," which is supposed to be white, with black ermine spots
and a red hair on each side of the spot. I believe there is no instance
known of any such fur in British armory. It is not mentioned in Ströhl's
"Heraldic Atlas," nor can I find any foreign instance, so that who invented
it, or for what purpose it was invented, I cannot say; and I think it
should be relegated, with abatements and the _seize quartiers_ of Jesus
Christ, to the category of the silly inventions of former heraldic writers,
not of former heralds, for I know of no official act which has recognised
the existence of erminites. The German term for erminois is
_gold-hermelin_, but there are no distinctive terms either in French or
German heraldry for the other varieties. Thus, erminois would be in French
blazon: d'or, semé d'hermines de sable; pean would be de sable, semé
d'hermines d'or. Though ermine is always nowadays represented upon a white
background, it was sometimes depicted with black ermine spots upon a field
of silver, as in the case of some of the stall plates of the Knights of the
Garter in St. George's Chapel at Windsor. Ermine spots are frequently to be
found as charges. For instance, in the well-known coat of Kay, which is:
"Argent, three ermine spots in bend between two bendlets sable, the whole
between as many crescents azure." As charges two ermine spots figure upon
the arms recently granted to Sir Francis Laking, Bart., G.C.V.O. The ermine
spot has also sometimes been used in British armory as the difference mark
granted under a Royal Licence to assume name and arms when it is necessary
to indicate the absence of blood relationship. Other instances of the use
of an ermine spot as a charge are:--
Or, on two bars azure, as many barrulets dancetté argent, a chief indented
of the second charged with an ermine spot or (Sawbridge).
Argent, a chevron between three crows sable, in each beak an ermine spot
(Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph, 1680; Lichfield, 1692; and Worcester,
1700-17).
Argent, a fess gules between three ermine spots sable (Kilvington).
Argent, two bars sable, spotted ermine, in chief a lion passant gules
(Hill, co. Wexford).
The earliest form in which ermine was depicted shows a nearer approach to
the reality of the black tail, inasmuch as the spots above the tail to
which we are now accustomed are a modern variant. {79}
When a bend is ermine, the spots (like all other charges placed upon a
bend) must be bendwise; but on a chevron, saltire, &c., they are drawn
upright.
The other variety of fur is "vair." This originated from the fur of a kind
of squirrel (the ver or vair, differently spelt; Latin _varus_), which was
much used for the lining of cloaks. The animal was bluey-grey upon the back
and white underneath, and the whole skin was used. It will be readily seen
that by sewing a number of these skins together a result is obtained of a
series of cup-shaped figures, alternating bluey-grey and white, and this is
well shown in Fig. 28, which shows the effigy upon the tomb of Geoffrey
Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, where the lining of vair to his cloak is
plainly to be seen.
[Illustration: FIG. 37.--Arms of William de Ferrers, Earl of Derby (d.
1247): "Scutum variatum auro & gul." (From MS. Cott. Nero, D. 1.)]
The word seems to have been used independently of heraldry for fur, and the
following curious error, which is pointed out in Parker's "Glossary of the
Terms used in Heraldry," may be noted in passing. The familiar fairy tale
of Cinderella was brought to us from the French, and the slippers made of
this costly fur, written, probably, _verre_ for _vairé_, were erroneously
translated "glass" slippers. This was, of course, an impossible material,
but the error has always been repeated in the nursery tale-books.
[Illustration: FIG. 38.--Arms of Robert de Ferrers, Earl of Derby
(1254-1265). (From stained glass in Dorchester Church.)]
In the oldest records vair is represented by means of straight horizontal
lines alternating with horizontal wavy or nebuly lines (see Fig. 37), but
the cup-shaped divisions therefrom resulting having passed through various
intermediate forms (see Fig. 38), have now been stereotyped into a fixed
geometrical pattern, formed of rows of ear-shaped shields of alternate
colours and alternately reversed, so depicted that each reversed shield
fits into the space left by those on either side which are not reversed
(see Fig. 39, _k_). The accompanying illustration will show plainly what is
intended. In some of the older designs it was similar to that shown in the
arms of the Earl Ferrers, Earl of Derby, 1254-65, the sketch (Fig. 38)
being taken from almost contemporary stained glass in Dorchester Church,
Oxon.; whilst sometimes the {80} division lines are drawn, after the same
manner, as _nebuly_. There does not seem to have been any fixed proportion
for the number of rows of vair, as Fig. 40 shows the arms of the same Earl
as represented upon his seal. The palpable pun upon the name which a shield
vairé supplied no doubt affords the origin of the arms of Ferrers. Some
families of the name at a later date adopted the horseshoes, which are to
be found upon many Farrer and Ferrers shields, the popular assumption being
that they are a reference to the "farrier" from whom some would derive the
surname. Woodward, however, states that a horseshoe being the badge of the
Marshalls, horseshoes were assumed as _armes parlantes_ by their
descendants the Ferrers, who appear to have borne: Sable, six horseshoes
argent. As a matter of fact the only one of that family who bore the
horseshoes seems to have been William de Ferrers, Earl of Derby (d. 1254),
as will be seen from the arms as on his seal (Fig. 41). {81} His wife was
Sybilla, daughter of William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke. His son reverted
to the plain shield of vairé, or, and gules. The arms of the Ferrers family
at a later date are found to be: Gules, seven mascles conjoined or, in
which form they are still borne by Ferrers of Baddesley Clinton; but
whether the mascles are corruptions of the horseshoes, or whether (as seems
infinitely more probable) they are merely a corrupted form of the vairé,
or, and gules, it is difficult to say. Personally I rather doubt whether
any Ferrers ever used the arms: Argent, six horseshoes sable.
