HERALDRY

A SCIENCE which teaches how to blazon, or explain in proper terms, all that belongs to coats-of-arms; and how to marshal, or dispose regularly, divers arms on a field. It also teaches whatever relates to the marshalling of solemn cavalcades, processions, and other public ceremonies at coronations, installations, creations of peers, nuptials, christening of princes, funerals, &c.

Arms, or coats-of-arms, are hereditary marks of honour, made up of fixed and determined colours and figures, granted by sovereign princes, as a reward for military valour, a shining virtue, or a signal public service; and which serve to denote the descent and alliance of the bearer, or to distinguish states, cities, societies, &c. civil, ecclesiastical, and military.

Thus heraldry is the science, of which arms are the proper object; but yet they differ much both in their origin and antiquity. Heraldry, according to Sir George Mackenzie, "as digested into an art, and subjected to rules, must be ascribed to Charlemagne and Frederick Barbarossa, for it did begin and grow with the feudal law." Sir John Ferne is of opinion, that we did borrow arms from the Egyptians; meaning, from their hieroglyphics. Sir William Dugdale mentions, that arms, as marks of honour, were used by great commanders in war, necessity requiring that their persons should be notified to their friends and followers. The learned Alexander Nibet, in his excellent system of heraldry, says, that arms owe their rise and beginning to the light of nature, and that signs and marks of honour were made use of in the first ages of the world, and by all nations, however simple and illiterate, to distinguish the noble from the ignoble. We find in Homer, Virgil, and Ovid, that their heroes had divers figures on their shields, whereby their persons were distinctly known. Alexander the Great, desirous to honour those of his captains and soldiers who had done any glorious action, and also to excite an emulation among the rest, did grant them certain badges to be borne on their armour, pennons, and banners; ordering, at the same time, that no person or potentate, through his empire, should attempt or presume to give or tolerate the bearing of those signs upon the armour of any man, but it should be a power reserved to himself; which prerogative has been claimed ever since by all other kings and sovereign princes within their dominions.

After these and many other different opinions, all that can be said with any certainty is, that in all ages, men have made use of figures of living creatures, or symbolical signs, to denote the bravery and courage either of their chief or nation, to render themselves the more terrible to their enemies, and even to distinguish themselves or families, as names do individuals. The famous C. Agrippa, in his treatise of the vanity of sciences, cap. 81. has collected many instances of these marks of distinction, anciently borne by kingdoms and states that were any way civilized, viz.

The last is still borne in the arms of his present Britannic majesty. As to hereditary arms of families, William Camden, Sir Henry Spelman, and other judicious heralds, agree, that they began no sooner than towards the latter end of the 11th century. According to Father Meneſtrier's opinion, a French writer whose authority is of great weight in this matter, Henry l'Oiseleur (the Falconer) who was raised to the imperial throne of the West in 920, by regulating tournaments in Germany gave occasion to the establishment of family-arms, or hereditary marks of honour, which undeniably are more ancient and better observed among the Germans than in any other nation. Moreover, this last author asserts, that with tournaments first came up coats-of-arms; which were a sort of livery, made up of several lists, fillets, or narrow pieces of stuff of divers colours, from whence came the fess, the bead, the pale, &c. which were the original charges of family-arms; for they who never had been at tournaments, had not such marks of distinction. They who insisted themselves in the Croisades, took up also several new figures hitherto unknown in armorial ensigns; such as alerions, bezants, eſcalop-shells, martlets, &c. but more particularly crosses, of different colours for distinction's sake. From this it may be concluded, that heraldry, like most human inventions, was insensibly introduced and established; and that, after having been rude and unsettled for many ages, it was at last methodized, perfected, and fixed, by the Croisades and tournaments.

These marks of honour are called arms, from their being principally and first worn by military men at war and tournaments, who had them engraved, embossed, or depicted on shields, targets, banners, or other martial instruments. They are also called coats-of-arms, from the custom of the ancients embroidering them on the coats they wore over their arms, as heralds do to this day.

Arms are distinguished by different names, to denote the causes of their bearing; such as,

Arms of dominion or sovereignty are those which emperors, kings, and sovereign states, do constantly bear; being, as it were, annexed to the territories, kingdoms, and

Hereditary and provinces, they possess. Thus the three lions are the arms of England, the fleurs-de-lis those of France, &c.

