Persons of the middle class, not entitled to coat-armour, invented certain arbitrary signs called Merchants’ Marks, and these often occur in the stonework and windows of old buildings, and upon tombs. Piers Plowman, who wrote in the reign of Edward III, speaks of “merchauntes’ markes ymedeled” in glass. Sometimes these marks were impaled with the paternal arms of aristocratic merchants, as in the case of John Halle, a wealthy woolstapler of Salisbury, rendered immortal by the Rev. Edward Duke in his ‘Prolusiones Historicæ.’ The early printers and painters likewise adopted similar marks, which are to be seen on their respective works.[73] A rude monogram seems to have been attempted, and it was generally accompanied with a cross, and, occasionally, a hint at the inventor’s peculiar pursuit, as in the cut here given, where the staple at the bottom refers to the worthy John Halle’s having been a merchant of the staple. The heralds objected to such marks being placed upon a shield, for, says the writer of Harl. MS. 2252 (fol. 10), “Theys be none Armys, for every man may take hym a marke, but not armys without a herawde or purcyvaunte;” and in “The duty and office of an herald,” by F. Thynne, Lancaster Herald, 1605, the officer is directed “to prohibit merchants and others to put their names, marks, or devices, in escutcheons or shields, which belong to gentlemen bearing arms and none others.”

At the commencement of the fifteenth century considerable confusion seems to have arisen from upstarts having assumed the arms of antient families—a fact which shows that armorial bearings began to be considered the indispensable accompaniment of wealth. So great had this abuse become that, in the year 1419, it was deemed necessary to issue a royal mandate to the sheriff of every county “to summon all persons bearing arms to prove their right to them,” a task of no small difficulty, it may be presumed, in many cases. Many of the claims then made were referred to the heralds as commissioners, “but the first regular chapter held by them in a collective capacity was at the siege of Rouen, in 1420.”[74]

The first King of Arms was William Bruges, created by Henry V. Several grants of arms made by him from 1439 to 1459 are recorded in the College of Arms.

During the sanguinary struggle between the Houses of Lancaster and York “arms were universally used, and most religiously and pertinaciously maintained.” Sometimes, however, when the different branches of a family espoused opposing interests they varied their arms either in the charges or colours, or both. The antient family of Lower of Cornwall originally bore “... a cheveron between three red roses,” but espousing, it is supposed, the Yorkist, or white-rose side of the question, they changed the tincture of their arms to “sable, a cheveron between three white roses,”[75] the coat borne by their descendants to this day. The interest taken by the Cornish gentry in these civil dissensions may account for the frequency of the rose in the arms of Cornwall families. The red rose in the centre of the arms of Lord Abergavenny was placed there by his ancestor, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, “better known as the king-maker,” “to show himself the faithful homager and soldier of the House of Lancaster.”[76]

The non-heraldric reader will require a definition of what, in the technical phrase of blazon, are called differences. These are certain marks, smaller than ordinary charges, placed upon a conspicuous part of the shield for the purpose of distinguishing the sons of a common parent from each other. Thus, the eldest son bears a label; the second a crescent; the third a mullet; the fourth a martlet; the fifth an annulet; and the sixth a fleur-de-lis. The arms of the six sons of Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who died 30^o Edward III, were, in the window of St. Mary’s Church, Warwick, differenced in this manner.[77] These distinctions are carried still further, for the sons of a second son bear the label, crescent, mullet, &c. upon a crescent; those of a third son the same upon a mullet, respectively. In the third generation the mark of cadency is again superimposed upon the two preceding differences, producing, at length, unutterable confusion. Dugdale published a work, in 1682, on the differences of arms, in which he condemns this system, and suggests a return to the antient mode, which consisted in varying the colours and charges of the field, though preserving the general characteristics of the hereditary bearing. For example, Beauchamp of Elmley branched out into four lines; the eldest line bore the paternal arms, Gules a fess, or; the other three superadded to this bearing a charge or, six times repeated, namely,

and among the further ramifications of the family we find

and upwards of ten other coats, all preserving the field gules and the fess or. The Bassets, according to the Ashmolean MSS.[78] varied their coat 7 times, the Lisles 4, the Nevilles 11, and the Braoses 5.

An interesting example of early differencing is cited by Sir Harris Nicolas, in his ‘Roll of Carlaverok.’[79] In the early part of the fourteenth century—

Surnames in these early times were in a very unsettled state, for the younger branches of a family, acquiring new settlements by marriage and otherwise, abandoned their patronymics, and adopted new ones derived from the seignories so acquired.[80] Hence it often happens that arms are identical or similar, when the relationship is not recognized by identity of appellation.