[Illustration: FIG. 39.]
[Illustration: FIG. 40.--Arms of Robert de Ferrers, Earl of Derby
(1254-1265). (From his seal.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 41.--Arms of William de Ferrers, Earl of Derby: Vaire,
or, and gules, a bordure argent, charged with eight horseshoes sable. (From
a drawing of his seal, MS. Cott. Julius, C vii.)]
PLATE II.
[Illustration]
The early manner of depicting vair is still occasionally met with in
foreign heraldry, where it is blazoned as Vair ondé or Vair ancien. The
family of MARGENS in Spain bears: Vair ondé, on a bend gules three griffins
or; and TARRAGONE of Spain: Vair ondé, or and gules. German heraldry seems
to distinguish between _wolkenfeh_ (cloud vair) and _wogenfeh_ (wave vair;
see Fig. 39, _n_). The former is equivalent to vair ancient, the latter to
vair en point.
The verbal blazon of vair nearly always commences with the metal, but in
the arrangement of the panes there is a difference between French and
English usage. In the former the white panes are generally (and one thinks
more correctly) represented as forming the first, or upper, line; in
British heraldry the reverse is more usually the case. It is usual to
depict the white panes of ordinary vair with white rather than silver,
though the use of the latter cannot be said to be incorrect, there being
precedents in favour of that form. When an ordinary is of vair or vairy,
the rows of vair may be depicted either horizontally or following the
direction of the ordinary. There are accepted precedents for both methods.
Vair is always blue and white, but the same subdivision of the field is
frequently found in other colours; and when this is the case, it is termed
vairy of such and such colours. When it is vairy, it is usually of a colour
and metal, as in the case of Ferrers, Earls of Derby, above referred to;
though a fur is sometimes found to take the place of one or other, as in
the arms of Gresley, which are: "Vairé gules and ermine." I know of no
instance where vairé is found of either two metals or of two colours, nor
at the same time do I know of any rule against such a combination. Probably
it will be time enough to discuss the contingency when an instance comes to
light. Gerard Leigh mentions vair of three or more tinctures, but instances
are very rare. Parker, in his "Glossary," refers to the coat of Roger
Holthouse, which he blazons: "Vairy argent, azure, gules, and or, en
point."
The _Vair_ of commerce was formerly of three sizes, and the distinction is
continued in foreign armory. The middle or ordinary {82} size is known as
_Vair_; a smaller size as _Menu-vair_ (whence our word "miniver"); the
largest as _Beffroi_ or _Gros vair_, a term which is used in armory when
there are less than four rows. The word _Beffroi_ is evidently derived from
the bell-like shape of the _vair_, the word _Beffroi_ being anciently used
in the sense of the alarm-bell of a town. In French armory, _Beffroi_
should consist of three horizontal rows; _Vair_, of four; _Menu-vair_, of
six. This rule is not strictly observed, but in French blazon if the rows
are more than four it is usual to specify the number; thus Varroux bears:
_de Vair de cinq traits_. _Menu-vair_ is still the blazon of some families;
BANVILLE DE TRUTEMNE bears: _de Menu-vair de six tires_; the Barons van
HOUTHEM bore: _de Menu-vair, au franc quartier de gueules chargé de trois
maillets d'or_. In British armory the foregoing distinctions are unknown,
and _Vair_ is only of one size, that being at the discretion of the artist.
When the Vair is so arranged that in two horizontal rows taken together,
either the points or the bases of two panes of the same tincture are in
apposition, the fur is known as COUNTER VAIR (CONTRE VAIR) (see Fig. 39,
_l_). Another variation, but an infrequent one, is termed VAIR IN PALE,
known in German heraldry as _Pfahlfeh_ (_Vair appointé_ or _Vair en pal_;
but if of other colours than the usual ones, _Vairé en pal_). In this all
panes of the same colour are arranged in vertical, or palar, rows (Fig. 39,
_m_). German heraldry apparently distinguishes between this and
_Stürzpfahlfeh_, or _reversed_ vair in pale. VAIR IN BEND (or in
bend-sinister) is occasionally met with in foreign coats; thus MIGNIANELLI
in Italy bears: _Vairé d'or et d'azur en bande_; while _Vairé en barre_
(that is, in bend-sinister) _d'or et de sable_ is the coat of PICHON of
Geneva.
"Vair en pointe" is a term applied by Nisbet to an arrangement by which the
azure shield pointing downwards has beneath it an argent shield pointing
downwards, and _vice versâ_, by which method the resulting effect is as
shown in Fig. 39, _n_. The German term for this is _Wogenfeh_, or wave
vair. Fig. 39, _o_, shows a purely German variety--_Wechselfeh_, or
alternate vair; and Fig. 39, _p_, which is equivalent to the English vairé
of four colours, is known in German armory as _Buntfeh, i.e._ gay-coloured
or checked vair.
Ordinary vair in German heraldry is known as _Eisenhüt-feh_, or iron hat
vair. On account of its similarity, when drawn, to the old iron hat of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (see Fig. 42), this skin has received
the name of _Eisenhutlein_ (little iron hat) from German heraldic students,
a name which later gave rise to many incorrect interpretations. An old
charter in the archives of the chapter-house of Lilienfield, in Lower
Austria, under the seal (Fig. 43) of one Chimrad Pellifex, 1329, proves
that at that time vair was so styled. The name of Pellifex (in {83} German
_Wildwerker_, a worker in skins, or furrier) is expressed in a punning or
canting form on the dexter side of the shield. This Conrad the Furrier was
Burgomaster of Vienna 1340-43.
