I DRY 
 
 /v I/ JL- / j . V 1 
 
 r GLISH AND FOREIGN 
 
 
 
 California 
 
 tegional 
 
 iacility 
 
 CANON JENKINS
 
 HERALDRY
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN 
 
 WITH A DICTIONARY OF HERALDIC TERMS 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT C. JENKINS, M.A. 
 
 RECTOR OF LYMINGE, HON. CANON OF CANTERBURY 
 
 HON. CURATOR OF THE LIBRARY OF LAMBETH PALACE, AND 
 
 LOCAL SECRETARY FOR KENT FOR THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES, LONDON 
 
 LONDON 
 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., I, PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 
 1886
 
 (The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved)
 
 TO THE READER. 
 
 THE need of a brief introduction to General 
 Heraldry, and the difficulties experienced by so 
 many who are accustomed only to the simpler 
 forms of English blazonry, when they see, either 
 here or on the Continent, the unusual and com- 
 plicated devices which present themselves in the 
 German, and occasionally in the French develop- 
 ments of the art, have led to the compilation 
 of the following brief treatise. Hitherto our 
 manuals of Heraldry have dwelt too little on 
 those general principles which regulate the art 
 in all its national varieties, and the object 
 of the writer has been rather to draw the atten- 
 tion of the student to the laws which prevail 
 throughout the whole system, than merely to 
 give a series of definitions of terms and the 
 
 2202216
 
 VI TO THE READER. 
 
 application of heraldic rules to particular in- 
 stances. There are fewer references in these 
 pages to Spanish and Italian heraldry, than to 
 German and French ; but the reader will find 
 far less difficulty in interpreting the heraldry of 
 the Latin than that of the Teutonic nationalities. 
 Spanish heraldry is chiefly remarkable for the 
 manner in which the different bearings are con- 
 nected in the shield, and for the frequent divi- 
 sions of it per saltire ; while Italian heraldry is 
 simpler in its linear forms, though the objects 
 and devices it employs more nearly resemble 
 those of German than of English blazonry. 
 Swedish heraldry bears a natural resemblance to 
 German, but is much simpler and easier to inter- 
 pret. The limited design of the present treatise 
 precluded the farther pursuit of those difficult 
 and complicated forms of the art, which the vast 
 treasury of heraldry opened in the " Niirnberger 
 Wappenbuch" presents. But the general methods 
 of reading some of its more unusual develop- 
 ments will be readily discerned by the instances 
 here given of several of those which present the
 
 TO THE READER. Vll 
 
 greatest difficulty to the heraldic interpreter. 
 The great progress of archaeological study and 
 inquiry render the clear apprehension of any 
 subject arising out of it, and incidental to it, of 
 obvious utility and of increasing interest. With 
 the hope that these lines may be a successful 
 invitation to the deeper study of one of the most 
 picturesque and historically interesting of these 
 tributaries to archaeological research, the follow- 
 ing pages are commended to the reader.
 
 HERALDRY. 
 
 I. HERALDRY, as its name implies, was in its 
 origin a purely military art, and, according to 
 Spener, Mencstrier, and other writers, originated 
 in its modern form from the tournaments in- 
 stituted (or, at least, brought into perfect organi- 
 zation) by the Emperor Henry the Fowler (c. 950) 
 for the purpose of keeping up the military spirit 
 among the knightly families of that early day 
 during intervals of peace, and promoting courage 
 and dexterity by means of such martial exercises. 
 More critical inquiries into the origin of these 
 assemblies carry them back a century earlier, 
 when a great gathering of knights and their 
 retainers for military games was held at Worms. 
 The names of those present on every occasion 
 were carefully recorded, and are referred to in 
 connection with the places where the tourna- 
 ments were held ; much as the Battle Abbey Roll 
 and the Domesday proprietors and tenants are 
 
 B
 
 2 HERALDRY 
 
 cited in the family history of our own country. 
 They constitute the libra d'oro of German no- 
 bility, and the practice of holding such gather- 
 ings was introduced in the twelfth century into 
 England, and at an earlier period into France.* 
 The laws which regulated the ancient tourna- 
 ments necessitated the creation of numerous 
 officials, to apply them and carry them out on 
 the field ; and hence we have, besides an array of 
 heralds of every degree, those higher function- 
 aries known as Kings of Arms, and heralds of 
 particular places and for special objects, in- 
 cluding in Germany the Tiirnier-Voigt, the 
 Turnier-Richter, etc.f In the decadence of 
 heraldry, and when its origin was forgotten 
 and its military character lost, we find these 
 functionaries incorporated into colleges and 
 companies, and the coats so hardly acquired by 
 personal prowess in the tournament or on the 
 field of battle were converted into objects of 
 merchandise, and the art of blazonry became de- 
 based and its devices arbitrary and meaningless.! 
 
 * M. Grandmaison, with a spirit worthy of the age of tour- 
 naments, contends for his country as the first scene of the entire 
 institution. But he does not bring any authentic instances earlier 
 than the alleged introduction of them by Geoffroy, Seigneur cle 
 Preuilly, who flourished in 1066. 
 
 t Zedler, " Univ. Lexicon," torn. xlv. p. 1922. 
 
 J The first incorporation of English heralds was in the first
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 II. In order to distinguish the candidates in 
 these contests, it is obvious that personal em- 
 blems and devices were needed, which were 
 depicted on the shield, which was, from the 
 earliest ages, the special and almost only weapon 
 of defence. Hence diversities of figure, line, and 
 colour became multiplied, and the ruder usage 
 of the period when colour alone was the distin- 
 guishing feature of those warring on the same 
 side or in the same ranks, was succeeded by the 
 adoption of personal devices, grafted upon it, 
 and still retaining, and even increasing, the means 
 already employed, of varying the groundwork 
 of the field. This led to the adoption of new 
 metals, furs, and tinctures the result of a greater 
 progress in art and manufacture, and a more 
 refined taste in personal ornamentation and 
 equipment. 
 
 III. The history of heraldry may be divided 
 into three periods, of which the first was that 
 in which tribal, rather than personal, distinctions 
 were employed in warfare, and diversities of 
 colour were deemed sufficient to separate to the 
 eye the conflicting hosts ; much as the different 
 
 year of Richard III. But at this period they were rather judges 
 and umpires of martial games, than granters of heraldic dis- 
 tinctions.
 
 4 HERALDRY 
 
 uniforms of armies or regiments, and their dif- 
 ferent banners, are adopted to distinguish them 
 in our own day. In this kind of heraldry (if it 
 may be so termed) every follower or retainer of 
 a chieftain or noble bore on his shield the en- 
 sign, or rather the colour, adopted by his leader 
 a primitive usage, which was preserved in the 
 clans of Scotland and the tribes of Ireland, in 
 which the followers of the chieftain, though in 
 no degree related to him, assumed his distinc- 
 tive emblems and even his name. The writer 
 was informed by the eminent historian, the late 
 Count Valerian Krasinski, that a similar tribal 
 form of heraldry existed until a late period in 
 Poland. We find these distinctions of colour as 
 marking the different contingents in the armies 
 of the first Crusade, and indicating the followers 
 of Boemund, Geoffrey de Bouillon, Raymundus, 
 and other generals. Albert of Aix describes the 
 " splendor clypeorum coloris aurei viridis, rubei, 
 cujusque generis, et insignia erecta auro dis- 
 tincta" (1. iii. c. 35). From this earliest of 
 heraldic distinctions is derived that rare and 
 primitive form of blazon called by the French 
 plein; in which a shield presents simply a colour 
 or a metal, without any charge whatever. A few 
 instances of this occur in foreign heraldry, but
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 5 
 
 none (it is believed) remain in England. Among 
 them are the arms of the dukes of Brittany, 
 which are ermine plein ; of the De Rubeis, or 
 Rossi, of Florence, whose arms are simply gules ; 
 of the Bandinelli of Siena, and the Menes family 
 in Spain, who bear a coat or, without any charge 
 or device whatever.* 
 
 IV. The second heraldic period brings us to 
 the age of the tournaments, during which the 
 art, as we now see it, may be said to have its 
 real origin. But during the tenth, eleventh, and 
 part of the twelfth centuries, when linear heraldry 
 and devices adopted from the natural world, or 
 from the imagination of the designer, had be- 
 come general in the noble and military families, 
 all these distinctive emblems were merely per- 
 sonal, and no instances of hereditary bearings 
 can be found. The object which the heraldry of 
 the early tournaments had in view was rather 
 to distinguish the combatants than to create 
 hereditary insignia. Even the arms of royal 
 persons, as of the kings of France, England, 
 Sweden, and other countries, were frequently 
 changed and their seals arbitrarily altered. Cal- 
 mer., in his "Histoire de la Maison Duchatelet," 
 proves the frequency of these changes in noble, 
 * Spener, "Opus Herald.," 1690, c. i. sec. 21.
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 and even royal houses, up to the very verge of 
 the thirteenth century.* 
 
 V. We now come to the third period of the 
 history of the art, in which a new and general 
 military movement was accompanied by as 
 strong a religious sentiment the period of the 
 second Crusade ; in which chivalry received not 
 only a new and irresistible impulse, but a new 
 and (as it then appeared) divine inspiration. The 
 period marks also a great advance in art, both 
 military and civil, and from it the forms of 
 heraldry acquired a new beauty, and the varied 
 and picturesque devices of linear heraldry super- 
 seded, or were engrafted upon, the ruder symbols 
 of the earlier system. The profession of a 
 soldier had now assumed a heroic and even 
 sacred character, and the symbols which had 
 been borne on the shields of crusading ancestors 
 became the most precious inheritance of their 
 successors. New families were made and en- 
 nobled by a participation in this religious war- 
 fare, while the older families became additionally 
 noble and illustrious. Palestine became the new 
 tournament-field of all the nationalities of Europe, 
 and most of the historical shields of its greater 
 houses are referred to the traditional exploits of 
 * Grandmaison, "Diet. Herald.," Introd. p. xviii.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 their founders in this larger scene of warfare. 
 The form of the shields, hitherto rather adapted 
 to the rude and desultory battles of an earlier 
 age, became altered and fitted to a different kind 
 of encounter than that under which the earlier 
 heraldry had sprung up. The ancient shield, 
 both Roman and Saxon, was of a circular form, 
 made chiefly of wood, and had in its centre a 
 projecting boss of iron, which protected the 
 hand and formed a kind of gauntlet, before the 
 introduction of a more elaborate method of 
 defence rendered such a central support un- 
 necessary.* The fact that the centre of the 
 shield, even in modern heraldry, is assumed to 
 be the place of special honour, points back to 
 the dignity it had in this earlier period. In 
 such a form of shield, ornamentation would be 
 limited to the border of it, which was often 
 strengthened by some other substance, and 
 would naturally converge towards the centre. 
 Of the ancient Romano -Saxon shields, Mr. Roach 
 Smith, our greatest Roman antiquary, observes, 
 
 * Iron shields (originating the amphibious colour sable, which 
 is treated in heraldry both as a colour and a metal) seem 
 sometimes to have been used. In the early Saxon poem de- 
 scribing the attack of Beowulf on the fire dragon, he provided 
 himself with an iron shield because the wooden one would not 
 stand the fire (" Beowulf," i. 4668).
 
 8 HERALDRY 
 
 " The bosses or disks, and portions of the iron 
 framework, are all that can now be identified. 
 As far as could be determined from the frag- 
 ments, the shields appear to have been round." * 
 
 We find, accordingly, that the earliest repre- 
 sentations of the shield during the Norman 
 period exhibit lines drawn from the circum- 
 ference to the centre, or rude figures occupying 
 the centre of the shield. The later tripartite 
 division of the field was unknown, and was, in 
 fact, the result of the alteration which was ren- 
 dered necessary by the development of the 
 methods of warfare, and the progress in the 
 manufacture of defensive armour which took 
 place as its natural consequence. 
 
 VI. The development of the form of the shield 
 was, however, gradual. During the tenth and, 
 eleventh centuries it appears to have become 
 oval, doubtless from the necessity of giving addi- 
 tional protection to the body in siege operations, 
 in scaling walls, or swimming across the water 
 defences of a town. Luitprand, who wrote in 
 the tenth century, says of the Saxon soldiers : 
 " Clypeo altrinsecus cooperti sagittarum super 
 clypeos recipiunt ictum " (" Covered with their 
 shields on either side, they received on them the 
 * " Collectanea Antiqua," vol. i. pp, 43, 44.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 stroke of the arrows "). In the siege of Thessa- 
 lonica by the Turks as late as 1254, we read that 
 they covered their heads with their shields while 
 swimming across the harbour to the walls : " Cor- 
 pora tegebant, aquis innatantes, capita scutis 
 circumsepta." * We have authentic illustrations 
 of these extended shields in the Bayeux tapestry, 
 and in the remarkable representation of the first 
 Crusade, placed by Sugerius round the choir of 
 the cathedral of St. Denis, unfortunately destroyed 
 during the Revolution, but preserved in the pages 
 of the great Montfaucon. The shields repre- 
 sented in the Bayeux tapestry are all of an oval 
 form, and most of them have lines radiating 
 towards the centre,! so simple and uniform as to 
 show that special emblems were confined to a 
 very few, and in these few cases they consist of 
 leaves, crosses, and grotesque figures. But these, 
 as we have observed before, were personal orna- 
 ments and not hereditary blazon. 
 