Illegitimate children generally bore the paternal ensigns differenced by certain brizures. Thus John de Beaufort, eldest natural son of John of Gaunt, bore Per pale argent and azure [blue and white being the colours of the House of Lancaster] on a bend gules, three lions passant-guardant or [the royal arms of England] in the upper part of the bend a label azure, charged with nine fleur-de-lis or.[81] The arms borne in the usual manner were often surrounded with a bordure to indicate bastardy; of this mode of differencing several examples are furnished in the arms of existing peers descended from royalty. Some of the descendants of Henry Beaufort, third duke of Somerset, placed the Beaufort arms upon a fesse, and numerous similar instances might be adduced.

The mode of differencing by alterations, or the addition of new charges, however commended by Dugdale and other great names, is certainly exposed to the same objection as the use of the label, crescent, mullet, &c., as tending equally to confusion; for, with the addition of cross-crosslets, billets, &c., to the primary charge of the Beauchamps, no herald will dare assert that the original arms are preserved. It is a canon of heraldry that “Omnia arma arithmeticis figuris sunt simillima, quibus si quid addas vel subtrahas non remanet eadem species.” Every alteration, however slight, produces a new coat, and thus the principal advantage of coat armour—its hereditary character—is sacrificed. In fact, a coat of arms is the symbol of a generic, or family, name, and it is not within the compass of the heraldric art to particularize individual branches and members of a family by any additions or changes whatever, at least to any great extent.[82]

“The numerous class of men who were termed Armigeri, or gentry of coat-armour,” observes Dallaway, “very generally took, with a small variation, the escocheon of that feudal lord whose property and influence extended over that province which they inhabited,” and Camden, in his ‘Remaines,’ says, “Whereas the earles of Chester bare garbes or wheat-sheafes, many gentlemen of that countrey took wheatsheafes. Whereas the old earles of Warwicke bare chequy or and azure, a cheueron ermin, many thereabout tooke ermine and chequy. In Leicestershire and the countrey confining diuers bare cinquefoyles, for that the ancient earles of Leicester bare geules, a cinquefoyle ermine, &c.” This was a fertile source of new bearings.

Sometimes, in the absence of other evidence of one family’s having been feudally dependent upon another, presumptive proof is furnished by a similarity between the arms. I subjoin an instance. The coat of the baronial family of Echingham of Echingham, co. Sussex, was ‘Azure a fret argent,’ and the crest, ‘A DEMI-LION RAMPANT ARGENT.’

The arms of Jefferay, of Chiddingly, in the same county, were ‘Azure fretty or’ (with the addition of a lion passant-guardant, gules, on a chief argent), and the crest, A lion’s head erased argent, ducally crowned azure. The first settlement of the Jefferays was at Betchington, co. Sussex, an estate which had previously belonged to the lords Echingham, but there is no proof of the feudal connexion except that which is furnished by a comparison of the arms.

Richard III greatly promoted the cause of Heraldry in England by the erection of the heralds into the corporate body which still exists under the designation of the College of Arms. This epoch may be considered the noonday of the history of armory in England; and as two subsequent chapters of this volume, devoted respectively to the history of that institution, and to notices of celebrated writers on heraldry, will bring down the annals of the science to our own times, “I here make an end” of a chapter which I trust may not have been found totally devoid of interest to any reader who loves to trace the records of the past.

CHAPTER III.

Dictionaries of the technical terms employed in heraldry are so common, and the elements of the science so well explained in various popular treatises,[83] that it would be impertinent in an essay like the present to go into all the details usually comprised in those useful books of reference. Still it may interest the general reader, and will, I trust, give no offence to adepts in the science, if I offer a few observations on this subject, with illustrations from our old writers, adding some etymological conjectures of my own.

The origin of the expression ‘a coat of arms’ we have already seen, as also the cause why heraldric ensigns are borne upon a shield. Shields have been made of every imaginable shape according to the taste of the age or the fancy of the bearer, with these two restrictions, that the shields of knights-bannerets must be square, and those of ladies in the form of a lozenge. The most usual, because the most convenient, shape is that which is technically called the heater-shield—from its resemblance to the heater of an iron—with some slight variations. Our friend Sylvanus Morgan, whose ingenuity all must admire, in defiance of the oft-quoted proverb:

“When Adam digged and Eve span,
Who was then the Gentleman?”

deduces this shape for men, and that of the lozenge for women, from the spade of Adam, and the spindle of Eve!