A considerable number of British and foreign families bear _Vair_ only;
such are FERRERS and GRESLEY, above mentioned; VARANO, Dukes de CAMERINO;
VAIRE and VAIRIÈRE, in France; VERET, in Switzerland; GOUVIS, FRESNAY
(Brittany); DE VERA in Spain; LOHEAC (Brittany); VARENCHON (Savoy);
SOLDANIERI (Florence). _Counter vair_ is borne by LOFFREDO of Naples; by
BOUCHAGE, DU PLESSIS ANGERS, and BROTIN, of France. HELLEMMES of Tournay
uses: _de Contre vair, à lac otice de gueules brochante sur le tout_.
[Illustration: FIG. 42.]
[Illustration: FIG. 43.--Seal of Chimrad Pellifex, 1329.]
Mr. Woodward, in his "Treatise on Heraldry," writes: "Two curious forms of
Vair occasionally met with in Italian or French coats are known as
_Plumeté_ and _Papelonné_.
In _Plumeté_ the field is apparently covered with feathers. _Plumeté
d'argent et d'azur_ is the coat of Ceba (note that these are the tinctures
of _Vair_); SOLDONIERI of Udine, _Plumeté au natural_ (but the SOLDONIERI
of Florence bore: _Vairé argent and sable_ with _a bordure chequy or and
azure_); TENREMONDE of Brabant: _Plumeté or and sable_. In the arms of the
SCALTENIGHI of Padua, the BENZONI of Milan, the GIOLFINI, CATANEI, and
NUVOLONI of Verona, each feather of the _plumeté_ is said to be charged
with an ermine spot sable.
The bearing of PAPELONNÉ is more frequently found; in it the field is
covered with what appear to be scales, the heraldic term _papelonné_ being
derived from a supposed resemblance of these scales to the wings of
butterflies; for example the coat of MONTI: _Gules, papelonné argent_.
DONZEL at Besançon bears: Papelonné d'or et de sable. It is worthy of note
that Donzé of Lorraine used: Gules, three bars wavy or. The FRANCONIS of
Lausanne are said to bear: _de Gueules papelonné d'argent_, and on _a chief
of the last a rose of the first_, but the coat is otherwise blazoned:
_Vaire gules and or_, &c. The coat of ARQUINVILLIERS, or HARGENVILLIERS, in
Picardy, of _d'Hermine papelonné de {84} gueules_ (not being understood,
this has been blazoned "_semé of caltraps_"). So also the coat of CHEMILLÉ
appears in French books of blazon indifferently as: _d'Or papelonné de
gueules_: and _d'Or semé de chausse-trapes de gueules_. GUÉTTEVILLE DE
GUÉNONVILLE is said to bear: _d'Argent semé de chausse-trapes de sable_,
but it is more probable that this is simply _d'Argent papelonné de sable_.
The BARISONI of Padua bear: _Or, a bend of scales, bendwise argent, on each
scale an ermine spot sable, the bend bordered sable_. The ALBERICI of
Bologna bear: _Papelonné of seven rows, four of argent, three of or_; but
the ALBERGHI of the same city: _Papelonné of six rows, three of argent, as
many of gules_. The connection with _vairé_ is much clearer in the latter
than in the former. CAMBI (called FIGLIAMBUCHI), at Florence, carried:
_d'Argent, papelonné de gueules_; MONTI of Florence and Sicily, and
RONQUEROLLES of France the reverse.
No one who is familiar with the licence given to themselves by armorial
painters and sculptors in Italy, who were often quite ignorant of the
meaning of the blazons they depicted, will doubt for a moment the statement
that Papelonné was originally a corruption from or perhaps is simply
ill-drawn Vair."
POTENT, and its less common variant COUNTER POTENT, are usually ranked in
British heraldic works as separate furs. This has arisen from the writers
being ignorant that in early times _Vair_ was frequently depicted in the
form now known as _Potent_ (see Fig. 39, _q_). (By many heraldic writers
the ordinary _Potent_ is styled _Potent-counter-potent_. When drawn in the
ordinary way, _Potent_ alone suffices.) An example of _Vair_ in the form
now known as Potent is afforded by the seal of JEANNE DE FLANDRE, wife of
ENGUERRAND IV. (De Courcy); here the well-known arms of COURCY, _Barry of
six vair and gules_, are depicted as if the bars of vair were composed of
bars of _potent_ (VRÉE, _Généalogie des Comtes de Flandre_). In a _Roll of
Arms of the time of Edward I._ the _Vair_ resembles _Potent_
(-counter-potent), which DR. PERCEVAL erroneously terms an "invention of
later date." The name and the differentiation may be, but not the fact. In
the First Nobility Roll of the year 1297, the arms of No. 8, ROBERT DE
BRUIS, Baron of Brecknock, are: Barry of six, Vaire ermine and gules, and
azure. Here the vair is potent; so is it also in No. 19, where the coat of
INGELRAM DE GHISNES, or GYNES, is: Gules, a chief vair. The same coat is
thus drawn in the Second Nobility Roll, 1299, No. 57. POTENT, like its
original _Vair_, is always of _argent_ and _azure_, unless other tinctures
are specified in the blazon. The name _Potent_ is the old English word for
a crutch or walking-staff. Chaucer, in his description of "Elde" (_i.e._
old age) writes:
"So olde she was, that she ne went
A fote, but it were by potent."