Arms of pretension, are those of such kingdoms, provinces, or territories, to which a prince or lord has some claim, and which he adds to his own, although the said kingdoms or territories be possessed by a foreign prince or other lord. Thus the kings of England have quartered the arms of France with their own, ever since Edward III. laid claim to the kingdom of France, which happened in the year 1330, on account of his being son to Isabella, sister to Charles the Handsome, who died without issue.

Arms of concession or augmentation of honour, are either entire arms, or else one or more figures, given by princes as a reward for some extraordinary service. We read in history, that Robert Bruce, king of Scotland, allowed the earl of Winton's ancestor to bear, in his coat-armour, a crown supported by a sword, to show that he, and the clan Seaton, of which he was the head, supported his tottering crown. Queen Anne granted to Sir Cloudesly Shovel, rear-admiral of Great Britain, a cheveron between two fleurs-de-lis in chief, and a crescent in base, to denote three great victories he had gained; two over the French, and one over the Turks.

Arms of community, are those of bishoprics, cities, universities, academies, societies, companies, and other bodies corporate.

Arms of patronage, are such as governors of provinces, lords of manors, patrons of benefices, &c. add to their family-arms, as a token of their superiority, rights, and jurisdiction. These arms have introduced into heraldry, castles, gates, wheels, ploughs, rakes, harrows, &c.

Arms of family, or paternal arms, are those that belong to one particular family, that distinguish it from others, and which no person is suffered to assume without committing a crime, which sovereigns have a right to restrain and punish.

Arms of alliance, are those which families, or private persons, take up and join to their own, to denote the alliances they have contracted by marriage. This sort of arms is either impaled, or borne in an escutcheon of pretence, by those who have married heiresses.

Arms of succession, are such as are taken up by them who inherit certain estates, manors, &c. either by will, entail, or donation, and which they either impale or quarter with their own arms; which multiplies the titles of some families out of necessity, and not through ostentation, as many imagine.

These are the eight classes under which the divers sorts of arms are generally ranged; but there is a sort which blazoners call assumptive arms, being such as are taken up by the caprice or fancy of upstarts, though of ever so mean extraction, who, being advanced to a degree of fortune, assume them without a legal title. This, indeed, is a great abuse of heraldry; and common only in Britain, for on the continent no such practice takes place.

We now proceed to consider the essential and integral parts of arms, which are these:

The ESCUTCHEON,      The CHARGES,
The TINCTURES,      The ORNAMENTS.

CHAP. I. Of the Shield or Escutcheon.

The shield or escutcheon is the field or ground whereon are represented the figures that make up a coat of arms: for these marks of distinction were put on bucklers or shields before they were placed on banners, standards, flags, and coat-armour; and wherever they may be fixed, they are still on a plane or superficies whose form resembles a shield.

Shields, in Heraldry called escutcheons or scutcheons, from the Latin word scutum, have been, and still are, of different forms according to different times and nations. Among ancient shields, some were almost like a horse-shoe, such as is represented by n^o 1. in the figure of Escutcheons; others triangular, somewhat rounded at the bottom, as n^o 2. The people who inhabited Mesopotamia, now called Diarbecke, made use of this sort of shield, which it is thought they had of the Trojans. Sometimes the shield was heptagonal, that is, had seven sides, as n^o 3. The first of this shape is said to have been used by the famous triumvir M. Antony. That of knights-banneret was square, like a banner, as n^o 4. As to modern escutcheons, those of the Italians, particularly of ecclesiastics, are generally oval, as n^o 5. The English, French, Germans, and other nations, have their escutcheons formed different ways, according to the carver's or painter's fancy: see the various examples contained from n^o 6—16 of the figure. But the escutcheon of maids, widows, and of such as are born ladies, and are married to private gentlemen, is of the form of a lozenge: See n^o 17—20. Sir George Mackenzie mentions one Muriel, countess of Strathern, who carried her arms in a lozenge, anno 1284, which shows how long we have been versant in heraldry.

Armorists distinguish several parts or points in escutcheons, in order to determine exactly the position of the bearings they are charged with; they are here denoted by the first nine letters of the alphabet, ranged in the following manner:

A—the dexter chief.
B—the precise middle chief.
C—the sinister chief.
D—the honour point.
E—the sest point.
F—the nombrel point.
G—the dexter base.
H—the middle precise base.
I—the sinister base.