The ground or field of every coat of arms must be either of metal, colour, or fur. The METALS of heraldry are, Or==gold, and argent==silver, and as the shield of war was antiently of metal, either embossed or enamelled, the retention of the two precious metals as the field of an escocheon is easily accounted for. The COLOURS are gules, azure, vert, purpure, sable, tenne, and sanguine. While some of these terms are French; others, though coming to us through that medium, are originally from other languages. Gules, according to Ducange, is goulis, guelle, gula sive guella, the red colour of the mouth or throat of an animal. Mackenzie derives it from the Hebrew gulude, a piece of red cloth, or from the Arabic gule, a red rose. Ghul in the Persian signifies rose-coloured, and Ghulistan is ‘the country of roses.’ It is probably one of those importations from the East which the Crusades introduced, both into the elements of armory and the nomenclature of the science. It was sometimes called vermeil[84] (vermilion) and rouget. An antient knight is represented as bearing a plain red banner without any charge:

“Mais Eurmenions de la Brette
La baniere eut toute rougecte.”[85]

The barbarous term blodius was likewise occasionally used to express this colour.

Azure==light-blue, is a French corruption of the Arabic word lazur or lazuli. The lapis lazuli is a copper ore, very compact and hard, which is found in detached lumps, of an elegant blue colour, and to it the artist is indebted for his beautiful ultra-marine. This colour, still one of the dearest of pigments, was antiently in great request, and called ‘beyond-sea azure.’[86] The lapis lazuli is found in Persia, Bucharia, and China.

Vert (French) is light green. This word was applied at an early period “to every thing,” says Cowell, “that grows and bears a green leaf within the forest that may cover and hide a deer.” Vert and venison, in the vocabulary of woodcraft, were as inseparable as shadow and substance. To vert signified to enter the forest, as in an old song of the thirteenth century:

“Sumer is i-cumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu;
Groweth sed and bloweth med,
And springeth the wde nu.
Sing Cuccu, Cuccu!

Awe bleteth after lomb,
Lhouth after calvé cu,
Bulluc sterteth,
Bucke VERTETH,
Murie sing Cuccu,” etc.

This colour was antiently called synople, and in the Boke of St. Albans synobylt, a word which Colombiere derives from the Latin sinopis, a dyeing mineral,[87] or from Synople, a town in the Levant, whence a green dye was procured.

Of Sable the derivation is very uncertain. It seems unlikely to have been taken from the colour of the diminutive animal now known by this name, first, because it would then rank under the category of furs; and, secondly, because that animal is far from black. Indeed, the best sable is of a light brown or sand colour. Dallaway quotes a line, however, which might be adduced in support of this derivation:

“Sables, ermines, vair et gris.”

Guillim derives it from sabulum, gross sand or gravel, but this seems very improbable, although I have nothing better to substitute. It is curious that ‘sable’ and ‘azure’ should have been selected from the ‘jargon’ of heraldry for poetical use, to the exclusion of other similar terms:

“By this the drooping daylight ’gan to fade,
And yield his room to sad succeeding night,
Who with her sable mantle ’gan to shade
The face of earth, and ways of living wight.”
Faerie Queen.

“Thus replies
Minerva, graceful, with her azure eyes.”
Pope.

Purpure (purple) is not common in English armory: still less so are the stainant or disgraceful colours, Tenny (orange) and Murrey, which Dr. Johnson defines as “darkly red,” deriving it through the French morée, and the Italian morello. The fine cherry designated by this last word is, when ripe, of the exact colour intended by murrey. Bacon says, “Leaves of some trees turn a little murrey, or reddish;” and “a waistcoat of murrey-coloured satin” occurs in the writings of Arbuthnot.