{85}
And though a potent is a heraldic charge, and a cross potent a well-known
variety of that ordinary, "potent" is usually intended to indicate the fur
of blue and white as in Fig. 39, _q_. It is not of frequent usage, but it
undoubtedly has an accepted place in British armory, as also has
"counter-potent," which, following the same rules as counter-vair, results
in a field as Fig. 39, _r_. The German terms for Potent and counter-potent
are respectively _Sturzkrückenfeh_ and _gegensturzkrückenfeh_ German
heraldry has evolved yet another variant of Potent, viz. _Verschobenes
Gegensturzkrückenfeh_ (_i.e._ displaced potent-counter-potent), as in Fig.
39, _s_. There is still yet another German heraldic fur which is quite
unknown in British armory. This is called _Kursch_, otherwise "Vair
bellies," and is usually shown to be hairy and represented brown. Possibly
this is the same as the _Plumeté_ to which Mr. Woodward refers.
Some heraldic writers also speak of _varry_ as meaning the pieces of which
the vair is composed; they also use the terms _vairy cuppy_ and _vairy
tassy_ for _potent-counter-potent_, perhaps from the drawings in some
instances resembling _cups_; that is a possible meaning of _tassa_. It may
be said that all these variations of the ancient _vair_ arise from mere
accident (generally bad drawing), supplemented by over refinement on the
part of the heraldic writers who have described them. This generalisation
may be extended in its application from vair to many other heraldic
matters. To all intents and purposes British heraldry now or hitherto has
only known vair and potent.
One of the earliest rules one learns in the study of armory is that colour
cannot be placed upon colour, nor metal upon metal. Now this is a definite
rule which must practically always be rigidly observed. Many writers have
gone so far as to say that the only case of an infraction of this rule will
be found in the arms of Jerusalem: Argent, a cross potent between four
crosslets or. This was a favourite windmill at which the late Dr. Woodward
tilted vigorously, and in the appendix to his "Treatise on Heraldry" he
enumerates some twenty-six instances of the violation of the rule. The
whole of the instances he quoted, however, are taken from Continental
armory, in which these exceptions--for even on the Continent such _armes
fausses_ are noticeable exceptions--occur much more frequently than in this
country. Nevertheless such exceptions _do_ occur in British armory, and the
following instances of well-known coats which break the rule may be quoted.
The arms of Lloyd of Ffos-y-Bleiddied, co. Cardigan, and Danyrallt, co.
Carmarthen, are: "Sable, a spearhead imbrued proper between three
scaling-ladders argent, on a chief _gules_ a castle of the second." Burke,
in his "General Armory," says this coat of arms was granted to Cadifor ap
Dyfnwal, ninth in descent from Roderick the Great, Prince of Wales, by his
cousin the great Lord Rhys, for taking the castle of {86} Cardigan by
escalade from the Earl of Clare and the Flemings in 1164. Another instance
is a coat of Meredith recorded in Ulster's Office and now inherited by the
Hon. Richard Edmund Meredith, a judge of the Supreme Court of Judicature of
Ireland and a Judicial Commissioner of the Irish Land Commission. These
arms are: "Gules, on a chevron sable, between three goats' heads erased, as
many trefoils or." An instance of comparatively recent date will be found
in the grant of the arms of Thackeray. A little careful research, no doubt,
would produce a large number of English instances, but one is bound to
admit the possibility that the great bulk of these cases may really be
instances of augmentation.
Furs may be placed upon either metal or colour, as may also any charge
which is termed proper. German heralds describe furs and natural colours as
amphibious. It is perfectly legitimate to place fur upon fur, and though
not often found, numbers of examples can be quoted; probably one will
suffice. The arms of Richardson are: Sable, two hawks belled or, on a chief
indented ermine, a pale ermines, and three lions' heads counterchanged. It
is also correct to place ermine upon argent. But such coats are not very
frequently found, and it is usual in designing a coat to endeavour to
arrange that the fur shall be treated as metal or colour according to what
may be its background. The reason for this is obvious. It is correct,
though unusual, for a charge which is blazoned proper, and yet depicted in
a recognised heraldic colour, to be placed upon colour; and where such
cases occur, care should be taken that the charges are blazoned proper. A
charge composed of more than one tincture, that is, of a metal and colour,
may be placed upon a field of either; for example the well-known coat of
Stewart, which is: Or, a fess chequy azure and argent; other examples
being: Per pale ermine and azure, a fess wavy gules (Broadbent); and:
Azure, a lion rampant argent, debruised by a fess per pale of the second
and gules (Walsh); but in such coats it will usually be found that the
first tincture of the composite charge should be in opposition to the field
upon which it is superimposed. For instance, the arms of Stewart are: Or, a
fess chequy azure and argent, and to blazon or depict them with a fess
chequy argent and azure would be incorrect. When an ordinary is charged
upon both metal and colour, it would be quite correct for it to be of
either metal, colour, or fur, and in such cases it has never been
considered either exceptional or an infraction of the rule that colour must
not be placed upon colour, nor metal upon metal. There is one point,
however, which is one of these little points one has to learn from actual
experience, and which I believe has never yet been quoted in any handbook
of heraldry, and that is, that this rule must be thrown overboard with
regard to {87} crests and supporters. I cannot call to mind an instance of
colour upon colour, but a gold collar around the neck of an argent crest
will constantly be met with. The sinister supporter of the Royal
achievement is a case in point, and this rule, which forbids colour upon
colour, and metal upon metal, only holds with regard to supporters and
crests when the crest or supporter itself is treated as a field and
_charged with_ one or more objects. The Royal labels, as already stated,
appear to be a standing infraction of the rule if white and argent are to
be heraldically treated as identical. The rule is also disregarded entirely
as regards augmentations and Scottish cadency bordures.