 But the second example we have referred to 
 is far more direct in the evidence it gives to the 
 
 * Joh. Cameniata: de Excidio Thessal., sec. xv. 
 
 t Elliptical shields were very early adopted among the Franks, 
 which accounts for their use among the Normans. The Abbe 
 Cochet discovered instances of such shields in the Frankish graves 
 in Normandy ("La Normandie Scuteraine," par M. 1'Abbe 
 Cochet. Paris : Derache, 1854).
 
 io HERALDRY 
 
 modern character of linear heraldry. It was 
 executed about the year iioo, and is thus de- 
 scribed by Grandmaison : * " The figures on 
 the shield are very simple and very uniform, in 
 general proceeding from the centre of the shield, 
 round which they appear to radiate.f One does 
 not find in them any of those figures which 
 were consecrated in later blazonry ; neither 
 the pale, nor the bende, nor the fesse, nor 
 saltire, nor any of the heraldic animals or 
 birds. If from the time of the first Crusade 
 the usage of these emblems had been so general 
 and widespread as is pretended, how can we 
 explain their almost total absence in this long 
 series of military subjects ? " 
 
 VII. From the oblong and almost elliptical 
 figure, the necessities of a more advanced system 
 of warfare gave to the shield that nearly trian- 
 gular form which we find it to present during 
 the ages of chivalry which succeeded the first 
 Crusade, and in which the earlier brasses in our 
 churches exhibit it. In hand-to-hand encounter, 
 and when the sword was the principal weapon 
 
 * "Diet. Herald.," Introd., p. 17. 
 
 t These lines were less ornamental than protective of the 
 shield. At Ozengell, in Kent, bands of iron were found which 
 evidently crossed the shield to strengthen it (Roach Smith, 
 "Collect.," vol. iii. p. 11).
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 of attack, it is obvious that the shield would be 
 both reduced in size and altered in shape. " The 
 triangular shields," writes the Swedish herald 
 Eric Galle, "fashioned like an inverted delta, 
 were borne by knights in former ages for the 
 sake of convenience "* he might have even said, 
 for the sake of necessity. The more ancient 
 oval shield fell, therefore, into disuse, and has 
 only survived in ecclesiastical heraldry, being still 
 adopted by bishops, abbots, and other church 
 dignitaries, in Italy, France, and Germany, as 
 more suitable than any other form to their special 
 calling. The Papal arms and those of the car- 
 dinals have invariably this shape. 
 
 VIII. But the change in the form of the shield 
 had more important consequences to modern 
 heraldry than the mere diversity of outline. 
 The upper portion of it, now made straight, 
 became the special place both of attack and 
 defence, and the point of honour was transferred 
 in practice to the upper third division of it, 
 termed in modern heraldry the chief (chef}. This 
 is regarded by French heralds as one of the 
 honourable ordinaries, but it ought rather to be 
 considered a division of the field, indicating its 
 most honourable portion. It occupies a third of 
 
 * " De Natura Insignium," p. 18. Upsal, 1747.
 
 HERALDR Y 
 
 the whole field, the centre being usually filled 
 with one of those simple figures 
 called ordinaries, whose number 
 and form we shall define pre- 
 sently, and is always of a dif- 
 ferent colour or tincture from 
 the other two divisions. These 
 are called respectively the centre 
 and the base or, as the French 
 generally term it, the champagne, as represent- 
 ing the ground, while the chief may be said to 
 represent the heraldic sky. This, as well as the 
 chief, are held by Grandmaison to be among the 
 honourable ordinaries, a conclusion not admitted 
 by English heralds. In order to distinguish and 
 fix the positions of the different emblems and 
 objects in the field, these lines are again divided 
 horizontally thus, and are called 
 
 A, the centre. 
 
 B, the point of the chief. 
 
 D, the dexter canton of the chief. 
 
 E, the sinister canton of the chief. 
 
 F, the dexter flank. 
 
 G, the sinister flank. 
 
 C, the point of the base. 
 H,the dexter canton of the point. 
 I, the sinister canton of the point. 
 
 D 
 
 B
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 13 
 
 And here it must be borne in mind that dexter 
 and sinister are spoken of in regard to the per- 
 son who bears the shield, and not in relation to 
 the observer. The dexter side of the shield is 
 that on the left hand of the person standing in 
 front of it ; the sinister is that on his right 
 hand. 
 
 These are the accepted terms in French 
 heraldry. In English usage, we speak of the 
 chief, the middle (or centre), and the base ; but 
 the canton is almost always confined to the 
 dexter side of the chief (D). In German heraldry 
 the terms are less technical, and the divisions of 
 the shield described more as an ordinary observer 
 would indicate them. Swedish and Scandinavian 
 heraldry adopts generally the French terms. A 
 point just above the centre, called also the heart 
 (cocni*) of the shield, retains in foreign heraldry 
 its ancient distinction of being the point (fhon- 
 ncur. Other linear divisions, representing the 
 exact positions in which a figure is placed in any 
 one of them, are indicated by foreign heralds, 
 but these are never referred to in our simpler 
 system. Shields of pretence, or inescutcheons, are 
 often found, in the case of royal houses or of 
 heiresses, placed in the centre of the shield, or as 
 the French term it, sur le tout ; a smaller shield
 
 I 4 HERALDRY 
 
 is sometimes placed in the centre of the ines- 
 cutcheon itself, which they term surle toutdu tout; 
 but this is never seen in our own heraldry. 
 Generally speaking, the inescutcheon represented 
 the original arms of the family in all its branches, 
 as being the central and therefore most honour- 
 able place in the field. Galle instances the 
 Swedish families of Horn, Gyllenstierna, and 
 Sparre as bearing their original distinctive coat 
 in this manner. In England the escutcheon of 
 pretence (p.> it is termed) is borne by those marry- 
 ing heiresses, their children bearing the arms 
 quarterly with their paternal coat. But of the 
 laws of quartering we shall speak hereafter. 
 
 IX. From the shield and its divisions we pass 
 on to consider the materials out of which it was 
 formed. These were the metals, gold, silver, 
 and iron ; woods, naturally or artificially 
 coloured ; and furs, which were necessarily 
 limited to those which bore no resemblance to 
 the two former materials, and were accordingly 
 only ermine, or ermine with its colours re- 
 versed, called erminois one representing black 
 spots upon a white ground, the other white upon 
 a black ground. The ancient Saxon shields 
 were of wood (generally of lime or linden wood), 
 as appears from the verses in the " Codex Ex-
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 15 
 
 oniensis," quoted by our learned antiquarian, 
 Mr. Roach Smith * 
 
 "A ship shall be nailed, 
 A shield bound, 
 The light linden board " 
 
 The colours used to give diversity to the shield 
 were naturally of the simplest kind, and were 
 probably limited to the three which now form 
 the most general, viz. : 
 
 Red (gules ; so called from the colour of the 
 throat) ; 
 
 Blue (azure}, a light shade of that colour ; 
 
 Green (i'ert], of a somewhat deeper tint.f 
 To which at a later day was added 
 
 Purple (J>nrpnre) t which in French heraldry 
 has an intermediate place between a metal and 
 a colour, and in English is rarely found. 
 
 Shields of gold and silver were originally the 
 special marks of royal or noble personages. 
 They doubtless passed into ordinary use in the 
 age of chivalry. The only metal of the earliest 
 period appears to have been iron, which is pro- 
 bably represented in heraldry by the deep brown 
 (or black) called 
 
 * "Collect. Antiqua," b. iii. p. n. 
 
 t Green, or vert, is termed in French, nnd generally in foreign 
 heraldry, sinople.
 
 1 6 HERALDRY 
 
 Sable, which is universally held to have the 
 intermediate place already alluded to, on which 
 account it may be placed either on a colour or a 
 metal, without violating the rule of heraldry that 
 colour may not be put upon colour, or metal 
 upon metal. 
 
 The origin of this law brings us to the con- 
 sideration of the new development which 
 heraldry exhibited under a higher civilization 
 and a more artistical treatment. During the ages 
 of chivalry the device and tincture of the shield 
 were transferred to horse-trappings, and to the 
 mantles and armour of its possessor, and the 
 idea of a coat-of-arms and coat-armour was 
 substituted for that of a mere shield.* Grand- 
 maison observes hereupon : "As in public assem- 
 blies, and on occasions of war, the lords and 
 chevaliers were recognized by their coats (or 
 mantles) of arms ; when they were spoken of with 
 the object of distinguishing them by some out- 
 ward mark, it was found sufficient to say, ' Such 
 a one bears a coat of gold (or), of vert (sinople), 
 of sable, of grey, of ermine, or vaire;' or, in simpler 
 terms, he bears gold, gules, etc., the word coat- 
 
 * Our coat of mail is simply the cotlc cf email, the coat em- 
 broidered with the arms of its possessor ; the term email, in 
 heraldry, signifying the colour or metal of the field.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 17 
 
 of-arms being understood ; a method which we 
 still employ in emblazoning the coats of the 
 gentry. But because these marks were not suf- 
 ficient to distinguish the wearers of them in 
 solemn assemblies, where the knights and all the 
 lords were clothed with mantles of arms formed 
 of cloth of gold or silver or costly furs, they 
 adopted the plan of diversifying them, by divid- 
 ing the gold and silver foundation or the furs, as 
 well as their arms, with various figures of different 
 colours ; observing, nevertheless, the rule that 
 fur should not be put upon fur, or cloth of gold 
 on cloth of silver, or vice versa, as in this case 
 there would be no relief." * 
 
 Thus, we see the art passing out of the 
 hands of the rude carpenter or smith of the 
 earlier day, into that of the manufacturer of 
 the costliest materials of mediaeval luxury, and 
 find the martial life of the Middle Ages con- 
 necting itself with a higher development of 
 art. Heraldry would obviously assume by this 
 alliance a new beauty and more artistic com- 
 binations, and gain from it some of its most 
 elaborate and picturesque effects. The necessity 
 of bringing out into clear relief the objects re- 
 presented on the field, and of carrying out the 
 
 * "Diet. Herald., "p. 301. 
 
 c
 
 1 8 HERALDRY 
 
 fundamental law of heraldry which forbade 
 colour upon colour, metal upon metal, and fur 
 upon fur, would lead to artificial divisions in 
 the field itself; and there can be little doubt 
 that the varied and complicated fields of later 
 heraldry, and especially the composite union of 
 metals and furs, called vaire, of which we shall 
 speak presently, were derived from the com- 
 bination of the costly manufactures of a more 
 luxurious age than that which produced the 
 simple and elementary forms of primitive 
 blazonry. One object became placed upon 
 another, and others again upon that, constituting 
 those subordinate features which are termed 
 charges. For "charged" as Grandmaison ob- 
 serves, " is said of all pieces on which others 
 are laid," and every simple and primary figure 
 which is laid upon the field when another is 
 placed upon it, is said to be charged with that 
 additional object, whatever it may be. All the 
 great ordinaries (as they arc called), viz. the 
 fesse, the bende, the cross, as well as natural 
 objects, may be thus charged with subordinate 
 lesser devices, and are thus described. 
 
 The different colours, metals and furs, are 
 represented (when not properly blazoned) by 
 lines of different directions.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 Thus, argent is represented by leaving the 
 coat blank ; 
 
 Gold (or), by covering it with dots ; 
 
 Azure, by horizontal lines ; 
 
 Gnlcs, by perpendicular lines; 
 
 Vert, by lines drawn across the 
 field dexter-\\\$Q ; 
 
 Purpure, by lines drawn sinister- 
 wise ; 
 
 Sable, by lines crossed perpendicu- 
 larly and horizontally ; 
 
 Ermine, with fur-spots of black on a white ground ; 
 
 Er minois, with the same kind of spots, but white 
 
 on a black ground. 
 
 When any animal, bird, or living object is re- 
 presented in its natural colours, it is described in 
 
 blazonry as proper. This is a very modern form 
 
 of representation, and indicates a stage of art 
 
 very remote from that of the ages of chivalry. 
 Besides the colours and furs here mentioned, 
 
 there is a kind of composite ^ 
 
 field, formed of pieces of metal 
 
 and fur or colour alternated, 
 
 called vaire. This, perhaps, is 
 
 imitated from the coat of some 
 
 animal, and has the appearance of diminutive 
 
 shields, pieced together as here represented.
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 A foreign writer (Trier) gives this Latin rule 
 for the linear representation of metals and colours. 
 
 "Aunun puncta notant, argent urn absentia signi. 
 Linea stans, rtibettm, aertdeuntqut jacens : 
 Descendit viriJa in lasvam, <\\\3. purpiira surgit, 
 Cumque jacens stanti linea mixta nigrum est." 
 
 X. We proceed now to describe those linear 
 figures, placed upon the shield, which are called 
 the honourable or greater ordinaries, and which 
 may be said to dominate modern heraldry, and 
 to have created the language in which its various 
 devices are interpreted. The first of these is : 
 
 (i.) The fascia, or fesse a band drawn horizon- 
 tally across the field, and assumed to cover a 
 third part of it, although in practice, and by 
 reason of the additional figures, which usually 
 occupy the chief and base, it is limited to about 
 a fifth. Like all these great dividing objects, it 
 is derived from military art, and reminds us of 
 the cradle of heraldry, the cities and fortified 
 buildings of Palestine, and the wooden defences 
 and palisadings which were attacked and sur- 
 mounted in the Crusades. For the word fascia 
 is used by Vitruvius to denote the cornice or 
 architrave of a building, which had always this 
 simple horizontal direction. 
 
 (ii.) The pale is the second of the honourable 
 ordinaries, and is supposed to occupy also a
 
 ENGLISH AXD FOREIGN. 
 
 third part of the shield, perpendicularly divided. 
 It represents the upright beams of a palisading, 
 and has evidently the same military origin. 
 
 (iii.) The betide is a figure which was most pro- 
 bably suggested by the transverse beams which 
 connected and bound together the beams of a 
 gate, or braced together the timbers of the wooden 
 erections used in the siege of a town. The bende 
 is placed across the shield from the dexter point 
 of the chief to the sinister point of the base. 
 
 (iv.) The bar (barre\ which is a reversed 
 form of the bende, starting from the sinister point 
 of the chief to the dexter point of the base, is 
 in reality the same figure, and has the same rank 
 in heraldic devices. It occurs in the most illus- 
 trious houses of Germany, France, Sweden, and 
 Italy, though comparatively rare in England. 
 In Germany, where coats are 
 constantly represented in a 
 direct and reversed form, the 
 bcndg and the barre become 
 identical. A remarkable in- 
 stance in which this reversal 
 takes place in a single shield 
 is that of the Freiherrn von 
 Zelcking, which is here represented.* On the 
 
 * See the " Niirnberger Wappenbuch," part i. p. 20.
 