By these terms were the arms of gentlemen described; but for the arms of nobility they were not sufficiently lofty. These were blazoned by the precious stones, as topaz for yellow, ruby for red, &c. For the arms of princes it was necessary to go a step higher, namely, to the heavenly bodies, Sol, Luna, Mars, &c. Sir John Ferne enumerates several other sets of terms, in all thirteen, which he classifies thus: 1, planets; 2, precious stones; 3, vertues; 4, celestiall signes; 5, months; 6, days of the week; 7, ages of man; 8, flowers; 9, elements; 10, sesons of the yeer; 11, complexions; 12, numbers; 13, mettailes. What would those who are disgusted with the ‘jargon’ of our science say to such blazon as the following?—

He beareth Sunday, a lion rampant Tuesday.
He beareth Faith, a wolf salient Loyalty.
He beareth Marigold, a bear passant, Blue Lily, muzzled White Rose.
He beareth, Infancy, three grasshoppers Virility.
He beareth, Melancholy, three asses’ heads, Flegmatique!

I must confess that, in the course of my heraldric reading, I have never met with blazon of this singular description, but Ferne assures his reader that it may be his fortune “to light upon such phantasticall termes,” and he gives an historical and philosophical account of their origin. So recently as the last century the planets and gems were used in royal and noble armory, but of late good taste has limited blazon to the first-mentioned and most simple set of terms in all cases.

The furs are ermine, ermines, erminois, erminites, pean, vair, and potent counter-potent. They are all said to be indicative of dignity. In armorial painting their effect is very rich. Ermine, which may be taken as the type of the five first mentioned, is represented by three spots placed triangularly, and three hairs in black upon a white ground. It is intended to represent the black tail of a species of weasel fixed upon the white skin of the animal. Guillim[88] gives a coat, containing six whole ermines, as represented in the margin. Sir G. Mackenzie informs us that “the first user of this fur in arms was Brutus, the son of Silvius, who having by accident killed his father, left that unhappie ground, and travelling in Bretaigne in France, fell asleep, and when he awoke he found this little beast upon his shield, and from that time wore a shield ermine!” This fur is said to have been introduced into England by Alan, Earl of Richmond, so created by William the Conqueror. The ermine (mustela erminea) is found in all the northern regions of the old continent, and as far southward as Persia and China. It was originally brought into western Europe from Armenia, then called Ermonie, whence its name. Chaucer employs ermin for the adjective Armenian. Vaire is composed of miniature shields of blue and white alternately placed. According to Mackenzie it represents the skin of a small quadruped called varus, the back of which is of a bluish grey, and the belly white; and Guillim adds that when the head and feet of the animal are cut off from the skin, the latter resembles the figure of vaire used in heraldry. The costly fur so much spoken of by our old poets under the name of miniver is derived by Dallaway from the French menu vair, on account of its smallness and delicacy. The old French vairon signifies anything of two colours, and may possibly be the etymon of vaire.

(Temp Edw. I.) Arms of Sackville.

Potent-counter-potent, literally “crutch-opposite-crutch,” resembles the tops of crutches counter-placed. What the origin of this figure may have been does not appear, although the word potent, in the sense of crutch, was common in the days of Chaucer.

“When luste of youth wasted be and spent,
Then in his hand he takyth a potent.”

And again,

“So eld she was that she ne went
A foote, but it were by potent.”
Romaunt of the Rose.

(“Gules, a bend argent”)

Having thus taken a glance at the field, or ground of the heraldric shield, let us next briefly notice what are called the honourable ordinaries, one or other of which occurs in the great majority of arms, viz., the CHIEF, BEND, BEND-SINISTER, FESSE, PALE, CROSS, SALTIRE, CHEVERON, and PILE. The chief is a fifth part of the shield nearest the top; unde nomen. In the primitive bearings, which were literally coats, or rather mantles of arms, the chief might be formed by turning the upper part of the garment back in form of a collar, thus exposing the lining, which doubtless was often of a different colour from the mantle itself. A knight who might chance at a tournament to wear a scarlet mantle lined with white, would in this manner acquire as arms, ‘Gules, a chief argent.’ The bend is a stripe passing diagonally across the shield from the dexter corner; (and the bend-sinister, the contrary way,) and is, etymologically, the same word with the French bande and Saxon band.[89] This ordinary evidently represents a band or scarf worn over one shoulder, and passing under the opposite arm, and is well exemplified in the white belt worn by a soldier over his red coat. Of a similar origin is the fesse, a horizontal stripe across the middle of the shield, which represents a sash or military girdle. The term is evidently derived from the Latin fascia, through the French fasce. The pale is like the fesse, except that its direction is perpendicular. From its name it has been supposed to represent the pales, or palisades of a camp, and in support of this origin it has been remarked that, in antient warfare, every soldier was obliged to carry a pale, and to fix it as the lines were drawn for the security of the camp. This hypothesis seems to be one of those after-thoughts with which heraldric theories abound. There is no doubt that most armorial forms existed long before the invention of blazon, and that when it was found necessary to give every figure its distinctive appellation, the real origin of many bearings had been lost sight of, and the names assigned them were those of objects they were conjectured to represent.