So long as the field is party, that is, divided into an equal number of
pieces (for example, paly, barruly, or bendy, or party per bend or per
chevron), it may be composed of two metals or two colours, because the
pieces all being equal, and of equal number, they all are parts of the
field lying in the same plane, none being charges.
Before leaving the subject of the field, one must not omit to mention
certain exceptions which hardly fall within any of the before-mentioned
categories. One of these can only be described by the word "landscape." It
is not uncommon in British armory, though I know of but one instance where
the actual field itself needs to be so described. This is the coat of the
family of Franco, the paternal ancestors of Sir Massey Lopes, Bart., and
Lord Ludlow. The name was changed from Franco to Lopes by Royal Licence
dated the 4th of May 1831. Whether this coat of arms originated in an
English grant, or whether the English grant of it amounts to no more than
an attempt at the registration of a previously existing or greatly similar
foreign coat of arms for the name of Franco, I am unaware, but the coat
certainly is blazoned: "In a landscape field, a fountain, therefrom issuing
a palm-tree all proper."
But landscape has very extensively been made use of in the augmentations
which were granted at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the
nineteenth centuries. In these cases the augmentation very generally
consisted of a chief and thereon a representation either of some fort or
ship or action, and though the field of the augmentation is officially
blazoned argent in nearly every case, there is no doubt the artist was
permitted, and perhaps intended, to depict clouds and other "atmosphere" to
add to the verisimilitude of the picture. These augmentations will be more
especially considered in a later chapter, but here one may perhaps be
permitted to remark, that execrable as we now consider such landscape
heraldry, it ought not to be condemned in the wholesale manner in which it
has been, because it was typical of the over elaboration to be found in all
art and all artistic ideas of the period in which we find it originating.
Heraldry and heraldic art have {88} always been a mirror of the artistic
ideas prevalent at equivalent periods, and unless heraldry is to be wholly
relegated to consideration as a dead subject, it is an anachronism to
depict an action the date of which is well known (and which date it is
desired to advertise and not conceal) in a method of art belonging to a
different period. In family arms the case is different, as with those the
idea apparently is always the concealment of the date of nobility.
The "landscape" variety of heraldry is more common in Germany than with us,
and Ströhl writes: "Of very little heraldic worth are the old house and
home signs as they were used by landed proprietors, tradesmen, and artisans
or workmen, as indicative of their possessions, wares, or productions.
These signs, originally simply outline pictures, were later introduced into
heraldic soil, inasmuch as bourgeois families raised to the nobility
adopted their house signs as heraldic charges upon their shields."
There are also many coats of arms which run: "In base, a representation of
water proper," and one of the best instances of this will be found in the
arms of Oxford, though for the sake of preserving the pun the coat in this
case is blazoned: "Argent, an ox gules passing over a ford proper." Similar
instances occur in the arms of Renfrew, Queensferry, Leith, Ryde, and
scores of other towns. It has always been considered permissible to
represent these either by an attempt to depict natural water, or else in
the ancient heraldic way of representing water, namely "barry wavy argent
and azure." There are many other coats of arms which are of a similar
character though specifically blazoned "barry wavy argent and azure." Now
this representation of water in base can hardly be properly said to be a
charge, but perhaps it might be dismissed as such were it not that one coat
of arms exists in Scotland, the whole of the field of which is simply a
representation of water. Unfortunately this coat of arms has never been
matriculated in Lyon Register or received official sanction; but there is
no doubt of its ancient usage, and were it to be now matriculated in
conformity with the Act of 1672, there is very little doubt that the
ancient characteristic would be retained. The arms are those of the town of
Inveraray in Argyllshire, and the blazon of the coat, according to the form
it is depicted upon the Corporate seal, would be for the field: "The sea
proper, therein a net suspended from the dexter chief and the sinister fess
points to the base; and entangled in its meshes five herrings," which is
about the most remarkable coat of arms I have ever come across.
Occasionally a "field," or portion of a field, will be found to be a
representation of masonry. This may be either proper or of some metal or
colour. The arms of the city of Bath are: "Party per fesse {89} embattled
azure and argent, the base masonry, in chief two bars wavy of the second;
over all, a sword in pale gules, hilt and pommel or." The arms of Reynell
are: "Argent, masoned sable, a chief indented of the second."
SEME
The use of the term "semé" must be considered before we leave the subject
of the field. It simply means "powdered with" or "strewed with" any
objects, the number of the latter being unlimited, the purpose being to
evenly distribute them over the shield. In depicting anything semé, care is
usually taken that some of the charges (with which the field is semé) shall
be partly defaced by the edges of the shield, or the ordinary upon which
they are charged, or by the superior charge itself, to indicate that the
field is not charged with a specific number of objects.
[Illustration: FIG. 44.--Arms of John, Lord De la Warr (d. 1398). (From MS.
Ashm. 804, iv.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 45.--Arms of John, Lord Beaumont, K.G. (d. 1396). From
his Garter Plate: 1 and 4, Beaumont; 2 and 3, azure, three garbs or (for
Comyn).]
[Illustration: FIG. 46.--Arms of Gilbert Umfraville, Earl of Kyme (d.
1421). (From Harl. MS. 6163.)]
There are certain special terms which may be noted. A field or charge semé
of fleurs-de-lis is termed "semé-de-lis," but if semé of bezants it is
bezanté, and is termed platé if semé of plates.
A field semé of billets is billetty or billetté, and when semé of cross
crosslets it is termed crusilly. A field or charge semé of drops is termed
goutté or gutty.