 22 HERALDRY 
 
 tomb of Gustavus I., in the cathedral of Upsal, 
 we find the barre substituted for the bende, in 
 proof of the identity here described.* The 
 bendes wavy, of which the field of the second 
 quarter of the arms of Sweden are composed, are 
 sinister and not dexter. 
 
 (v.) The next honourable ordinary, though 
 probably the first in the order of time, is the 
 cross, which admits of two forms the cross 
 proper or St. George's cross placed in the usual 
 direction, and the St. Andrew's cross placed 
 transversely, and denominated in heraldry the 
 saltire (sautoir), from its resemblance to the 
 vaulting bars used in horsemanship. 
 
 (vi.) The chevron is the next ordinary, and is 
 ranked by French heralds as equally honourable 
 with the previous ones, though not so considered 
 by English writers. It represents two transverse 
 beams conjoined at their apex, and derives its 
 name and probably its origin from the roof of a 
 building. 
 
 (vii.) To these chief tokens of honour in 
 blazonry, the French heralds add the following, 
 which, though equally adopted in English 
 
 * " Videmus ibi " (writes Bremner) " intermedium baltheum 
 sinistrum constitui, qui tamen in numismatibus aliisque typis, 
 dexter nonnumquam apparet" (" Thes. Numism. Suiogoth.," 
 PP. 91-99).
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 23 
 
 heraldry, do not take in it an equal rank with 
 the five first. These are : 
 
 (a) The canton proper, which constitutes the 
 dexter third division of the chief, and 
 is used in English heraldry rather for 
 the honourable augmentation of arms 
 than for an ordinary in the true 
 sense. 
 
 (fr) The franc - quartier or franc -canton, a 
 larger form of the ordinary canton. 
 
 (c] The chief, which is rather a division of 
 the field than an ordinary placed 
 upon it. 
 
 (d} The champagne or base, which has the 
 same character. 
 
 They also add the following to the list of 
 honourable ordinaries : 
 
 (viii.) The pile, which is a triangular figure of 
 which the chief forms the base, and the point 
 of the base the apex ; and 
 
 (ix.) The point, which is simply the pile 
 reversed, springing from the base and culminating 
 in the chief. 
 
 Both these last are too evidently of military 
 origin to need any special proof of it. 
 
 (x.) French heralds also include in this list
 
 24 HERALDRY 
 
 the pairle, which is a pall or archiepiscopal 
 vesture extended over the field in the form of 
 a Y. We sometimes find it reversed. 
 
 (xi.) The bordure, which, as it is now chiefly 
 used to mark the cadence of families, and to 
 separate the younger from the elder branches, 
 can scarcely be treated as an ordinary. 
 
 (xii.) The gyron is a triangular figure cover- 
 ing generally the eighth part of the shield, but 
 is sometimes diminished into a sixteenth part, 
 when it is multiplied and carried round the 
 field. This figure proceeds either from the dexter 
 or sinister side of the shield to the centre, 
 forming a rectangular though very irregular 
 triangle. When multiplied in the field, so as 
 to cover it with a series of equal divisions of 
 different colours or metals, the field is said to 
 be gyronny of so many pieces. But every one 
 of these must be equal. 
 
 (xiii.) The orle is a voided inescutcheon nearly 
 covering the field. 
 
 (xiv.) The tressure is a fillet drawn within the 
 field and following its outer lines in form and 
 direction. 
 
 These various figures will be better understood 
 by a simple representation of them than by any 
 attempt at a clearer verbal description. The
 
 EXGL1SH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 following diagram will place them at a glance 
 before the eye of the reader : 
 
 s\ 
 
 dM 
 
 7/Z 
 
 a, a fesse ; b, a pale ; c, a bende ; d, a barre ; e, a cross ; 
 /, a saltire ; f, a chevron ; //, a chief (in a larger form a franc- 
 quartier) ; /, a pile ; k, a point ; /, a pairle (in English heraldry, 
 as in the Conyngham arms, a fork) ; ;, a gyron ; n } a chief; 
 o. a bordure : /. an orle ; a, a tressure. 
 
 When multiplied, several of these figures be- 
 come diminutives, and in English (though not
 
 26 
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 in French) heraldry are called by names signify- 
 ing this diminution. Those which bear this 
 
 modification are : 
 
 a, Fesses, which when multiplied are called 
 bars. 
 
 b, Pales are diminished into pallets. 
 
 c, d, Bendes into bendlets or cottises. 
 e, Chevrons into chevronels. 
 
 /, Piles, and 
 
 g, Points retain their names.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 27 
 
 h, In French heraldry, when another chief is 
 added as an honourable augmentation, the former 
 one is placed under it and said to be abaisse. 
 
 i, Gyrons, when diminished and covering- the 
 field, are described as being gyronny of so many 
 pieces, as 16, etc. 
 
 Besides the figures we have here given, we find 
 one produced by cutting off a portion of the 
 two sides of the shield by curved lines inter- 
 
 nally, called flaunclics, as above ; and also the 
 fret, a figure like this, which when carried like 
 trellis-work over the field is called fretty. 
 
 We have already suggested that the origin of 
 all these simple and honourable devices is to be 
 sought in the military life of that early age in 
 which they first became marks of personal or 
 hereditary distinction. 
 
 A most remarkable mosaic exists in the 
 Museum of Lyons, which was discovered in 1806, 
 and is described by M. de Caumont in his
 
 28 
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 " Cours d'Antiquites Monumentales " (P. iii. 
 pp. 380-391), representing the ancient circus of 
 Lyon during the chariot and horse-races, which 
 were succeeded by the games and tournaments 
 of a later day. The barriers are depicted as 
 formed of wooden palisadings, which contain in 
 them every element of our modern lineal 
 heraldry. They may 'be thus rudely de- 
 lineated : 
 
 Such were the familiar forms of the rude 
 military palisadings of the Gallo-Roman period, 
 as they presented themselves to the forefathers 
 of the crusaders ; and they were doubtless repro- 
 duced by them in their Eastern warfare, and 
 suggested the fesse, the pale, the bende, the 
 chevron, and the saltire of our modern heraldry 
 (see De Caumont, Atlas, plate xli.). 
 
 XL We have seen that the practice of em- 
 broidering the coat-armour on the mantles and 
 horse-trappings of the nobility and knighthood
 
 AM) FOREIGN. 29 
 
 introduced a higher type of art into heraldry, 
 and suggested new divisions of the coat, and 
 new combinations of metal and colour. The 
 older heraldry, in which a single and simple 
 device was placed upon a field of one colour or 
 metal, was now supplemented by a more ela- 
 borate system, in which colour and metal or fur 
 were placed together in a divided field, and a 
 composite foundation was laid, producing effects 
 altogether different from those of the earlier art. 
 Divisions deriving their name and direction from 
 the seven principal ordinaries were introduced 
 to separate the shield into equal or unequal 
 portions, and the lines of the fesse, the pale, the 
 bende, the barre, the cross, the saltire, and the 
 chevron, gave the art a new character and a new 
 nomenclature. The divided field was designated 
 according to the direction of the lines which 
 separated it, and was described as parted (or 
 party) per fesse, per pale, per bende, per saltire, 
 per chevron,* or {in the case of the simple cross) 
 divided quarterly. But a simple diagram will 
 best illustrate this application to the field of 
 lines originally used only in the ordinaries laid 
 upon it. 
 
 * The word party is usually omitted, and it is enough to say 
 per fesse, per pale, etc.
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 Of the eight quarters here exhibited, the first 
 is 
 
 1. Party per fesse, or and gules. 
 
 2. Party per pale, argent and azure. 
 
 3. Party per bende, or and gules. 
 
 4. Party per barre, argent and azure. 
 
 5. Quarterly, ermine and azure. 
 
 6. Party per saltire, or and gules* 
 
 * This division is a special characteristic of Spanish heraldry.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 7. Party per chevron, azure and argent. 
 
 8. This represents a coat divided in three 
 parts, and having three different colours, called 
 in foreign heraldry cu tierce, but unknown in 
 English blazon. 
 
 XII. In foreign heraldry the divisions of the 
 shield are much more numerous, and many of 
 them are inexplicable in the terms of our own 
 more limited phraseology. The following are a 
 few of them :
 
 HERALDR Y 
 
 Several of these shields are divided in half, 
 or as the French term it, mi-parti, and the upper 
 or lower half again divided pale-wise ; 5 and 6 
 are per pairle and per pairle reversed ; 3 and 
 4 represent points issuing from the dexter or 
 sinister side; 10 and n are party en eqnerre, 
 and 12 quarterly en equerre ; 16 and 17 are 
 party per saltire and per pale, and per saltire 
 and per fesse ; * 9 is per pale and per fesse, 
 stepped or embattled ; 18, which is the English 
 coat of Woodville, a fesse cantonnee. But these 
 are rather the curiosities of heraldry than its 
 normal developments.! 
 
 XIII. It will be at once seen that the or- 
 dinary lines of division shown in sect. xii. are 
 
 * These divisions must be carefully 
 separated from those of gyi'onny, in which 
 every piece is equal, whether in eight or 
 sixteen portions. 
 
 t Among them may be reckoned the 
 coat of the family Von Rohrbach in Aus- 
 tria, here represented, in which we have a 
 combination of the lines of the fesse, the 
 bende, and the barre, impossible to de- 
 scribe in the terms of English heraldry*
 
 EXGLISI1 AXD FOREIGN. 
 
 capable both of combination and of multiplica- 
 tion in a shield. A field divided into a number 
 of small fesses is called barry, of whatever 
 number of pieces it may consist. But in every 
 case the number must be named. It may be 
 divided, in like manner, into a number of pales, 
 in which it would be called paly of so many 
 pieces, or into a number of bendes, which would 
 give it the name of bendy ; or it might be so 
 divided by a succession of cross lines as to 
 make it like a chess-board a very frequent 
 bearing, which is called chequy ; or, again, by a 
 number of transverse lines crossing one another 
 in saltire, which would give a succession of 
 lozenges, called in heraldry lozengy. These are 
 the only lines which are capable of being thus 
 multiplied,* but as they may be united and com- 
 bined with one another, a vast scope is given to 
 variety, and a number of composite fields pro- 
 duced. Thus, the lines of the fesse and the 
 bende crossing one another produce a field called 
 barry-bendy. The combination of the pale and 
 the bende produce paly-bendy, while the elevation 
 or depression of these lines in the shield (as in 
 the second quarter of the Bavarian arms, and in 
 
 * Chtvrttinet, as it divides the shield irregularly, can hardly 
 be ranked with the above. 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 those of the Dukes of Teck) give different 
 effects to such combinations. A simple diagram 
 will, perhaps, better represent these composite 
 lines than any verbal explanation. 
 
 I. Barry of six pieces, argent and gules. 2. Paly of six pieces, 
 argent and azure. 3. Bendy of eight pieces, gules and argent. 
 5. Barre of six pieces, gules and argent. 5. Barry-bendy, argent 
 and azure. 6. Paly-bendy, argent and gules. 7. Chequy, gules 
 and argent. 8. Chevronnee, argent and gules. 9. Lozengy, 
 argent and azure.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 XIV. It will be obvious to the reader that 
 no bearing or object of a single colour or metal 
 could be laid on any field divided between a 
 colour and a metal, etc., without violating at 
 some point the rule which forbids colour upon 
 colour or metal upon metal. In order to escape 
 this difficulty, a method was introduced of so 
 alternating the materials of which the shield is 
 composed, both in the field and the device itself, 
 as to make the metal of the one fall upon the 
 colour of the other, and vice versa. This pro- 
 cess is termed counterchanging. Thus, if a 
 bende were placed upon a coat divided per pale 
 between a metal and a colour, the dexter half of 
 the bende would fall on the 
 metal, the sinister half on the 
 colour of the field. This was 
 the coat of the poet Chaucer, 
 which is simply described as 
 party per pale, arg. and gu. (?), 
 a bende counterchanged. 
 
 The great beauty and variety produced by 
 this method of counterchanging an ordinary 
 or device of any kind, with the colours and 
 metals of a divided field, render it one of the 
 most interesting of the forms assumed by modern 
 heraldry. But here, more than at any other
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 point, pictorial illustration is more intelligible 
 than verbal description. We will, therefore, pro- 
 ceed to give a few instances of the practice, both 
 from English and foreign heraldry. 
 
 The coat of the Swabian family 
 of Ottenberger is, per pale, arg. 
 and sable, two points in the 
 dexter half, and two piles in 
 the sinister, counterchanged. 
 
 Rospigliosi (Pope Clement 
 
 IX.). 
 
 Quarterly, or and az., four 
 lozenges counterchanged. 
 
 Welser (one of the oldest patri- 
 cian families in Europe). 
 
 Per pale, arg. and gules > a fleur- 
 de-lys counterchanged.
 
 ENGLISH A^ 7 D FOREIGN. 
 
 37 
 
 Santa Croce family, Rome. 
 Quarterly, arg. and gules, a 
 cross patee counterchanged. 
 
 Von Stuntzen (patr. in Augs- 
 burg). 
 
 Per pale and per point, arg. 
 and sable, three mullets of six 
 points, all counterchanged. 
 
 Von Schwarz (Silesia). 
 
 A rg., three inescutcheons, two 
 
 and one, each parted per pale, 
 
 and charged with two chevro- 
 
 nels counterchanged,^. and arg. 
 
 Von Behcm. 
 
 Quarterly, sa. and arg., a fleur- 
 dc-lys counterchanged.
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 Von Schleinitz. 
 
 Per palCfgu/es and arg., three 
 roses, two on the dexter and one 
 on the sinister side, counter- 
 changed. 
 