It is far more probable that this ordinary originated in the insertion of a perpendicular stripe of a different colour from the mantle itself, an idea which is supported by the fact that the pale occupies in breadth a third of the escocheon. Two breadths of blue cloth divided by one of yellow, would produce a blazonable coat, ‘Azure, a pale or.’ When a shield is divided into several horizontal stripes of alternate colours it is called barry; when the stripes run perpendicularly it is said to be paly; and when they take a diagonal direction it is styled bendy. The love of a striking contrast of colours in costume is characteristic of a semi-barbarous state of society, and the shawls and robes of the orientals of the present day afford a good illustration of the origin of these striped bearings.[90] Such vestments were not peculiar to the military, with whom we must always associate the heraldry of the earliest times; for, so lately as the time of Chaucer, they were the favourite fashion of civilians. This author, in his ‘Parson’s Tale,’ makes that worthy ecclesiastic complain of the “sinful costly array of clothing in the embrouding, the disguising, indenting or barring, ounding, paling, winding or bending, and semblable waste of cloth in vanity.”[91]

Arms divided into two compartments by a horizontal line are said to be parted per fesse; when the line is perpendicular, parted per pale; and so of the others. Ridiculous as it may seem, our ancestors, from the reign of Edward II to that of Richard II, affected this kind of dress. In a contemporary illumination, John of Gaunt is represented in a long robe divided exactly in half, one side being blue, the other white, the colours of the House of Lancaster. Chaucer’s Parson, just now quoted, inveighs against the “wrappings of their hose which are departed of two colours, white and red, white and blue, or black and red,” making the wearers seem as though “the fire of St. Anthony or other such mischance had consumed one half of their bodies.” “These party-coloured hose,” humorously remarks Mr. Planché, “render uncertain the fellowship of the legs, and the common term a pair perfectly inadmissible.” But to return to the honourable ordinaries. The cross. It would not be difficult to fill a volume with disquisitions upon this bearing, forming, as it does, a prominent feature in the heraldry of all Christendom; but I must content myself with a general view, without entering much into detail. The cross, as the symbol of Christianity, naturally engaged the reverent and affectionate regard of the early Christians, a feeling which lapsed first into superstition, and eventually into idolatry. In those chivalrous but ill-directed efforts of the princes and armies of Christian Europe to gain possession of the Holy Land, the cross was adopted as the sign or mark of the common cause; it floated upon the standard, was embroidered upon the robes, and depicted on the shields of the enthusiastic throng whose campaigns hence took the designation of Croisades, or Crusades. On subsequent occasions the cross was employed in this general manner, especially when the interests of the church were concerned, as, for instance, at the battle of Lewes in 1264, when the soldiers of the baronial army marked themselves with a white cross for the purpose of distinguishing each other from the king’s forces.[92] The plain cross, or cross of St. George, is the most antient form of this bearing; it differed, however, from the form now in use in having the horizontal bar placed higher than the centre of the upright. The alteration was doubtless a matter of convenience to allow the common charges of the field, when any occurred, a more equal space. But the cross has been so modified by the varying tastes of different ages, that Dame Juliana Berners, at a time when armory was comparatively simple, declares that “crossis innumerabull are borne dayli.” The principal and most usual varieties of this ordinary are described in the ‘Boke of St. Albans.’ One of the most interesting forms is the cross fitchée, or ‘fixibyll,’ because being sharpened at the lower end it could be fixed into the ground, like the little crosses in Catholic cemeteries. It probably originated in the cross antiently carried by pilgrims, which answered the purpose of a walking-staff, and served, when occasion required, for the use of devotion. Next to this may be reckoned the cross patée, the cross-crosslet, the cross patonce, and the cross moline, called in the Boke a “mylneris cros,” “for it is made to the similitude of a certain instrument of yrne in mylnys, the which berith the mylneston.”[93] The plain cross corded, or entwined with ropes, was borne, according to the same authority, in the “armys of a nobull man, the which was some tyme a crafty man (handicraftsman), a roper as he himself said.” These crosses are fully described in the larger treatises on heraldry, together with numerous others. Berry’s Encyclopædia Heraldica enumerates no less than THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-FIVE varieties.