The knowledge of these points is of great importance, and ought to be well observed, for they are frequently occupied with several things of different kinds. It is necessary to observe, that the dexter side of the escutcheon is opposite to the left hand, and the sinister side to the right hand, of the person that looks on it.

CHAP. II. Of Tinctures, Furs, Lines, and Differences.

SECT. I. Of Tinctures.

By tinctures is meant that variable hue of arms which is common both to shields and their bearings. According

The Tinctures. According to the French heralds, there are but seven tinctures in armour; of which two are metals, the other five are colours.

The Metals are.

The Colours are.

When natural bodies, such as animals, plants, celestial bodies, &c. are introduced into coats of arms, they frequently retain their natural colours, which is expressed in this science by the word proper.

Besides the five colours above mentioned, the English writers on heraldry admit two others, viz.

But these two are rarely to be found in British bearings.

These tinctures are represented in engravings and drawings (the invention of the ingenious Silvester Petra Sancta, an Italian author of the 17th century) by dots and lines, as in fig. ii. n^o 1-9.

Or is expressed by dots.

Argent needs no mark, and is therefore plain.

Azure, by horizontal lines.

Gules, by perpendicular lines.

Vert, by diagonal lines from the dexter chief to the sinister base points.

Purpure, by diagonal lines from the sinister chief to the dexter base points.

Sable, by perpendicular and horizontal lines crossing each other.

Tenny, by diagonal lines from the sinister chief to the dexter base points, traversed by horizontal lines.

Sanguine, by lines crossing each other diagonally from dexter to sinister, and from sinister to dexter.

Sir George McKenzie observes, that "some fantastic heralds have blazoned not only by the ordinary colours and metals, but by flowers, days of the week, parts of a man's body, &c. and have been condemned for it by the heralds of all nations. Yet the English have so far owned this fancy," (the most judicious of them, as Mr Cartwright and others, reprobate it as absurd); "that they give it for a rule, that the coats of sovereigns should be blazoned by the planets, those of noblemen by precious stones; and have suited them in the manner here set down:

"But I crave leave to say, that these are but mere fancies; and are likewise unfit for the art, for these reasons: 1^st, The French (from whom the English derive their heraldry, not only in principles, but in words of the French language) do not only not use these different ways of blazoning, but treat them ridicule. 2^dy, The Italian, Spanish, and Latin heralds use so such different forms, but blazon by the ordinary metals and colours. 3^dy, Art should imitate nature; and as it would be an unnatural thing in common discourse not to call red red because a prince wears it, so it is unnatural to use these terms in heraldry. And it may fall out to be very ridiculous in some arms: for instance, if a prince had for his arms an asi couchant under his burden gules, how ridiculous would it be to say he had an asi couchant Mars?—A hundred other examples might be given; but it is enough to say, that this is to confound colours with charges, and the things that are borne with colours. 4^thly, It makes the art unpleasant, and deters gentlemen from studying it, and strangers from understanding what our heraldry is; nor could the arms of our princes and nobility be translated in this disguise into Latin or any other language. But that which convinces most that this is an error is, because it makes that great rule unnecessary, whereby colour cannot be put upon colour, nor metal upon metal; but this cannot hold but where metals and colours are expressed."

The English heralds give different names to the roundlet (N^o 10), according to its colour. Thus, if it is

The French, and all others nations, do not admit such a multiplicity of names to this figure; but call them Bezaunts, after an ancient coin struck at Constantinople, once Byzantium, if they are Or and Torneau; or of any other tincture, expressing the same.

SECT. II. Of Furs.

Furs represents the hairy skin of certain beasts, prepared for the doublings or linings of robes and garments of state: and as shields were anciently covered with furred skins, they are therefore used in heraldry not only for the linings of the mantles, and other ornaments of the shields, but also in the coats of arms themselves.

There are three different kinds in general use, viz.

1. Ermine; which is a field argent, powdered with black spots, their tails terminating in three hairs. (Fig. ii. N^o 11.)

2. Counter-ermine, where the field is sable, and the powdering white. (N^o 12.)

3. Vair (N^o 13.), which is expressed by blue and white skins, cut into the forms of little bells, ranged in rows opposite to each other, the base of the white ones