 Cenci. 
 
 Per bende paliss,W&* and 
 arg., six crescents in bende 
 (three and three), counter- 
 changed. 
 
 Lang (patr. of Augsburg). 
 
 Per pale, arg. 3.ndg?t!es, a half 
 rose and a half fleur-de-lys con- 
 joined in the centre, counter- 
 changed. 
 
 Count Dietrichstein. 
 Per bende, gules and or, two 
 vine-dresser's knives standing 
 back to back palewise, and 
 counterchanged.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 39 
 
 Corario (Pope Gregory XII.). 
 
 Party per fesse, arg. and as., a 
 lozenge covering the field from 
 side to side, and from chief to 
 base, counterchanged. 
 
 Von Ebersbach. 
 
 Per pale, arg. and gules, barry 
 of four pieces, counterchanged. 
 
 Von Nimitz. 
 
 Per pale, arg. and gules, chev- 
 ronne"e of four pieces, reversed 
 and counterchanged. 
 
 Of English examples we may cite the fol- 
 lowing, taken from the " Extinct Baronetage " of 
 Burke : 
 
 Lawson of Isell. 
 
 Per pale, arg. and sable, a 
 chevron counterchanged.
 
 Mayney. 
 
 Per pale, arg. and sa., three 
 chevronels between three mul- 
 lets, two and one, all counter- 
 
 changed. 
 
 Pope of Tittenhanger. 
 Per pale, or and az., a chevron 
 charged with four fleurs-de-lys 
 between three griffins' heads 
 erased, all counterchanged. 
 
 Fenwycke of Fenwycke. 
 
 Per fesse, gules and argent, six 
 martlets, three and three placed 
 fesswise and counterchanged. 
 
 Cell of Hopton. 
 
 Per bende, or and as., three 
 mullets of six points in bende, 
 pierced and counterchanged.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 A quartering of the Calvert 
 family (Lords Baltimore). 
 
 Barry of six pieces, arg. and 
 , a bende counterchanged. 
 
 In every case in which colours and metals are 
 thus set against one another, in contrasted juxta- 
 position, it is obvious that the first consideration 
 is the field, which governs every object thus laid 
 upon it. This we shall find to be the rule in 
 every case, when we enter upon the subject of 
 the charges on a field, and the order in which a 
 heraldic shield is described. A little practice 
 will enable the reader to decipher even the most 
 apparently complicated device formed by the 
 practice of counterchanging, if this rule is clearly 
 borne in mind. 
 
 XV. The alliance of heraldry with a higher 
 civilization and a more refined form of art, and 
 the gradual transfer of its application from mili- 
 tary to civil life, not only produced new combi- 
 nations of form and colour, and new divisions of 
 the shield, in order to give them the most varied 
 contrasts it led also to the adoption of lines 
 of a more complex and composite character,
 
 42 HERALDRY 
 
 enabling the same coat to have a number of 
 picturesque variations. The multiplication of 
 families, and the necessity of distinguishing 
 their different branches both in camp and court, 
 favoured this departure from the mere straight 
 line of the earliest period to the numerous modi- 
 fications of it which later heraldry presents. 
 There can be little doubt that, while the rude 
 military objects, so familiar to the warriors of an 
 early age, and which had already been imitated 
 in the architectural ornamentation of churches 
 and castles, suggested the primitive forms of the 
 art, the romanesque architecture of the period 
 which succeeded the Crusades suggested the new 
 lines of heraldry. For if we take up any manual 
 of romanesque ornament, we shall find that in 
 both France and England, and especially in 
 Normandy, the birthplace of English and French 
 heraldry, every one of the lines it has adopted 
 presented themselves constantly before the eyes 
 of the knights of the thirteenth and fourteenth 
 centuries. Taking up De Caumont's great work 
 (the " Cours d'Antiquites Monumentales "), we 
 find the following lines of romanesque orna- 
 mentation as the most frequent, and they 
 form also the composite lines of modern 
 heraldry :
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 43 
 
 Wavy. 
 
 Indented. 
 
 Invected. 
 
 Engrailed. 
 
 Embattled. 
 
 Embattled in zigzag. 
 
 Nebule". 
 
 Raule". 
 
 XVI. Foreign heraldry, always richer in its 
 diversities, adds to these the following : Palisse*, 
 
 indented and curved thus : 
 
 ; stepped, 
 and a complicated line of a shell-like form, 
 
 AAA- 
 
 called by some French 
 
 writers en girons arrondis. But English heraldry 
 is satisfied with the varieties already given. 
 Illustrations of these complicated lines are hardly 
 needed, as every one of them may be adopted 
 in the case of all the ordinaries and all the 
 divisions of the field. A bordure, a chief, a 
 fesse, a bende, a pale, a chevron every one, 
 indeed, of the principal ordinaries may either 
 be engrailed, invected, indented, wavy, em- 
 battled, and represented in lines accordingly.
 
 4J HERALDRY 
 
 Such lines may be multiplied in the field, and 
 adopted in the case of diminutives, and of divi- 
 sions of the shield. 
 
 Instances of these varieties will be given in 
 some of the coats described in a later page. 
 
 XVII. Whenever the composite lines are used 
 in the fesse and other of the greater ordinaries, 
 they are used for both the sides of the figure. This 
 is a general rule in English heraldry, though 
 
 not so strictly observed in Ger- 
 man blazonry. In Italy it 
 usually prevails, as in the coat 
 of the great Roman family of 
 Aldobrandini, where a bende, 
 embattled and counter-em- 
 battled (brctisse and contrebre- 
 tisstf), is accompanied by six 
 
 stars, three and three. 
 
 We proceed to speak of the charges which 
 
 form the subordinate features of heraldry. 
 
 XVIII. When any ordinary or figure is placed 
 immediately upon the field, it is mentioned 
 rather as a simple bearing than as a charge. 
 When, however, any heraldic piece or ordinary 
 (such as a fesse, a bende, a pale, a chevron} has 
 any figure or object placed upon it, the latter 
 becomes a charge, and the piece, whatever it
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 45 
 
 may be, is said to be charged with whatever 
 object is laid upon it. Grandmaison observes 
 hereupon, " Charge se dit de toutes pieces sur 
 lesquelles il y en a d'autres ; ainsi le chef, la 
 fasce, le pal, la bende, les chevrons, les croix, 
 les lions, etc., peuvent etre charges de coquilles, 
 de croissants, de roses, etc." (p. xxx., Introd.). 
 In reading a heraldic shield, the first mention 
 should be of the field (whether or, arg., as., 
 gules, sable, ermine, etc.), and 
 then the piece which falls im- 
 mediately upon it, the charge 
 being the last to be described. 
 For instance, the arms of the 
 extinct baronets, Slanning of 
 Maristow, would be thus de- 
 scribed : 
 
 (i.) Argent (field). 
 
 (ii.) Two pallets engrailed, gules (principal 
 bearing). 
 
 (iii.) Over all, a bendc azure (first charge). 
 
 (iv.) Charged with three griphons' heads erased, 
 arg. (second charge). 
 
 (v.) If the whole bearing is within a bordure, 
 this should be mentioned last. 
 
 The shield of the Princes of Oettingen in 
 Wiirtemberg is a good illustration of the import-
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 ance of determining first the field, and then the 
 charges in their proper order. We have here 
 Vaire (the field) ; upon that 
 an inescocheon azure; and over 
 all a saltire argent. Yet here 
 there is at first sight a compli- 
 cation of figures which might 
 well perplex all who do not 
 bear in mind the necessity of 
 determining the nature and 
 divisions of the field before they attempt to de- 
 scribe its successive charges. 
 
 XIX. We proceed to enumerate, as briefly as 
 possible, the chief figures used in heraldry, which 
 consist of 
 
 (i.) Human figures, or members of them, 
 (ii.) Animals and birds naturally formed, or 
 ideal, and in grotesque combinations, 
 (iii.) Trees and plants, 
 (iv.) Celestial objects, 
 (v.) Devices derived from the elements. 
 Of artificial objects we have the following : 
 (i.) Instruments used in sacred or common 
 life. 
 
 (ii.) Implements used in household life, 
 (iii.) Instruments of war, the chase, fishery, 01 
 navigation.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 47 
 
 . (iv.) Architectural objects, civil and military. 
 
 (v.) Artistic and similar objects. 
 
 Of these, the representation of animals and 
 birds fills by far the largest province in English 
 heraldry, and their positions are thus described. 
 
 (a) The lion has the following positions : 
 rampant (the ordinary form), rampant guardant 
 (the face fronting the observer), rampant re- 
 gitardant (looking back) ; passant (in the usual 
 form), passant guardant, or passant reguardant ; 
 couchant (lying down), a form which does not 
 admit of the above varieties. The leopard has 
 similar forms of representation. Two lions in 
 the same field looking at one another are said to 
 be affronted ; with their backs to each other, are 
 addorscd ; crossing one another, as though pass- 
 ing different ways, they are said to be contre- 
 passant. Elephants have also a frequent place 
 in heraldry, but they are always represented 
 simply. 
 
 (b) Of birds, the eagle, as the imperial emblem 
 from ancient times, is the most frequently seen 
 in heraldry. Its forms are various. Placed up- 
 rightly (or in pale), with its wings extended, the 
 head generally turned towards the dexter side of 
 the shield, it is said to be displayed. But this term 
 (eployce] the stricter French heralds limit to the
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 two-headed eagle, chiefly seen in royal bearings. 
 Before the time of the Emperor Sigismund, the 
 eagle of the empire is said to have had only one 
 head. When the head is turned to the left, the 
 French writers call it contourne'e ; when the beak, 
 tongue, or talons are of another colour or metal, 
 the eagle is said to be beaked, langued, onglce, 
 accordingly. When represented as rising from 
 the ground, it is said to be naissante or issuante ; 
 when the wings, instead of spreading towards 
 the chief, tend towards the base, the term used 
 by the French heralds (for we have no precise 
 English form to express it) is an vol abaissee. 
 Like every other natural figure, it may be crowned 
 or otherwise ornamented, and charged with any 
 other object. In some rare instances, in Ger- 
 man heraldry, we find its posi- 
 tion reversed, as in the coat of 
 the patrician family of Eggen- 
 berger, which might be read 
 thus : argent, a ducal coronet, 
 sable, between three eagles dis- 
 played two and one, their heads 
 turned towards the centre, also 
 sable. 
 
 The heraldry of inferior animals and birds, as 
 it adopts (as far as possible) the same termino-
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 49 
 
 logy, need not be specially dwelt upon in so 
 limited a sketch as the present. 
 
 (c.} Fishes form the third class of natural 
 objects employed in heraldry, and in English 
 blazonry are generally limited to the dolphin, 
 the lucy or pike, and (in imitative or punning 
 heraldry) include the herring, sprat, and other 
 fishes, representing the families thus designated. 
 The dolphin is always represented as curved or 
 in a circular form ; other fishes generally in their 
 ordinary position. Of shells, the cockle-shell is in 
 frequent use, and is said to indicate those pil- 
 grimages to the Holy Land which were so highly 
 honoured in mediaeval times. 
 
 (d.} Grotesque combinations of parts of natural 
 animals occur in the gryphon (or griffin), in 
 which the head and talons of an eagle are 
 united with the hinder parts of a lion a figure 
 which is described (when in the 
 rampant form) as segreant, when 
 fassant by the same term. The 
 union of a lion and a fish is 
 found in the patrician family of 
 Imhof in Augsburg and Xu- 
 remburg ; but no instance of its 
 use in English heraldry has 
 come to the knowledge of the writer. The nearest
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 approach to it is in the ancient arms of the 
 Cinque Ports, which represent demi-lions passant 
 on the dexter side of the shield, 
 united with the prows of turreted 
 ships in the sinister portion, 
 divided per pale and counter- 
 changed. The Counts of 
 Nimptsch bear a demi-unicorn 
 in the upper half of the shield, 
 terminating in the body and 
 tail of a fish in the lower. The wivcrn, an 
 imaginary creature representing a kind of dragon, 
 is not uncommon in English heraldry. 
 
 (*.) Insects and reptiles of different kinds find 
 occasional places in our system, though more 
 frequent in foreign heraldry.* Of the former 
 bees are the most frequent. A notable instance 
 is the well-known coat of the Barberini family 
 in Rome. Snakes are of occasional occurrence, 
 and in the famous bearing of the Visconti (which 
 
 * A curious instance of this kind of 
 heraldry is found in the arms of the 
 family of Dietenhaimer in Augsburg, 
 where a beetle is issuing from the lower 
 half of the shield, as here represented. 
 This coat is quartered by the ancient 
 patrician family of Rehlinger.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 51 
 
 became also that of the city of Milan) a crowned 
 serpent is represented as swallowing a child, 
 whose head and arms are seen issuing out of the 
 mouth of the monster. This is one of those 
 historic devices said to have come (like the 
 column in the arms of the Colonna family) from 
 the Holy Land in the days of the Crusades. 
 
 (/!) Portions and members of animals and 
 birds are among the most frequent devices of 
 English heraldry. The heads and paws of lions 
 and other animals, and the heads, wings, and 
 claws of birds, are of constant occurrence. When 
 these are cut off cleanly, they are described as 
 couped. When torn off so as to show a jagged 
 edge with the hairs left upon it, they are said to 
 be erased. 
 
 (g.} The heraldry of trees and plants is very 
 simple and needs no very elaborate description. 
 In foreign heraldry the branches of trees are 
 frequently twisted and represented in compli- 
 cated forms, not easily described by our own 
 limited nomenclature. They appear thus in the 
 arms of the great Papal family of Del Rovere, 
 while a branch artificially twisted with broad 
 leaves on its outer lines forms the coat of the 
 ancient family of Seckendorf. Roses are said, 
 when fully presented to the eye, to be seeded
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 and barbed. These, as well as fleurs-de-lys, are 
 occasionally divided in foreign heraldry, both 
 being thus treated in the coat 
 of the patrician family of Lang 
 in Augsburg (fl. 1300). 
 