The saltire, popularly called St. Andrew’s cross, is formed like two bends crossing each other in the centre of the escocheon. A great variety of opinions has existed as to its origin. Some authors take it for an antient piece of harness attached to the saddle of a horse to enable the rider, sauter dessous, to jump down.[94] Others derive it from an instrument used in saltu, in the forest, for the purpose of taking wild beasts; but neither of these hypotheses seems very probable. Leigh says, “This in the old tyme, was of y^e height of a man, and was borne of such as used to scale the walls [saltare in muros] of towns. For it was driven full of pinnes necessary to that purpose. And walles of townes were then but lowe as appeared by the walls of Rome, whiche were suche that Remus easelye leaped over them. Witnesseth also the same the citie of Winchester whose walls were overlooked of Colbrande, chieftaine of the Danes, who were slayne by Guye, Erle of Warwike.” The cheveron, which resembles a pair of rafters, is likewise of very uncertain origin. It has generally been considered as a kind of architectural emblem. Leigh, speaking of a coat containing three cheveronels, or little cheverons, says, “The ancestour of this cote hath builded iij greate houses in one province,” and this remark applies with some truth to the Lewkenors of Sussex, who bore similar arms, though whether assumed from such a circumstance I cannot ascertain. The pile is a wedge-like figure based upon the edge of the shield, and having its apex inwards. The following etymons have been suggested: 1, pilum, Lat. the head of an arrow; the Spaniards and Italians call this ordinary cuspis. 2, pile, French, a strong pointed timber driven into boggy ground to make a firm foundation. 3, pied, French, the foot; in French armory it is called pieu. I cannot admit any of these derivations, though perhaps my own etymon may not be deemed less irrelevant, viz. pellis, the skin of a beast, whence our English terms pell, pelt, peltry, &c. The skin of a wild beast, deprived of the head and fore legs, and fastened round the neck by the hinder ones, would form a rude garment, such as the hunter would consider an honourable trophy of his skill, and such as the soldier of an unpolished age would by no means despise; and it would resemble, with tolerable exactness, the pile of heraldry. The QUARTER is, as the word implies, a fourth part of the field, differing in tincture from the remainder; and the CANTON, a smaller quadrangular figure in the dexter, or sinister, chief of the escocheon, so called from the French cantoné, cornered.

The following figures rank as sub-ordinaries, viz. Flasques, Flanches, the Fret, Border, Orle, Tressure, Gyron, &c.

Flasques, always borne in pairs, are two pieces hollowed out at each side of the shield: FLANCHES and VOIDERS are modifications of this bearing. The last, says Leigh,[95] “is the reward of a gentlewoman for service by her done to the prince or princess.” It is not improbable that it was borrowed from a peculiar fashion in female costume which prevailed temp. Richard II. Chaucer uses the word voided in the sense of removed, made empty, and this is probably the origin of the term.

When a shield is divided into eight acute-angled triangles, by lines drawn perpendicularly, horizontally, and diagonally through the centre, it is blazoned by the phrase ‘gyronny of eight,’ and so of any other number of equal partitions of the same form. If one of these triangles occur singly it is termed a gyron. For this term the nomenclature of heraldry is indebted to the Spanish language, in which it means a gore, gusset, or triangular piece of cloth. The family of Giron, subsequently ennobled as Dukes of Ossona, bear three such figures in their arms, from the following circumstance. Alphonso VI, king of Spain, in a battle with the Moors, had his horse killed under him, when, being in great personal danger, he was rescued and remounted by Don Roderico de Cissneres, who, as a memorial of the event, cut three triangular pieces from his sovereign’s mantle, which being afterwards exhibited to the king, he bestowed on his valiant follower an adequate reward, and gave him permission to bear three gyrons as his arms. The English family of Gurr, whose surname was probably derived from the village of Gueures, near Dieppe, bear ‘gyronny ... and ...’ as a ‘canting’ or allusive coat. Some derive this species of bearing from a kind of patchwork mantle of various colours. Hence, doubtless, also arose that picturesque species of bearing called chequy, consisting of alternate squares of different tinctures. Chaucer and Spenser use the word checkelatoun; probably in this sense:

“His robe was cheque-latoun.”
Knight’s Tale.

“But in a jacket, quilted richly rare
Upon checklaton, was he richly dight.”
Faerie Queen.