Instances of coats of which the field is semé will be found in the arms of
De la Warr (see Fig. 44), which are: Gules, crusilly, and a lion rampant
argent; Beaumont (see Fig. 45): Azure, semé-de-lis and a lion rampant or;
and Umfraville (see Fig. 46): Gules, semé of crosses flory, and a
cinquefoil or.
The goutte or drop occasionally figures (in a specified number) as a
charge; but such cases are rare, its more frequent use being to show {90} a
field semé. British heraldry alone has evolved separate names for the
different colours, all other nations simply using the term "goutté" or
"gutté," and specifying the colour. The terms we have adopted are as
follows: For drops of gold, "gutté-d'or"; silver, "gutté-d'eau"; for gules,
"gutté-de-sang"; azure, "gutté-de-larmes"; vert, "gutté-d'huile"; and
sable, "gutté-de-poix."
The term semé must not be confused with diapering, for whilst the objects
with which a field is semé are an integral part of the arms, diapering is a
purely artistic and optional matter.
DIAPERING
The diapering of armorial emblazonments is a matter with which the
_Science_ of armory has no concern. Diaper never forms any part of the
blazon, and is never officially noticed, being considered, and very
properly allowed to remain, a purely artistic detail. From the artistic
point of view it has some importance, as in many of the earliest instances
of handicraft in which armorial decoration appears, very elaborate
diapering is introduced. The frequency with which diapering is met with in
armorial handicraft is strangely at variance with its absence in heraldic
paintings of the same periods, a point which may perhaps be urged upon the
attention of some of the heraldic artists of the present day, who would
rather seem to have failed to grasp the true purpose and origin and perhaps
also the use of diaper. In stained glass and enamel work, where the use of
diaper is most frequently met with, it was introduced for the express
purpose of catching and breaking up the light, the result of which was to
give an enormously increased effect of brilliance to the large and
otherwise flat surfaces. These tricks of their art and craft the old
handicraftsmen were past masters in the use of. But no such purpose could
be served in a small painting upon vellum. For this reason early heraldic
emblazonments are seldom if ever found to have been diapered. With the rise
of heraldic engraving amongst the "little masters" of German art, the
opportunity left to their hands by the absence of colour naturally led to
the renewed use of diaper to avoid the appearance of blanks in their work.
The use of diaper at the present day needs to be the result of careful
study and thought, and its haphazard employment is not recommended.
If, as Woodward states (an assertion one is rather inclined to doubt),
there are some cases abroad in which the constant use of diapering has been
stereotyped into an integral part of the arms, these cases must be
exceedingly few in number, and they certainly have no counterpart in the
armory of this country. Where for artistic reasons {91} diapering is
employed, care must always be taken that the decorative form employed
cannot be mistaken for a field either charged or semé.
PARTITION LINES
If there is one subject which the ordinary text-books of armory treat in
the manner of classification adapted to an essay on natural history or
grammar, with its attendant rigidity of rule, it is the subject of
partition lines; and yet the whole subject is more in the nature of a set
of explanations which must each be learned on its own merits. The usual
lines of partition are themselves well enough known; and it is hardly
necessary to elaborate the different variations at any great length. They
may, however, be enumerated as follows: Engrailed, embattled, indented,
invecked or invected, wavy or undy, nebuly, dancetté, raguly, potenté,
dovetailed, and urdy. These are the lines which are recognised by most
modern heraldic text-books and generally recapitulated; but we shall have
occasion later to refer to others which are very well known, though
apparently they have never been included in the classification of partition
lines (Fig. 47). _Engrailed_, as every one knows, is formed by a continuous
and concurrent series of small semicircles conjoined each to each, the
sharp points formed by the conjunction of the two arcs being placed
_outwards_. This partition line may be employed for the rectilinear charges
known as "ordinaries" or "sub-ordinaries." In the bend, pale, pile, cross,
chief, and fess, when these are described as engrailed the enclosing lines
of the ordinary, other than the edges of the shield, are all composed of
these small semicircles with the points turned _outwards_, and the word
"outwards" must be construed as pointing away from the centre of the
ordinary when it is depicted. In the case of a chief the points are turned
downwards, but it is rather difficult to describe the use of the term when
used as a partition line of the field. The only instance I can call to mind
where it is so employed is the case of Baird of Ury, the arms of this
family being: Per pale engrailed gules and or, a boar passant
counterchanged. In this instance the points are turned towards the sinister
side of the shield, which would seem to be correct, as, there being no
ordinary, they must be outwards from the most important position affected,
which in this case undoubtedly is the dexter side of the shield. In the
same way "per fess engrailed" would be presumably depicted with the points
outwards from the chief line of the shield, that is, they would point
downwards; and I should imagine that in "per bend engrailed" the points of
the semicircles would again be placed inclined towards the dexter base of
the shield, but I may be wrong in these two latter cases, for they are only
supposition. This {92} point, however, which puzzled me much in depicting
the arms of Baird of Ury, I could find explained in no text-book upon the
subject.
[Illustration: FIG. 47.--Lines of Partition.]
The term _invected_ or _invecked_ is the precise opposite of engrailed. It
is similarly composed of small semicircles, but the points are turned
inwards instead of outwards, so that it is no more than the exact reverse
of engrailed, and all the regulations concerning the one need to be
observed concerning the other, with the proviso that they are reversed.
{93}
The partition line _embattled_ has certain peculiarities of its own. When
dividing the field there can be no difficulty about it, inasmuch as the
crenellations are equally inwards and outwards from any point, and it
should be noted that the term "crenellé" is almost as often used as
"embattled." When, however, the term describes an ordinary, certain points
have to be borne in mind. The fess or the bar embattled is drawn with the
crenellations _on the upper side_ only, the under edge being plain unless
the ordinary is described both as "embattled and counter-embattled."