 (7z.) Celestial objects the sun, 
 the crescent moon, and stars of 
 every number of points from 
 four to twelve occur most fre- 
 quently both in English and 
 foreign heraldry ; as also, but more rarely, 
 elemental objects, as the globe, flames, streams, 
 and whirlpools. The last figure (called in Eng- 
 lish heraldry a gorge) is found in the arms 
 of the ancient family of Gorges, now extinct. 
 Mounds of earth are seen not uncommonly in 
 Italian heraldry, as in the coat of the Chigi 
 family in Rome, which has six hillocks springing 
 from the base, three, two, and one that of the 
 Albano family having in base 
 three hillocks, two and one. 
 The extraordinary coat of the 
 counts of Tannberg in Bavaria 
 is described asgules, a point, 
 argent, rising from two rounded 
 hills of the same ; hardly a 
 correct description, as the figure
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 53 
 
 is undivided and of a single colour. It seems to 
 be rather a point extended on either side of the 
 base by two semicircular projections. 
 
 (Y.) Passing to artificial objects, we have the 
 bezant, a gold Byzantine coin, always taking its 
 proper tincture, or; torteaux, a round figure 
 ahvays coloured gules ; lozenges, billets (small 
 parallelograms placed perpendicularly) ; mascles, 
 or lozenges of a larger form voided or hollowed 
 in the middle ; and the fret, which has been 
 already described. 
 
 (/.) Architectural objects are not uncommon, 
 and we have already seen how great was the 
 influence of military and civil architecture upon 
 the art of heraldry in its earliest period. It 
 may be said, indeed, to have adopted the lines of 
 the architect, as well as many of the objects and 
 forms of his art. Nor did this influence fail, even 
 in that later period in which the original ideal 
 of heraldry was lost in the more modern forms 
 of warfare. For when heraldry became combined 
 with architecture, so as to be introduced in the 
 buildings of the great, the new combination led 
 to the introduction of supporters a feature 
 originating in the representation of the shield as 
 held in the paws of some animal, or supported 
 by some of the grotesque and conventional
 
 54 HERALDRY 
 
 figures of mediaeval architecture. Battlemented 
 walls, towers, gateways, portcullises, and other 
 features of public or private buildings find their 
 place in heraldry, and very frequently appear in 
 the arms of countries or towns. Keys, represent- 
 ing forts and municipal buildings, or their custo- 
 dians, are also very frequent both in local and 
 general blazonry. In the arms of bishoprics and 
 abbeys they naturally have a conspicuous place, 
 and they are found chiefly in saltire (cross 
 keys). 
 
 It must be borne in mind that the relative 
 positions of all these objects are designated 
 according to the direction they take, and in terms 
 of the greater ordinaries already described. 
 Thus, we might have a series of lozenges placed 
 in fesse, in bende, in pale, or in saltire ; we 
 might have eagles or lioncels placed three, two, 
 and one on the field, or in the direction of any 
 of the lines above mentioned. 
 
 (/.) The use of the cross in the shield in its 
 simple form as extending over it has been 
 already described. No figure of heraldry has 
 been made subject to as many varieties as this 
 has. The enumeration of these may be usefully 
 given here,
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 55 
 
 The simple cross, Cross patte"e (pleine). Cross potence'e. 
 or croix pkine. 
 
 Cross pattee, floriated. Cross crosslet. A cross fitche'e. 
 
 A cross cram- Ancree. Croix au pied fiche (ori- 
 
 ponnee.* ginating the cross 
 
 fitchee common in 
 English heraldry). 
 
 * The crampon is considered as half the potence, which has the 
 form of a T. It resembles therefore an F without the central 
 mark.
 
 56 HERALDRY 
 
 Besides these varieties, which are greatly multi- 
 plied in French heraldry, the cross may be varied 
 by any of the composite lines already described. 
 It may be engrailed, embattled (or bretissee], 
 counter-embattled (or contrcbretisste], and also 
 bear the fret, the lozenge, chequy, and vaire to 
 diversify its surface and form. It is generally 
 found as a diminutive in English heraldry, and, 
 especially in the case of crosses fitchee and cross 
 crosslets, is multiplied in the field as in the 
 arms of the Howards and Berkeleys. 
 
 (/.) The human body, either entire or in any 
 of its members, is of frequent occurrence in 
 foreign heraldry, but is rather unusual in our 
 own ; except in the case of supporters, and in 
 crests, in which the arm or hand are frequently 
 seen. The Dalzell family in Scotland bear a 
 human figure, unaccompanied by any other 
 charge ; and in Germany it is not unfrequently 
 seen. Hearts are represented in the famous 
 Douglas coat, and others in Scotland, and even 
 eyes are found (though very rarely) in French 
 heraldry. But all these are exceptional bearings, 
 and do not occur in England. 
 
 XX. We have hitherto made no mention of 
 the crest, the most familiar portion of our Eng- 
 lish heraldry, and in popular usage the most
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 57 
 
 generally adopted of its devices. Its history 
 and origin is derived from that later develop- 
 ment of the art, in which the helmet had 
 succeeded to the ruder military head-gear, and 
 a device corresponding to that of the shield was 
 placed upon it. In Welsh, and generally in 
 Celtic heraldry, its use is comparatively modern. 
 In German heraldry it follows in its most 
 ancient type the devices of the coat-armour. 
 Feathers, buffaloes' horns, and elephants' trunks 
 abound in Germany, while in England (for the 
 most part) lions or demi-lions and other animals 
 or birds partly or wholly represented constitute 
 the greatest portion of our crests. These usually 
 rest on or spring from ducal or mural coronets, 
 or from a fascia forming a kind of groundwork. 
 In the great German houses, both royal and 
 noble, crests are multiplied with the quarterings, 
 and present a confused and motley appearance, 
 altogether foreign to the first idea of a crest as 
 a distinctive ornament for the helmet of the 
 warrior. Placed upon the helmet over the grave 
 of the knight, and at the head and feet of the 
 recumbent figure on his altar-tomb, they fill an 
 important page in the heraldic history both of 
 our own and foreign lands. The terms in which 
 they are described are necessarily simple, as
 
 58 HERALDRY 
 
 they are incapable, for the most part, of those 
 linear varieties which give the shield so diversified 
 a character, or of those successive charges which 
 tend so greatly to complicate it. Even in 
 German blazonry the heraldry of crests is com- 
 paratively easy. 
 
 It may be generally asserted that the earliest 
 crests bear a distinct relation both in form and 
 colour to the coat itself. Thus, the crest of the 
 Hohenzollerns, which could not well repeat the 
 device of the arms (which are only quarterly, 
 arg. and sa.~), quarter these colours also on the 
 animal's head, which is their original crest. The 
 crest of England preserves the lion passant of 
 the arms ; the arms of Saxony are reproduced 
 on its principal crest. The crest of the Wasa 
 family is a reproduction of the extraordinary 
 figure in their arms, which has undergone such 
 remarkable changes of form, as to give signal 
 proof of the uncertainty of armorial bearings in 
 an earlier age.* 
 
 Of supporters, as derived from the introduc- 
 tion of heraldic bearings as an ornamentation of 
 the castles and halls of the great, we have 
 already briefly spoken. Even in royal families 
 
 * See the dissertation of Andreas Brauner, "De Insignibus 
 Sereniss. Familix Wasiacae " (Upsal, 1758).
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 59 
 
 their introduction is comparatively modern ; and 
 in England as late as the time of Henry VIII. 
 only a single supporter is found at the side of 
 the royal arms. Their use is in England con- 
 fined to the nobility, and to those families to 
 which the permission to bear them has been 
 specially conceded by the sovereign. The heads 
 of clans in Scotland claim this distinction, but 
 it does not appear to rest on any historic 
 evidence or recorded concession. In foreign 
 heraldry their adoption is more frequent, though 
 the higher distinction of bearing the arms upon 
 the imperial eagle, which is enjoyed by the 
 counts of the empire, gives an inferior dignity to 
 supporters. In the arms of the great Italian 
 families who claim an imperial connection, the 
 eagle is represented in chief, as in the houses of 
 Colonna, Orsini, Ottoboni, Petrucci, Cesarini, 
 Odescalchi, and many others. Special augmenta- 
 tions of this kind are in England placed in the 
 dexter canton of the shield, where the " badge of 
 Ulster," the mark of the baronetcy, is generally 
 emblazoned. The insignia of the empire of 
 Germany, as they are given in the "Niirnberger 
 Wappenbuch," exhibit the single fess of Austria, 
 impaled with the castle of Spain, on the breast 
 of the imperial eagle, surrounded by all the
 
 60 HERALDRY 
 
 arms of the dependent kingdoms and princi- 
 palities, which form a cordon round it. 
 
 The conjecture of Grandmaison and others 
 that supporters were derived from the pages 
 who stood beside the shields of knights when 
 they were placed on the ground before tourna- 
 ments, and who were sometimes fantastically 
 dressed as bears, lions, etc., is rather ingenious 
 than credible. For in that case they would 
 claim an antiquity which cannot be established 
 for them in any country of Europe, and their 
 late introduction into England would be un- 
 accountable. 
 
 XXI. We have now defined the general laws 
 and principles which regulate both English and 
 foreign heraldry. We may proceed, therefore, 
 to offer to the reader some specimens of those 
 more complicated forms which German heraldry 
 presents, and which are found in the pages of 
 Grandmaison, and in the " Nurnberger Wappen- 
 buch" of Siebmacher. The former writer observes, 
 that in order to express these unusual divisions, 
 we must examine in what direction the lines 
 divide the field, and to what principal forms 
 they approach the nearest. He gives these 
 examples :
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 61 
 
 Aiisberg (Bavaria). 
 
 This is described as " mi-coupe 
 enpointe, mi-parti, et recoupe vers 
 le chef" This seems too com- 
 plicated a description. Parted 
 per fesse and stepped in the 
 centre, would seem to be clearer 
 or, according to the French phraseology, parted 
 per fesse en equerre, arg. and sa. 
 
 Beurl (Styria). 
 
 " Gules a un coude " (an el- 
 bow) " en triangle d'or, mou- 
 vant* de Tangle senestre de 
 1'ecu en traverse, et recoupant 
 en burele rempli de sable." This 
 seems needlessly complicated. 
 For we have here merely a gyron (or) extending 
 from the corner of the sinister canton of the 
 shield beyond the centre, voided and " filled " 
 }, sable. 
 
 * A figure of this kind (like a gyron) is always described in 
 French heraldry as moving along the line of its base towards the 
 chief or base of the shield as though a circle was being traced 
 from the centre or some point approaching it.
 
 62 
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 Von Zirn. 
 
 Gules, a pale disjointed in the 
 middle ; one within the dexter, 
 the other within the sinister half 
 of the shield, and united at their 
 junction (accotis) for the width 
 of the pale. 
 
 UArpo. 
 
 This is described as " mi- 
 coupe en chef, failli en taillant 
 et recoupe vers le pointe de 
 gueules et d'argent." Perhaps 
 this could hardly be made 
 clearer though the idea of a 
 
 break in the line (like that of the chevron failli) 
 
 is unknown to English heralds. 
 
 Fromberg. 
 
 This is the exact reverse of 
 the Ausberg coat already de- 
 scribed. By dividing either of 
 them perpendicularly in the 
 same manner, we arrive at the 
 most unique coat in German 
 heraldry, that of the
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 Von Tale (of Brunswick). 
 
 This is described as "ecar- 
 tele (quarterly) en e'querre de 
 gueules et d'argent." * 
 
 Kauffungen. 
 
 " Mi-tranche au-dessous du 
 chef, mi-taille en remontant vers 
 le chef, et retaille au flanc de 
 1'ecu, d'or et de gueules." It 
 would be impossible to describe 
 this division in the terms of 
 English heraldry, nor does the French nomen- 
 clature convey any clear idea to the reader. 
 
 The arms of Angelo Corario, one of the Anti- 
 popes deposed at the Council 
 of Constance, are less an un- 
 usual division of the field than 
 an unusual form and size of 
 the lozenge, which is counter- 
 changed upon it. If the lozenge 
 is described as extending to the 
 edges of the field, the exem- 
 
 * The field, when divided either horizontally or perpendicularly 
 by a line stepped in the centre, is described as divided en tquerr:.
 
 6 4 
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 plification of the bearing would be obvious. The 
 same feature occurs in the Pomeranian family of 
 Kollere. 
 
 GleiscntliaL 
 
 Here we have a fesse broken 
 (failli} in the centre, the dexter 
 portion rising towards the chief, 
 and the sinister falling towards 
 the base, joined at the central 
 point of the shield. 
 
 Woadvilk. 
 
 The English coat of Wood- 
 ville has for us a more historic 
 interest. It is described as 
 "arg.y a la fasce-canton a dextre 
 de gueulcs." The fesse and the 
 canton here forming one figure, 
 the description seems simple and appropriate. 
 
 Lin deck zu Lisana. 
 
 This is said to be " d'azur, au 
 giron d'or mouvant du canton 
 dextre de la pointe en forme de 
 croissant verse vers la senestre."
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 Kunige (Tyrol). 
 
 " Tranche d'argent et de 
 gueules, fiche sur 1'argent" 
 
 Such arc some of the eccentric forms of 
 German heraldry. Nor is French heraldry 
 
 Chevron failli . Chevron ploye. Chevron enlasse. 
 
 without its anomalies. Several 
 forms of the greater ordinaries 
 unknown in England are given 
 by Grandmaison. Among them 
 is the chevron failli, depicted as 
 above ; the chevron ployf, fre- 
 quent also in German heraldry ; 
 
 Bande anchee. 
 the chevron en lass/, or interlaced 
 
 (of which an example occurs in the arms of the 
 Wyvill family) ; and the bande anchee.
 