The chequered dress of the Celtic nations, still retained in the Highland plaid or tartan, may, in some way, have originated the chequered coat of heraldry. At all events, this is a more probable source than the chess-board, from which some writers derive it.

Most of the ordinaries have their diminutives, as the bendlet, the pallet, the cheveronel, &c. These are usually bounded by straight lines; but the ordinaries themselves admit of a variety of modifications of outline, as follows: 1. Indented, like the teeth of a saw. According to Upton, this line represents the teeth of wild beasts, but Dallaway derives it from a moulding much employed in Saxon architecture. 2. Crenelle, or embattled, like the top of a castle, (Lat. crena, a notch.) The ‘licentia crenellare’ of the middle ages was the sovereign’s permission to his nobles to embattle or fortify their mansions. 3. Nebuly (nebulosus,) from its resemblance to clouds. 4. Wavy, or undulated. 5. Dancette, like indented, but larger, and consisting of only three pieces. 6. Engrailed, a number of little semi-circles connected in a line, the points of junction being turned outward. Johnson derives this word from the French ‘grêle,’ hail, marked or indented as with hailstones. And 7. Invecked, the same as the last, but reversed.

Roundles are charges, as their name implies, of a circular form. The first idea of bearing them as charges in heraldry may have been suggested by the studs or knobs by which the parts of an actual buckler were strengthened and held together. As soon as blazon was introduced they received distinctive names, according to their tinctures. The bezant (or) was supposed to represent a gold coin, in value about a ducat, struck at Constantinople (Byzantium) in the times of the Crusades. Leigh, however, assigns it a much greater value, and calls it a talent weighing 104 lbs. troy, and worth 3750l. “Of these beisaunts you shall rede dyversly in Scripture, as when Salomon had geuen unto Hiram xx cities, he again gave vnto Salomon 120 beisaunts of gold, whereof these toke their first name,” (‘obeisance?’) The plate (argent) was probably some kind of silver coin. The torteaux (red) called in the Boke of S. A. “tortellys, or litill cakys,” are said to be emblematical of plenty, and to represent a cake of bread. The modern French ‘torteau’ is applied more exclusively to a kind of oil-cake of an oblong form used as food for cattle. ‘Tortilla,’ in Spanish, is a cake compounded of flour and lard. Dame J. Berners says it should be called wastel. ‘Wastel-brede’ is defined in the glossary to Chaucer, as bread made of the finest flour, and derived from the French ‘gasteau.’ Chaucer represents his Prioresse as keeping small hounds

“that she fedde
With rosted flesh, and milk and wastel brede.”
Prol. Cant. Tales.

Pommes (green), says Dallaway, are berries; but if etymology is worth anything, they must be apples, and such Leigh calls them. Hurts (blue) the same authority considers berries, and most heralds have taken them to be those diminutive things, whortleberries, or as they are called in Sussex, Cornwall, and Devonshire, ‘hurts.’ But I am rather inclined with Leigh to consider them representations of the ‘black and blue’ contusions resulting from the “clumsy thumps” of war. Pellets or Ogresses (black) are the ‘piletta’ or leaden knobs forming the heads of blunt arrows for killing deer without injuring the skin.[96] Golpes (purple) are wounds, and when they stand five in a shield may have a religious allusion to the five wounds of Christ. Oranges (tenne) speak for themselves; and Guzes, Leigh says, are eyeballs; but as their colour is sanguine, or dull red, this seems unlikely.

The Annulet seems to have been taken from the ring armour, much in use about the period of the Norman Conquest. The Orle, or false escocheon, is merely a band going round the shield at a short distance from the edge: it was probably borrowed from an antient mode of ornamenting a shield, serving as a kind of frame to the principal charge. Animals or flowers disposed round the escocheon in the same form, are also termed an orle. The bordure, or border, explains itself. Like the orle, it was primarily designed as an ornament. The lozenge, derived by Glover from the quarry, or small pane of glass of this shape, Dallaway thinks originated in the diamond-shaped cushions which occur on tombs to support the heads of female effigies, as helmets do those of men. The mascle is taken for the mesh of a net. When many are united the arms are blazoned masculy, and then represent a rich network thrown over the armour. At the siege of Carlaverok a certain knight is described as having his armour and vestments ‘masculy or and azure:’

“Son harnois et son attire
Avoit masclé de or et de azure.”