Similarly a chevron is only crenellated on the upper edge unless it is
described as both embattled and counter-embattled, but a pale embattled is
crenellated on both edges as is the cross or saltire. Strictly speaking, a
bend embattled is crenellated upon the upper edge only, though with regard
to this ordinary there is much laxity of practice. I have never come across
a pile embattled; but it would naturally be embattled on both edges. Some
writers make a distinction between embattled and bretessed, giving to the
former term the meaning that the embattlements on the one side are opposed
to the indentations on the other, and using the term bretessed to signify
that embattlements are opposite embattlements and indentations opposite
indentations. I am doubtful as to the accuracy of this distinction, because
the French term bretessé means only counter-embattled.
The terms _indented_ and _dancetté_ need to be considered together, because
they differ very little, and only in the fact that whilst indented may be
drawn with any number of teeth, dancetté is drawn with a limited number,
which is usually three complete teeth in the width of the field. But it
should be observed that this rule is not so hard and fast that the
necessity of artistic depicting may not modify it slightly. An ordinary
which is indented would follow much the same rules as an ordinary which was
engrailed, except that the teeth are made by small straight lines for the
indentations instead of by small semicircles, and instances can doubtless
be found of all the ordinaries qualified by the term indented. Dancetté,
however, does not lend itself so readily to general application, and is
usually to be found applied to either a fess or chief, or occasionally a
bend. In the case of a fess dancetté the indentations on the top and bottom
lines are made to fit into each other, so that instead of having a straight
band with the edge merely toothed, one gets an up and down zig-zag band
with three complete teeth at the top and three complete teeth at the
bottom. Whilst a fess, a bar, a bend, and a chief can be found dancetté, I
do not see how it would be possible to draw a saltire or a cross dancetté.
At any rate the resulting figure would be most ugly, and would appear
ill-balanced. A pile and a chevron seem equally impossible, though there
does not {94} seem to be the like objection to a pale dancetté. An instance
of a bend dancetté is found in the arms of Cuffe (Lord Desart), which are:
Argent, on a bend dancetté sable, plain cotised azure, three fleurs-de-lis,
and on each cotise as many bezants.
_Wavy_ or _undy_, which is supposed to have been taken from water, and
_nebuly_, which is supposed to be derived from clouds, are of course lines
which are well known. They are equally applicable to any ordinary and to
any partition of the field; but in both cases it should be noticed by
artists that there is no one definite or accepted method of depicting these
lines, and one is quite at liberty, and might be recommended, to widen out
the indentations, or to increase them in height, as the artistic
requirements of the work in hand may seem to render advisable. It is only
by bearing this in mind and treating these lines with freedom that really
artistic work can sometimes be produced where they occur. There is no fixed
rule either as to the width which these lines may occupy or as to the
number of indentations as compared with the width of the shield, and it is
a pity to introduce or recognise any regulations of this character where
none exist. There are writers who think it not unlikely that vairé and
barry nebuly were one and the same thing. It is at any rate difficult in
some old representations to draw any noticeable distinctions between the
methods of depicting barry nebuly and vair.
The line _raguly_ has been the subject of much discussion. It, and the two
which follow, viz. potenté and dovetailed, are all comparatively modern
introductions. It would be interesting if some enthusiast would go
carefully through the ancient Rolls of Arms and find the earliest
occurrences of these terms. My own impression is that they would all be
found to be inventions of the mediæval writers on heraldry. Raguly is the
same as embattled, with the crenellations put upon the slant. Some writers
say they should slant one way, others give them slanting the reverse. In a
pale or a bend the teeth must point upwards; but in a fess I should
hesitate to say whether it were more correct for them to point to the
dexter or to the sinister, and I am inclined to consider that either is
perfectly correct. At any rate, whilst they are usually drawn inclined to
the dexter, in Woodward and Burnett they are to the sinister, and Guillim
gives them turned to the dexter, saying, "This form of line I never yet met
with in use as a partition, though frequently in composing of ordinaries
referring them like to the trunks of trees with the branches lopped off,
and that (as I take it) it was intended to represent." Modern heraldry
supplies an instance which in the days of Mr. Guillim, of course, did not
exist to refer to. This instance occurs in the arms of the late Lord
Leighton, which were: "Quarterly per fesse raguly or and gules, in the
second and {95} third quarters a wyvern of the first." It is curious that
Guillim, even in the edition of 1724, does not mention any of the remaining
terms. Dovetailed in modern armory is even yet but seldom made use of,
though I can quote two instances of coats of arms in which it is to be
found, namely, the arms of Kirk, which are: "Gules, a chevron dovetailed
ermine, on a chief argent, three dragons' heads couped of the field;" and
Ambrose: "Azure, two lions passant in pale argent, on a chief dovetailed of
the last, a fleur-de-lis between two annulets of the first." Other
instances of dovetailed used as a line of partition will be found in the
case of the arms of Farmer, which are: "Per chevron dovetailed gules and
argent, in chief two lions' heads erased of the last, and in base a
salamander in flames proper;" and in the arms of Fenton namely: "Per pale
argent and sable, a cross dovetailed, in the first and fourth quarters a
fleur-de-lis, and in the second and third a trefoil slipped all
countercharged." There are, of course, many others. The term _potenté_, as
will be seen from a reference to Fig. 47, is used to indicate a line which
follows the form of the division lines in the fur potent. As one of the
partition lines potenté is very rare.