 66 
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 But to follow the endless varieties of the 
 partition of a shield which might be gathered 
 from the "Niirnberger Wappenbuch," or to 
 describe the unusual forms which are found in 
 the charges of foreign heraldry generally, would 
 betray us far beyond the limits which separate 
 a mere elementary introduction from elaborate 
 treatises like those of Spener, the Abbe Menes- 
 trier, or the yet more learned Grandmaison. 
 We will, however, make 1 a few observations on 
 the divisions en tierce which are common both 
 in French and German heraldry, though they 
 are seldom recognized in our own. 
 A field thus 
 
 divided is 
 
 termed tierce 
 
 en pals. Every 
 
 portion of it is 
 
 supposed to 
 
 have a different 
 
 colour or metal. 
 Divided fesse- 
 
 wise, it would 
 
 be tiered en 
 
 fasces. 
 
 Divided by 
 
 lines resem-
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 bling the pairle, it would be tierce en pairle. 
 This is the coat of the Priesen 
 family, that of Haldermanstet- 
 ten having the lines reversed. 
 
 The Caumont family bears a 
 coat tierce" en bande. 
 
 These partitions of the field, 
 as they are unknown to Eng- 
 lish, and rare even in foreign 
 heraldry, need not longer detain us. But they 
 are interesting as showing how largely the art 
 
 <6 
 
 might be developed, if our modern heralds were 
 capable of greater invention than appears in 
 their grants of arms or adaptations of ancient 
 bearings to new claimants. The great varieties 
 which German heraldry presents, not only in the 
 eccentric instances we have referred to, but in 
 those forms which lie within the boundaries of 
 our stricter Norman system, offer a very wide 
 and fruitful field to the student of the art. It 
 may be interesting to the reader, 
 and a good exercise to his 
 powers of description, to select 
 a few examples from the Nu- 
 remberg collection and from 
 English heraldry. 
 The coat of the Counts Pap-
 
 68 
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 penheim, hereditary marshals of the empire, is 
 read thus: Quarterly; 1st and 4th, per fesse, 
 sa. and arg., two swords in saltire with their 
 points upwards, gules ; 2nd and 3rd, vaire, arg. 
 and az. 
 
 I 
 
 m 
 
 The coat of the Gersdorffs, 
 whose simplicity marks its an- 
 tiquity, is described by German 
 writers as a divided shield 
 (fesse-wise), the upper half 
 gules, the lower subdivided (per 
 pale), argent and -sable, 
 
 In this coat (of the Eckwart 
 family) it is clear that the read- 
 ing should be : quarterly, gules 
 and azure, a fesse argent. The 
 latter piece evidently covers 
 the horizontal line of the 
 quartering. 
 
 A similar effect is produced 
 in the coat of the Silesian family, 
 Von Stronichen, where the par- 
 tition of the field is per saltire, 
 az. and gules, a saltire, arg., 
 covering the whole.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 The coat of the ancient pa- 
 trician family Ilsung (of Augs- 
 burg) would be described as 
 mi-parti, gules and sable, two 
 double chevrons reversed, ar- 
 gent. 
 
 Von Peilstein. 
 
 A#., on a fesse arg., a pile 
 counterchanged. 
 
 Von Breyart. 
 
 A ^., two chevronels inter- 
 laced with a single one spring- 
 ing from the chief and culmi- 
 nating in the point of the base, 
 'arg.i three crescents, two in 
 chief and one in base, or. 
 
 2nd Quarter of the Princes 
 of Lichtenstein. 
 
 Gules, a chevron, the upper 
 lines formed of seven ppints, 
 arg.
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 Von Ridler. 
 
 Per bende indented, gules and 
 arg., two cottises, all counter- 
 changed. 
 
 Freiherrn Vohlin von Dissen. 
 
 The coat of the Vohlin family, barons of the 
 empire and patricians of Augsburg, presents an 
 interesting example of the manner in which four 
 coats may be quartered. Our system of English 
 quartering keeps the first and last quarter for 
 the male (or first) coat, the in- 
 termediate ones containing the 
 several coats of the heiresses 
 represented by the family in 
 their proper order. But in this 
 case the coats are quartered 
 thus : 
 
 1st and 7th quarter, arg., a fesse, azure, charged 
 with three E's. 
 
 2nd and 8th, gules, a lion rampant looking to 
 the sinister side of the shield, argent. 
 
 3rd and 5th, argent, a wild man bearing a 
 staff, sable. 
 4th and 6th, sable, a fesse, argent.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 Polweiler (a noble family of Ba- 
 varia, now extinct). 
 
 As., a pale chevronny, gules 
 and or. 
 
 This almost unique bearing 
 of the Barons von Kaisersstuhl 
 exhibits a succession of gyrons 
 extending across the field, 
 united at, and springing from, 
 the centre of the sinister side 
 of the shield, argent and gules. 
 
 We will proceed now to give some illustra- 
 tions of the simpler forms of heraldry, which 
 are more likely to present themselves to the 
 English student, selecting them from the "Extinct 
 Baronetage " of Burke, which comprises some of 
 the oldest English families, and 
 therefore the most classic forms 
 of our national heraldry. 
 
 Acton. 
 
 Quarterly, per fesse indented, 
 argent and gules ; in the first 
 quarter a Cornish chough, sable.
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 Annytage. 
 
 Gu., a lion's head erased, be- 
 tween three cross crosslets, arg. 
 
 Aucher. 
 
 Erm., on a chief, az., three 
 lions rampant, or. 
 
 Barnardiston. 
 
 As., a fesse dancette, ^r;^., be- 
 tween six cross crosslets, 
 
 Barrington. 
 
 Arg., three chevronels, 
 and a label of three points, as.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 73 
 
 Blotmt. 
 
 Barry nebule of six pieces, or 
 and sable. 
 
 Cornish. 
 
 Sa.y a chevron embattled, or, 
 between three roses, arg. 
 
 Dormer. 
 
 Az., ten billets, or, four, three, 
 two, and one ; on a chief of the 
 second, a demi-lion issuant, sable. 
 
 Eldred. 
 
 Or, on a bende ragule, sable, 
 three besants.
 
 74 
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 Elwes. 
 
 Or, a fesse, #/$, surmounted 
 by a bende, as. (This, if cor- 
 rectly given, appears to repre- 
 sent colour on colour.) 
 
 Fenwyke. 
 
 Per fesse, gules and arg. } six 
 martlets counterchanged. 
 
 Fletcher. 
 
 Arg., a saltire, engrailed,^., 
 between four roundels of the 
 second, each charged with a 
 pheon of the field. 
 
 Cell. 
 
 Per bende, as. and or, three 
 mullets of six points in bende, 
 pierced and counterchanged.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 75 
 
 Gorges. 
 Arg., a whirlpool, az. 
 
 Guise. 
 
 Gules, seven lozenges, vaire, 
 three, three, and one. 
 
 Hardres. 
 
 Gules, a lion rampant, ermine, 
 debruised by a chevron, or. 
 
 Hawkins. 
 
 Per saltire, or and arg., on a 
 saltire sable, five fleurs-de-lys of 
 the first, all within a bordure 
 gobony, or and sa.
 
 7 6 
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 Holies. 
 
 Erm., two piles, issuing from 
 the upper part of the dexter 
 and sinister sides of the shield, 
 and joining in the centre. 
 
 Lawson (of Isell). 
 
 Per pale,^-. and sa.,a. chevron 
 counterchanged. 
 
 Mackworth. 
 
 Party per pale indented, sable 
 and ermine, a chevron gules, 
 fretty or. 
 
 Mayney. 
 
 Party per pale, arg. and sa., 
 three chevronels between as 
 many mullets counterchanged.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 77 
 
 Oldfield. 
 
 Or, on a pile, vert, three garbs 
 of the field. 
 
 Parker. 
 
 .) a lion passant, gules, be- 
 tween two bars, sable, charged 
 with three bezants, two and one. 
 In chief as many bucks' heads 
 caboshed. 
 
 Pope. 
 
 Per pale, or and az., on a 
 chevron between three griffins' 
 heads erased, four fleu'rs-de-lys 
 all counterchanged. 
 
 Roberts. 
 
 Arg., six pheons, sable, on a 
 chief of the second; a greyhound 
 current of the first gorged, or.
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 Smith (of Isle worth). 
 
 Quarterly, ist and 4th, az. t a 
 lion ramp., or ; on a chief, ar., a 
 mullet, gules, between two tor- 
 teaux ; 2nd and 3rd, gules, two 
 chevronels within a bordure, arg. 
 
 Spencer. 
 
 Quarterly, az. and gu. ; in the 
 2nd and 3rd quarter a fret, or; 
 over all, a bende sable charged 
 with three escallops, arg. 
 
 Style. 
 
 Sa., between two bars, or, six 
 fleurs-de-lys, three, two, and one 
 of the same. 
 
 Throckmorton. 
 
 Gules,on a chevron, arg., three 
 bars gemelles, sable. 
 
 * Bars gemelles, in English heraldry, 
 are a succession of bars placed two and two.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 79 
 
 Tickborne. 
 Vaire, a chief, or. 
 
 Tresham. 
 
 Party per saltire, sa. and or, 
 in chief and in base, six trefoils 
 slipped, two, one, and one, two. 
 
 Williams (of Llangibby). 
 
 Gyronny of eight, ermine and 
 sable, a lion rampant, or. 
 
 Willoughby, 
 
 Or, two bars, gules, each 
 charged with three water-bou- 
 gets, arg.
 
 8o 
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 Wittewrong. 
 
 Bendy of six, arg. and gules, 
 on a chief, azure, a bar indented, 
 
 rg., three chevronels inter-, 
 laced, vaire, a chief, or. 
 
 Yonge. 
 
 Ermine, on a bende between 
 two cottises,* sable, three grif- 
 fins' heads erased, or. 
 
 These examples, more than any mere verbal 
 directions, may enable the reader to interpret 
 any ordinary English coat. Nor will he find 
 any difficulty in the case of Italian or Spanish 
 
 * A cottise is a diminutive of a bar or bende, and has the 
 appearance of a fillet placed beside the principal ordinary.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 Si 
 
 heraldry, which, is in general, far less compli- 
 cated than that which fills the pages of the 
 " Niirnberger Wappenbuch," some of whose more 
 eccentric forms we have already indicated. 
 Among the historical Italian coats, none is more 
 memorable than that of the family of Michele, 
 which gave several Doges to Venice, and is 
 probably as ancient as any of the reigning 
 houses in Europe, having the same origin as 
 the illustrious family of the 
 Frangipani, of Roman celebrity. 
 It presents a classical exception 
 to the rule forbidding colour to 
 be laid upon colour, or metal 
 upon metal, and is emblazoned 
 thus : Barry of six pieces, argent 
 and azure, charged with six 
 successive rows of bezants, four, five, four, three, 
 one. In this coat it is plain that the bezants, 
 which are always or, fall on the bars of argent, 
 as well as upon those of azure, and that thus 
 metal falls upon metal. The origin of this de- 
 parture from the general law is this. The Doge 
 Domenico Michele, during the Crusade in Syria, 
 being reduced to great need of money, struck 
 a number of coins out of leather, which he com- 
 manded his soldiers to receive as current coins. 
 
 c
 
 82 
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 On his return from the war, he changed these 
 pieces for money, and bore thereafter the bezants 
 representing them in his arms. 
 
 It may be here observed that "in a divided 
 coat, or in any device laid upon a field which 
 does not cover it, a metal or colour may fall 
 upon another metal or colour 
 without breaking this law, 
 Thus, in the very ancient 
 French family of Talaru, we 
 have a cottise (i.e. half a bende) 
 of gules falling upon a field 
 parted per pale, or and azure. 
 
 Bishopric of Baniberg. 
 
 Or, a lion ramp., sa., debruised 
 by a cottise, arg 
 
 A grand and almost unique instance of im- 
 perial heraldry is presented by the coat of the 
 Emperor Charles V., in which German, Spanish, 
 and French blazonry are brought into very effec- 
 tive juxtaposition. The coat is copied from the 
 title-page of the rare folio edition of the Com- 
 mentary on Genesis of Alphonsus Tostatus,
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 Bishop of Avila, printed at Venice (by Gre- 
 gorius de Gregoriis) A.D. 1507, and may well 
 close the illustrations by which we have en- 
 
 deavoured to familiarize to the reader the 
 general laws of foreign and English heraldry. 
 It will be observed that there are here four
 
 84 HERALDRY 
 
 principal quarters, and that each of these is 
 subdivided into four subordinate ones, forming 
 together sixteen quarters. 
 
 Of these, the first, fourth, eleventh, and six- 
 teenth are again subdivided into four quarters, 
 while the second and twelfth are divided by a 
 double impalement,* the first of the three (on 
 the dexter side) being conjoined with another 
 coat fessewise an arrangement never seen in 
 English heraldry ; the fifth and twelfth are 
 divided by a single impalement, the dexter 
 side being a reproduction of the two coats 
 conjoined in fesse in the dexter flanc of two 
 and twelve. 
 
 The second and third principal quarters re- 
 present four different coats placed quarterly, 
 and are surmounted by an inescutcheon, sur 
 tout. 
 
 Following the sixteen quarterings in order, 
 we shall find that they represent the successive 
 kingdoms and principalities which were united 
 under the crown of Charles V., viz.: 
 
 i. and vi., Castile and Leon, quarterly ; re- 
 peated at xi. and xvi. The pomegranate in the 
 base represents the kingdom of Granada. 
 
 ii. and v. represent the other chief provinces 
 
 * The third of these coats is imperfectly represented.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 85 
 
 of Spain, including the escarbonde of Navarre, 
 borne also in the arms of France. 
 
 Hi. and ix. contain the fesse of Austria proper. 
 
 iv. and x. are the arms of France within a 
 bordure gobonated, indicating the representa- 
 tion by the emperor of a younger branch of 
 the French royal house. 
 
 vii. and xiii. are Burgundy. 
 
 viii. and xiv., Flanders (?). 
 
 xii. and xv. are a repetition of ii. and v. 
 