Billets have been conjectured to be representations of oblong camps, but from the name they would seem to be letters. They may have been originally assigned to bearers of important despatches. Guttée is the term applied to a field or charge sprinkled over with drops of gold, silver, blood, tears, &c. according to the tincture. This kind of bearing is said to have originated with the Duke of Anjou, King of Sicily, who, after the loss of that island, appeared at a tournament with a black shield sprinkled with drops of water, to represent tears, thus indicating both his grief and his loss.[97] A warrior returning victorious from battle, with his buckler sprinkled with blood, would, in the early days of heraldry, readily have adopted the bearing afterwards called ‘guttée de sang.’ In those times the besiegers of a fortress were often assailed with boiling pitch, poured by the besieged through the machicolations of the wall constructed for such purposes. Splashes of this pitch falling upon some besieger’s shield, in all probability gave the first idea of ‘guttée de poix.’ The fusil is like the lozenge, but narrower. Whatever the charge may mean, the name is evidently a corruption of the Fr. fuseau, a spindle. The fret may have been borrowed from the architectural ornaments of the interior of a roof, or more probably, from a knotted cord. It is sometimes called Harington’s Knot, though it is not peculiar to the arms of that family, for it was also borne by the baronial races of Echingham, Audley, and Verdon, and by many other families.[98]

My purpose being not to describe all the charges or figures occurring in heraldry, but merely to assign a reasonable origin for those which appear to the uninitiated to have neither propriety nor meaning, I pass by many others, and come to those to which a symbolical sense is more readily attachable, as the heavenly bodies, animals, vegetables, weapons of war, implements of labour, &c. &c. Here I shall merely offer some general remarks, for it is less my object to gratify curiosity on this subject than to excite that attention to it which it really deserves, and therefore I must say, with gentle Dame Julyan, “Bot for to reherce all the signys that be borne in armys it were too long a tarying, nor I can not do hit: ther be so mony!”

The heavenly bodies occur frequently in heraldry, and include the Sun, ‘in his glory,’ or ‘eclipsed;’ the Moon, ‘incressant,’ ‘in her complement,’ ‘decressant,’ and ‘in her detriment,’ or eclipse; stars and comets. The crescent was the standard of the Saracens during the crusades, as it is of their successors, the Turks, at this day. As one of the antient laws of chivalry enacted that the vanquisher of a Saracen gentleman should assume his arms, it is not remarkable that the crescent was, in the latter Crusades, often transferred to the Christian shield; although we must reject the notion that the infidels bore regular heraldric devices. It is probable, however, that their bucklers were ornamented in various ways with their national symbol. Several authentic instances of arms with crescents borne by English families from that early date, are to be found. Most of the families of Ellis, of this country, bear a cross with four or more crescents, derived from Sir Archibald Ellis, of Yorkshire, who went to the Holy Land. From a miraculous event said to have happened during the Crusade under Rich. I. to Sir Robert Sackville, the noble descendants of that personage still bear an estoile, or star, as their crest.

The ELEMENTS also furnish armorial charges, as flames of fire, rocks, stones, islands, thunderbolts, clouds, rainbows, water, and fountains. These last are represented by azure roundles charged with three bars wavy argent. In the arms of Sykes, of Yorkshire, they are called sykes—that being a provincialism for little pools or springs. The antient family of Gorges bore a gurges, or whirlpool, an unique instance, I believe, of that bearing.

If we derive heraldry from the standards of antient nations, then, undoubtedly, ANIMALS are the very oldest of armorial charges, since those standards almost invariably exhibited some animal as their device. Familiar examples present themselves in the Roman eagle and the Saxon horse. Of QUADRUPEDS the lion occupies the first place, and is far more usual than any other animal whatever. The king of beasts is found in the heraldric field in almost every variety of posture, and tinctured with every hue recognized by the laws of blazon. It may be remarked here, that in the early days of heraldry animals were probably borne of their ‘proper’ or natural colour, but as, in process of time, the use of arms became more common, and the generous qualities of the lion rendered him the object of general regard as an armorial ensign, it became absolutely necessary to vary his attitudes and colours, for the purposes of distinction. The same remark applies, in a greater or less degree, to other animals and objects. As the emblem of courage the lion has been represented and misrepresented in a thousand forms. A well-drawn heraldric lion is a complete caricature of the animal; and hence the ire displayed by the country herald-painter when shown the lions in the Tower is very excusable: “What!” said the honest man, “tell me that’s a lion; why I’ve painted lions rampant and lions passant, and all sorts of lions these five and twenty years, and for sure I ought to know what a lion’s like better than all that!”