As to the term _urdy_, which is given in Woodward and Burnett and also in
Berry, I can only say I personally have never come across an instance of
its use as a partition line. A cross or a billet urdy one knows, but urdy
as a partition line I have yet to find. It is significant that it is
omitted in Parker except as a term applicable to a cross, and the instances
and variations given by Berry, "urdy in point paleways" and "contrary
urdy," I should be much more inclined to consider as variations of vair;
and, though it is always well to settle points which can be settled, I
think urdy and its use as a partition line may be well left for further
consideration when examples of it come to hand.
There is one term, however, which is to be met with at the present time,
but which I have never seen quoted in any text-book under the heading of a
partition line; that is, "flory counter-flory," which is of course formed
by a succession of fleurs-de-lis alternately reversed and counterchanged.
They might of course be blazoned after the quotation of the field as "per
bend" or "per chevron" as the case might be, simply as so many
fleurs-de-lis counterchanged, and alternately reversed in a specified
position; but this never appears to be the case, and consequently the
fleurs-de-lis would appear to be essentially parts of the field and not
charges. I have sometimes thought whether it would not be more correct to
depict "per something" flory and counter-flory without completing the
fleurs-de-lis, simply leaving the alternate tops of the fleurs-de-lis to
show. In the cases of the illustrations which have come under my notice,
however, the whole fleur-de-lis is depicted, and as an instance of the use
of the term may be mentioned the arms of {96} Dumas, which are: "Per
chevron flory and counter-flory or and azure, in chief two lions' gambs
erased, and in base a garb counterchanged." But when the term flory and
counter-flory is used in conjunction with an ordinary, _e.g._ a fess flory
and counter-flory, the _half_ fleurs-de-lis, only alternately reversed, are
represented on the _outer_ edges of the ordinary.
I think also that the word "_arched_" should now be included as a partition
line. I confess that the only form in which I know of it is that it is
frequently used by the present Garter King of Arms in designing coats of
arms with chiefs arched. Recently Garter has granted a coat with a chief
double arched. But if a chief can be arched I see no reason why a fesse or
a bar cannot equally be so altered, and in that case it undoubtedly becomes
a recognised line of partition. Perhaps it should be stated that a chief
arched is a chief with its base line one arc of a large circle. The
diameter of the circle and the consequent acuteness of the arch do not
appear to be fixed by any definite rule, and here again artistic
requirements must be the controlling factor in any decision. Elvin in his
"Dictionary of Heraldic Terms" gives a curious assortment of lines, the
most curious of all, perhaps, being indented embowed, or hacked and hewed.
Where such a term originated or in what coat of arms it is to be found I am
ignorant, but the appearance is exactly what would be presented by a piece
of wood hacked with an axe at regular intervals. Elvin again makes a
difference between bretessed and embattled-counter-embattled, making the
embattlement on either side of an ordinary identical in the former and
alternated in the latter. He also makes a difference between raguly, which
is the conventional form universally adopted, and raguled and trunked,
where the ordinary takes the representation of the trunk of a tree with the
branches lopped; but these and many others that he gives are refinements of
idea which personally I should never expect to find in actual use, and of
the instances of which I am unaware. I think, however, the term
"_rayonné_," which is found in both the arms of O'Hara and the arms of
Colman, and which is formed by the addition of rays to the ordinary, should
take a place amongst lines of partition, though I admit I know of no
instance in which it is employed to divide the field.
METHODS OF PARTITION
The field of any coat of arms is the surface colour of the shield, and is
supposed to include the area within the limits formed by its outline. There
are, as has been already stated, but few coats of a single colour minus a
charge to be found in British heraldry. But there {97} are many which
consist of a field divided by partition lines only, of which some instances
were given on page 69.
A shield may be divided by partition lines running in the direction of
almost any "ordinary," in which case the field will be described as "per
bend" or "per chevron," &c. It may be:
Per fess Fig. 48
Per bend " 49
Per bend sinister " 50
Per pale " 51
Per chevron " 52
Per cross " 53
(though it should be noted that the more usual term employed
for this is "quarterly")
Per saltire Fig. 54
But a field cannot be "per pile" or "per chief," because there is no other
way of representing these ordinaries.
[Illustration: FIG. 48.--Per fess.]
[Illustration: FIG. 49.--Per bend.]
[Illustration: FIG. 50.--Per bend sinister.]
[Illustration: FIG. 51.--Per pale.]
[Illustration: FIG. 52.--Per chevron.]
[Illustration: FIG. 53.--Per cross or quarterly.]
A field can be composed of any number of pieces in the form of the
ordinaries filling the area of the shield, in which case the field is said
to be "barry" (Figs. 55 and 56), "paly" (Fig. 57), "bendy" (Fig. 58),
"chevronny" (Fig. 59), &c., but the number of pieces must be specified.
{98}
[Illustration: FIG. 54.--Per saltire.]
[Illustration: FIG. 55.--Barry.]
[Illustration: FIG. 56.--Barry nebuly.]
[Illustration: FIG. 57.--Paly.]
[Illustration: FIG. 58.--Bendy.]
[Illustration: FIG. 59.--Chevronny.]
Another method of partition will be found in the fields "checky" (or
"chequy") and lozengy; but these divisions, as also the foregoing, will be
treated more specifically under the different ordinaries. A field which is
party need not necessarily have all its lines of partition the same. This
peculiarity, however, seldom occurs except in the case of a field
quarterly, the object in coats of this character being to prevent different
quarters of one coat of arms being ranked as or taken to be quarterings
representing different families. {99}