 The inescutcheon appears in the arms of Spain, 
 as given in the " Niirnberger Wappenbuch," but 
 I am not able to determine what province it 
 represents. 
 
 The ancient and regular method of quarter- 
 ing is exemplified in this great historic coat. 
 But in modern heraldry, to avoid the multipli- 
 cation of the same coat, the original arms of a 
 family occupy the first and last quarters, the 
 others taking their rank in the regular order in 
 which they were brought in. The quarterings 
 of the different branches of the imperial house, 
 as they are given in the " Niirnberger Wappen- 
 buch," are of the most complicated and almost 
 grotesque character, and are indescribable in the 
 terms of either English or French heraldry. 
 
 XXII. We have reserved for this final division
 
 86 HERALDRY 
 
 of our brief treatise, the consideration of those 
 differences which are called marks of cadence, 
 and which denote and distinguish the various 
 branches of families. 
 
 In the earliest period there is no doubt that 
 an entire difference of the arms separated families 
 claiming the same origin. Numerous examples 
 confirm this belief, both in the case of English 
 and German houses. 
 
 The most ancient method of distinction ap- 
 pears to have been by a change of the figure 
 or of the colour represented in the original coat. 
 In the case of new grants of arms, the arms 
 originally belonging to the name are often thus 
 varied in colour, or receive additions separating 
 the newer family from the older bearers of the 
 name. 
 
 But the most frequent usage, in the case of 
 younger branches of families, was the addition 
 of the bordure, either with a simple or compo- 
 site line to separate it from the rest of the shield, 
 or, as it is termed, gobonated, or compone (i.e. 
 divided into small square partitions). Where 
 these are charged with any figure, as in the case 
 of the dukes of Beaufort and other illegitimate 
 descendants of royalty, they constitute a mark 
 of illegitimacy. At the present time, by a novel
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 and unaccountable usage, the border wavy has 
 been adopted as the mark of illegitimacy a 
 device which, in earlier times, was ever con- 
 sidered as an honourable mark of cadence. 
 
 The most important and easily recognized of 
 the figures which mark cadence, and one which 
 was generally employed in royal and noble 
 houses, is the label (lambel), a horizontal billet 
 having three, five, or more points, formed by 
 
 zigzag embattled lines thus: A /*\ & 
 This figure has its points charged with various 
 heraldic objects when the younger branches are 
 again subdivided.* A kind of 
 billet-shaped figure, placed 
 transversely on the shield from 
 the sinister to the dexter, is 
 called the baton sinister, and 
 is found in the arms of the ille- 
 gitimate descendants of French 
 and English royalty. It is repre- 
 sented as in the margin. The baton is sometimes 
 gobonated, as in the arms of some of the de- 
 scendants of Charles II. in our English peerage. 
 Sometimes the label is an essential figure in the 
 
 * The Cardinal of York used only the crescent in the centre 
 of the royal arms, for difference.
 
 88 HERALDRY 
 
 field, as is the case in the great English family 
 of Barrington. Grandmaison observes, "The 
 label is sometimes apiece de Fecu, but this is rare. 
 Ordinarily it is a difference which is assumed by 
 the first cadets of great houses." He gives, how- 
 ever, seven instances in which it appears to be 
 an essential part of the bearing. In modern 
 heraldry it is rarely or never adopted, while the 
 charges upon it representing the subdivision of 
 the younger branches are altogether obsolete. 
 
 XXIII. Crowns, coronets, and mitres, as orna- 
 ments incompatible with the culminating feature 
 of heraldry, the crested helmet, form properly 
 no part of its system. The herald officially re- 
 cognizes only the knight as equipped for the 
 combat or tournament, and sees only the shield, 
 with the helmet and crest rising over it to com- 
 plete the picture. We may, however, observe 
 that the coronets of the nobility in England 
 consist of pearls and leaves (called usually, from 
 their trefoil form, strawberry leaves), either en- 
 tirely of one or the other, or of both alternated. 
 Thus the baron's coronet, having eight large 
 pearls, presents four to the eye, and is therefore 
 thus depicted. The viscount's has sixteen, eight 
 being represented in blazon. The earl's has 
 four small pearls on points, alternated with
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 89 
 
 leaves. The marquis's displays four leaves, alter- 
 nated with four pearls of larger size ; while the 
 coronet of a duke has a circlet of eight straw- 
 berry leaves, four being presented to the eye. 
 All these are arranged around the border of the 
 cap of estate of scarlet velvet, and are lined 
 with a rim of ermine.
 
 90 HERALDR Y 
 
 NOTE, 
 
 ON THE BEARING OF HERALDRY UPON EARLY 
 GENEALOGY. 
 
 WHILE it is among the most common of popular 
 fallacies to conclude that identity of name or 
 arms points to identity of race, or indicates a 
 common origin, we may readily admit that in 
 an earlier age, and when the laws of arms were 
 strictly observed, the bearing of the same coat 
 was often a better proof of the identity of 
 origin than even the bearing the same name. 
 Often an early tradition accompanied this 
 heraldic identity, as in the case of the counts 
 of Rosenberg, in Bohemia, who derived their 
 pedigree from the great Italian house of Orsini, 
 and bore the same unusual and somewhat re- 
 markable arms. On the other hand, the theory 
 of the common origin of the now imperial 
 Hohenzollerns and the house of Colonna is 
 made doubtful, if not disproved, by the absence 
 of this heraldic correspondence, and might well
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 91 
 
 have been suggested by the investiture of the 
 first Margrave of Brandenburg of the Hohen- 
 zollern family, and the election of Otto Colonna 
 as Pope, by the same Council, and the compli- 
 ments which passed between them on their 
 election. Whether the ancient Lusatian family 
 of Hund was justified in assuming the ladder 
 which represented the great Can Grande della 
 Scala is, perhaps, equally doubtful. But though 
 local and personal names give only a primd facie 
 evidence of a common origin or family kindred, 
 the bearing of the same arms at a period when 
 it was a kind of robbery to assume them arbi- 
 trarily and without authority gives a much 
 stronger proof of this derivation from a common 
 stock. 
 
 In Wales, where family names in a proper 
 sense can never be said to have existed, and 
 where Christian names became hereditary only 
 when their possessors passed over the border, 
 identity of arms (where fully proved) gave the 
 surest indication of community of origin. In 
 the case of armes parlantes, or punning heraldry, 
 in which family names derived from the natural 
 world or artificial objects suggested correspond- 
 ing devices in their coat-armour, no argument 
 of this kind could arise. In every country such
 
 r 
 
 92 HERALDRY 
 
 imitative devices abound, and in none more than 
 in the northern countries of Europe, including 
 our own, in which names derived from animals, 
 birds, fishes, and even objects of art and manu- 
 facture, are so abundant. Among our own 
 nobility, the pikes of the Lucys and the hiron- 
 delles of the Arundells of Wardour present them- 
 selves as conspicuous instances. In Italy we 
 have the Del Rovere, the Colonna, the Pignatelli, 
 the Pandolfini, and numerous other instances. 
 In Germany the instances presented by the 
 " Niirnberger Wappenbuch-" are countless. Nor 
 are they less numerous in Sweden, where their 
 enumeration fills nearly six pages of the treatise 
 we have already so often quoted (pp. 12-17). 
 
 And here, though the remark is somewhat a 
 digressive one from our immediate subject, we 
 may observe that too much faith ought not to 
 be placed on those traditional romances on the 
 origin of the arms of the more illustrious families 
 of Europe, which are rather the creations of 
 panegyrical writers of a later date, than the 
 assertions of contemporary history. The column 
 brought from the Holy Land by the Colonna in 
 one of the first Crusades was far less likely to 
 originate the crowned column which appears 
 in the arms, than the fief of the name they pos-
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 93 
 
 sessed in the Papal States. The giant Gargantua, 
 whose strange device of the serpent swallowing 
 the child is said to have been appropriated by 
 the founder of the Visconti family, was doubtless 
 a giant of romance ; while the derivation of the 
 three bars argent on the shield of the great house 
 of Caraffa from the three finger-marks of the 
 Emperor Otto, drawn over the bloodstain on the 
 harness, on the death in battle of the founder 
 of the family, leaving three white (or argent) 
 bands, and his alleged exclamation, " O carafe ! " 
 is rudely met by the fact that the name was 
 always spelt by its earlier possessors with the 
 double / and the final a, which led the Roman 
 populace, on the death of Paul IV., and in horror 
 of his reign, to forbid the sellers of glass and 
 earthenware flagons to cry about the streets " Ca- 
 raffe ! CarafFe ! " They, at least, were in happy 
 ignorance of the car a fe. That the assumption 
 of the five escocheons, each charged with five 
 bezants in saltire, by the first King of Portugal 
 (1147), was occasioned by the defeat and death 
 of the five Moorish kings, as Maimbourg asserts 
 (" Hist, des Croisades," b. iii.), may perhaps be 
 more probable. In any case, the change from 
 the azure cross, which was the device of his 
 father, corroborates what has already been said
 
 94 HERALDRY 
 
 on the second Crusade as marking the period of 
 the introduction of hereditary coat-armour. 
 
 In the case of tribal heraldry, where both 
 name and arms were assumed by the followers 
 of a sept or clan, it is clear that identity in 
 neither case would be proof of actual blood 
 relationship.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 95 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 ON THE ANTIQUITY OF THE COMPOSITE FIELD 
 AS IT APPEARS IN THE ROYAL ARMS OF 
 SAXONY AND SWEDEN. 
 
 THE shields found in the Viking ship recently 
 disinterred (1880) at the little hamlet of Gokstad, 
 in Norway, and fully described by the learned 
 antiquary, M. Nicolaysen, give remarkable illus- 
 tration to the origin and antiquity of those 
 lateral and horizontal divisions of the field which 
 became so frequent in the heraldry of a later 
 age in more distant lands. But while they thus 
 give illustration to the subject generally, they 
 cast a very brilliant light upon the royal shields 
 of Saxony and Sweden, the former of which 
 has so peculiar an interest for the English 
 reader. These primitive Scandinavian shields 
 are circular, which we have seen to have been 
 the earliest form of the shield, and are formed 
 of narrow boarding of wood, having an iron
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 boss in the centre, like that so frequently found 
 in Anglo-Saxon tombs in Kent and elsewhere, 
 and were apparently fixed in a border of iron- 
 work. It would manifestly depend upon the 
 manner in which the shield was held whether 
 the lines took the direction of the fesse, the pale, 
 or the bende. 
 
 The bars in the Viking shields were coloured 
 alternately black and yellow, 
 and it is a very singular and 
 suggestive fact that the 
 field of the royal arms of 
 Saxony exactly represents 
 both in its divisions and in 
 its colours, this earliest type 
 of a northern defensive weapon. The famous 
 and historic crancelin which passes over the 
 shield in bende, has not only furnished the 
 materials for numerous legen- 
 dary stories, but has been the 
 subject of almost countless 
 treatises by the learned in 
 Germany for centuries. By 
 Struvius it is alleged to be 
 merely a token of difference 
 assumed by Duke Bernard of Anhalt to dis- 
 tinguish the house of Upper Saxony from that
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 97 
 
 of Lower Saxony (c. 1218). Zschackwitz affirms 
 it to be a military belt or band. Krantz (c. 1450) 
 is perhaps the earliest relator of the legend of 
 the branch of rue. He alleges that the Duke 
 Bernard, asking from the Emperor Frederic 
 for a mark of difference to distinguish his shield 
 from those of his brothers, threw a branch of 
 rue across his shield, assigning as the reason for 
 it his having been crowned in the summer.* 
 
 But this early writer is so much more given 
 to legend than to actual history, that the origin 
 of this graceful addition is still asserted by 
 critical antiquarians to be an unsettled problem. 
 Both as representing the visible portion ot a 
 royal crown, or a branch of rue, it seems to 
 record the varied fortunes of the House of 
 Saxony, in its earlier and in its later history. 
 To us more especially, it points to the earliest 
 connection of the houses of Brunswick and 
 Saxony in the days of the empire, and of that 
 latest union of their descendants, in which the 
 symbolic crown so sadly and suddenly became 
 a branch of rue a union which brings the 
 representation of the house of Saxony (if not 
 their historic arms) into the royal dynasty of 
 England. 
 
 * Albert Krantz, " Saxonia," 1. v. c. 25. 
 
 H
 
 HERALDRY ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 The royal arms of Sweden, whose field is 
 generally represented as charged with three bars 
 wavy, on the tomb of Gustavus I., at Upsal, 
 exhibits the three bars in their 
 simpler form, and thus carries 
 us back again to the composite 
 structure of the Viking's shield. 
 This coat fills the second and 
 third quarters of the Swedish 
 arms, the celebrated and in- 
 comprehensible device of the Wasa shield being 
 placed as an escutcheon of pretence over the 
 centre. For the various interpretations of this 
 ever-varying figure, the reader who is interested 
 in such a subject may be referred to the 
 "Academic Dissertation" of Andreas Brauner, 
 <: De Insignibus Sereniss. Familise Wasiacse " 
 (Upsala, 1758).
 
 DICTIONARY OF HERALDIC 
 TERMS. 
 
 (Extracted from Grandmaison, who compiled it from the 
 great work of the Abbe" Menestrier.) 
 
 The terms used specially in French heraldry are 
 indicated thus : * 
 
 *Al>m'ss/. A term used where an ordinary is placed below 
 its proper position ; as in the case of a second chief, 
 where one is added expressive of a special conces- 
 sion, or honourable augmentation.! The fesse and 
 chevron are abaisses when they are placed lower in 
 the field than usually. The word is also used of the 
 wings of birds, when, instead of being raised towards 
 the chief, they droop towards the point. 
 
 Accompanied (accompagne) is said of all figures which 
 accompany, or are set around, the principal figure 
 or ordinary, filling thus the blank portions of the 
 shield. 
 
 A ccoste (beside one another). Said of all pieces set pale- 
 wise or bende-wise, and placed side by side. 
 
 f The arms of the Odescalchi family in Rome are an instance 
 of this, where the imperial augmentation (the eagle displayed) is 
 placed over the lion borne in the chief of the family arms, to 
 mark the dignities of the dukedom of Sirmio and other fiefs 
 besto\ved on the family by the emperor.
 
 loo HERALDRY 
 
 Adextre" (on the dexter side). Said of pieces placed thus 
 
 on the right of each other. 
 Adosse (Eng. addorsed) is said of lions and other animals 
 
 placed back to back. 
 
 Affronted. Of the same placed face to face. 
 Appointed (appointe) is said of two pieces whose points 
 
 touch ; as of two chevrons reversed, three swords 
 
 touching in patrle, their points meeting in the centre 
 
 (caur) of the shield. 
 Armed. Said of the claws of lions, griffins, eagles, etc., 
 
 blazoned of another colour from that of the animals 
 
 themselves. 
 *Arrete". Said of an animal whose four legs are on the 
 
 ground, in contradistinction to passant, in which it is 
 
 represented as moving. 
 Bande". Indicates a piece covered with bendlets, as a chief 
 
 or a fesse or other figure might be. The lion of Hesse 
 
 is thus represented. 
 Barre is said of a piece covered with bars (bendes 
 
 sinister), as is the field of the Swedish royal arms. 
 Beaked. Said of birds whose beak is another colour. 
 Billeted (billette"}. Said of a field covered (seme'} with 
 
 billets ; besante", of a field covered with bezants. 
 Bretisse, embattled, and Contre-bretisse, embattled on both 
 
 sides ; both frequent in France and England. 
 *Brise"\s said of the changes by alteration, or addition, or 
 
 diminution to mark the younger branches, also of 
 
 chevrons whose point is broken. 
 *Brochant. Said of pieces placed one over the other. We 
 
 describe this as " surmounted with." The Rochfou- 
 
 cauld arms are described as " trots chevrons brochants 
 
 sur des burUesj" we should simply describe it as 
 
 barry, arg. and as., three chevronels, gules. 
 Caboched (caboche"}. Said of the head of a bull or buck 
 
 facing the observer (p. 77).
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 loi 
 
 Charge. Said of any piece upon which another is placed. 
 
 Thus, the chief, the fesse, and the other ordinaries 
 
 may be charged with crescents, roses, cockles, bezants, 
 
 or any other objects. 
 Chevronne is said of a field covered with chevrons, or 
 
 of any of the ordinaries or other objects thus covered. 
 Compone is said of every ordinary, especially bordures, 
 
 pales, bendes, crosses, and saltires, broken up by 
 
 alternate squares of different colours and metals, 
 
 forming a composite figure like a chess-board. When 
 
 more than one row of squares occurs, the figure is 
 
 described as chequy, not componc. 
 ^Contreband/!^ Contrebarrc, and similar terms denote an 
 
 alternation of colours and metals between the several 
 
 ordinaries when multiplied in the field. 
 Contre-passant. Said of animals passing one another in 
 
 different directions. 
 Cotict (cottised) is said of a coat covered with cottises 
 
 (half a bende) with the colours alternated. 
 CoupJ (couped) is said of a coat divided horizontally 
 
 into two equal parts. It is also said of members or 
 
 portions of animals which are cut off cleanly and not 
 
 torn off, which is described as erased. 
 * Crainponne is said of the cross and other pieces when 
 
 their extremities show half a potcnce (or T). 
 *De I'un en Fautre. This is the 
 
 general way in which the French 
 
 express countcrchanging. Grand- 
 
 maison instances it in the arms 
 
 of Buillond. The term de I'un 
 
 a rautrc would appear to mean 
 
 that this alternation is carried 
 
 on, not merely in a divided 
 
 shield, but where there is an
 
 JO2 
 
 HERALDRY 
 
 ordinary, or several together (such as a fesse or 
 bende), upon it. This would form a kind of com- 
 pound counterchange, but is very unusual in English 
 heraldry. 
 
 Dandie" (indented). Said of every piece or partition which 
 is made in sharp points like teeth a compound line 
 which has been already described. 
 Ecartele" (quartered or quarterly). Said of a shield 
 
 equally divided into four parts. 
 
 Echequite" (chequy). A field or principal bearing or figure 
 broken up like a chess-board between colours and 
 metals alternated. Two rows of these squares, at 
 least, are necessary to this designation. A single row 
 is termed compont. 
 
 Entente" (indented). Used in French armoury for the little 
 triangular projections on the fesse, pale, etc., of a 
 different colour or metal. In English 
 heraldry, the term refers generally to 
 the form of the line itself. The for- 
 mer meaning of the term would be 
 expressed in English as dentated. In 
 the coat of the patrician family of 
 Onsorg, we have arg., a fesse, sable, 
 voided arg., cottised rg-.,and counter- 
 dentated sable. 
 Engrele (engrailed). Said of bordures or other ordinaries 
 having rounded indentations standing upwards, and 
 is the opposite to inverted, in which the indentations 
 are carried on in an inverted form. 
 Eployt (displayed). Of an eagle with outspread wings. 
 *Failli. Of a chevron broken in either of its limbs. 
 Fasc/ (fessed). Of a shield covered with fesses, or more 
 
 properly (in English parlance) bars. 
 *Faux is said of arms which violate the law prohibiting
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 colour upon colour, or metal upon metal. Spener 
 
 and Grandmaison have given many instances of this 
 
 kind, but none exist in English heraldry. 
 Fitche'e (fichf) is said of a cross having a sharpened base. 
 
 In English heraldry it is only used of diminutives. 
 Flanchd (flanked) of a piece placed side by side with 
 
 another. 
 
 Flenry. Said of bordures, etc., having fleurs-de-lys spring- 
 ing from them. 
 Fleury counter-fleury. Of a double series of flowers 
 
 opposed to one another, as in the double tressure of 
 
 the royal arms of Scotland. 
 Frette (fretty). Describes a coat covered with trelliswork, 
 
 or frets crossed in saltire. 
 Fuselt is said of a piece charged with 
 
 fusils (a larger form of lozenges). 
 Gironne (gyronny) is said of a coat 
 
 covered with gyrons, either in 
 
 eight or sixteen pieces. 
 Gorge (gorged) is said of the throat 
 
 or tail of a bird when it is of 
 
 another colour or metal. 
 Latigue (langued). Of the tongue of animals or birds when 
 
 of another colour. 
 *Lie (bound together). Of keys or other objects joined 
 
 together. 
 Losange (lozengy). Said of a field covered with lozenges. 
 
 The difference between this term and/w^/d/lies in the 
 
 size of the figure ; the lozenge being much smaller. 
 L'un sur Fautre (one on the other). Said of animals or 
 
 other objects placed upon one another. 
 Membrt (membered). Of the members of animals, etc., 
 
 when of a different colour from their bodies. A 
 
 remarkable instance of this kind is that of the patrician
 
 104 
 
 HERALDRY. 
 
 family of Rcmbold, which bears gules, an ox arrett, 
 or ; the fore-leg arg. 
 *Montant (mounting) is said or pieces when they ascend 
 
 towards the chief. 
 
 *Mouvant (moving) is said of pieces attached to the 
 chief, the angles, the sides, or the 
 base of a shield, from which they 
 appear to move. The coat of Beurl, 
 in Styria (already described), is thus 
 expressed : "a un coude en triangle 
 d'or, mouvant de Fangle senestre de 
 Vccu en traverse" Or otherwise, 
 " mouvant du flanc senestre de Vecu 
 depnis le chef. 
 * Mi-parti. Divided in half fessewise. We should describe 
 
 it as party perfesse, the equality being understood. 
 Naissant. Said of animals showing only the head over 
 
 the line of the chief or fesse. 
 Naturel (Eng., proper). Of objects displayed in their 
 
 proper colours. 
 Nebule. Said of pieces whose lines are in the form of 
 
 clouds a kind of line already described. 
 *Noue is said of the tail of the lion when it has open 
 
 knots. 
 
 Onde. In English wavy already described. 
 *Palissc. Palisaded, as in the Cenci arms, already cited. 
 Passant. Said of animals represented as walking. 
 Perce (pierced). Of objects hollowed in the middle. 
 Potence. Of pieces terminating in the figure of a T, 
 
 principally occurring in crosses. 
 
 Rampant. Said of the lion in its ordinary heraldic posi- 
 tion. Of a griffin, the corresponding term is sc'greant, 
 which does not appear to be used in modern French 
 heraldry.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 105 
 
 Recroisette is the French description of the cross crosslet, a 
 frequent figure in English heraldry. 
 
 *Rempli is said of a figure voided and filled up with a 
 different colour or metal, as in the Beurl coat, already 
 described. 
 
 Semt is said of pieces scattered over and covering the 
 field. The coat of France was anciently seme" of 
 fleurs-de-lys, though now the number is reduced to 
 three. 
 
 Sur le tout. Describes an inescutcheon in the centre of 
 the shield. 
 
 Sur le tout du tout. Represents another inescutcheon 
 placed upon the centre of the first. In the coat of 
 England as quartering Hanover, the Hanoverian 
 arms were sur le tout; the inescutcheon bearing the 
 crown of Charlemagne was sur le tout du tout. 
 
 * Taille is said of a shield divided into equal parts diago- 
 
 nally from dexter to sinister. 
 
 * Tierce. Of a shield divided into three portions in any 
 
 direction. 
 
 * Tranche is said of a shield diagonally divided from 
 
 sinister to dexter. 
 
 Vaire. Said of a shield covered with vairs. 
 Vide (voided). Said of crosses and other objects which are 
 
 open in the centre, so that the field is seen through 
 
 them.
 
 A SHORT DICTIONARY OF THE 
 ORDINARY HERALDIC OBJECTS. 
 
 Anchor. Not of frequent use, even in French heraldry, 
 
 and always placed in pale. 
 Anmdet. A frequent device, representing a ring, and 
 
 usually three or more in number. 
 Argent. A metal representing silver, and left blank when 
 
 not blazoned in white. 
 Azure. One of the principal and earliest of heraldic 
 
 colours light blue. 
 Baton. A figure represented by the half of the cottise, 
 
 extending in that direction across the field. When 
 
 failing at the ends, it is called peri; and when in this 
 
 form it has a sinister direction, it is a mark of 
 
 illegitimacy. 
 Bear. Represented either as passant or rampant j in the 
 
 latter case it is represented as standing on its hind 
 
 legs. 
 Bees. Represented generally in numbers not less than 
 
 three (as in the arms of the Roman Barberini), and 
 
 with extended wings. 
 
 Bende. This has been already described. 
 Bezant. A gold coin, blazoned or or argent, but mostly, 
 
 in English heraldry, the former.
 
 HERALDRY ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 107 
 
 Billet. A long square figure, generally multiplied in the 
 
 field. 
 
 Boar, An animal, frequent especially in Scotch heraldry'. 
 Bordure. A border of different colour or metal from the 
 
 field. 
 Branches. Frequent in foreign heraldry ; often interlaced 
 
 and leafed on either side, as in the Seckendorf coat. 
 
 * Burble. The French term for a pallet or diminished 
 
 pale. 
 
 Cantons. The dexter and sinister third parts of the chief. 
 
 Casque (helmet). In royal arms, fronting the observer, 
 open and without bars ; in nobles, fronting, but with 
 bars ; in the gentry, represented in profile and with 
 bars. 
 
 Chief. A principal division of the shield, already de- 
 scribed. 
 
 Chain. A device not unfrequent in Italian heraldry, as in 
 the coat of the Alberti family in Florence. 
 
 * Champagne. The base is thus called in French heraldry, 
 
 and is regarded, when defined, as an honourable 
 ordinary. 
 
 * Chape. A French term for a shield divided /<?r chevron, 
 
 when the lines meet in the centre of the chief. 
 Chequy. A division of the shield like a chess-board. 
 Chevron. One of the honourable ordinaries, already 
 
 described. 
 
 Chevronel. The diminutive of chevron. 
 Cock. Of frequent use in armoury ; is either armed, 
 
 beaked, crested, or numbered, when different colours 
 
 or metals are used in the representation of its head 
 
 or legs. 
 Cockle. A figure also of frequent use, and said to indicate 
 
 those who have made pilgrimages. 
 Cottise. A diminutive of the bende or bar, and half the 
 
 width of these ordinaries.
 
 io8 HERALDRY 
 
 Couped. Said of members of animals when they are 
 
 cleanly cut oft". 
 Crancelin (Ger., Krdntzleiti). A branch or garland 
 
 thrown across the field, as the rue branch in the 
 
 arms of Saxony. 
 Crescent. Of frequent occurrence, and sometimes a mark 
 
 of cadence. 
 Cross, Crosslet. These figures have been fully described 
 
 already. 
 Delves. Earthen vessels or pitchers, represented in the 
 
 arms of the Delves (extinct baronets) of Doddington. 
 
 A similar device is found in the arms of the Pignatelli 
 
 family of Naples. 
 Devices. Letter or mottoes adopted by kings and nobles, 
 
 and embroidered in early times with their arms. 
 Dolphin. Placed generally in a semicircular position 
 
 and in profile. 
 Dragon. Called in English heraldry a wivem^ terminating 
 
 in a fish's tail. 
 Eagle. The most frequent of the birds used in heraldry. 
 
 It is either displayed with wings spread out ; reversed 
 
 contourne, when turned towards the sinister side of 
 
 the shield ; naissant, when only a portion of it is 
 
 represented as springing from the chief, or from a 
 
 dividing line in the shield ; issant or issuant, when 
 
 they are seen issuing from the flanks of the shield, or 
 
 from some figure within it, as a door or den. 
 *Emanche is said of a coat formed of many triangular 
 
 pieces (cmanches] joined together, their number being 
 
 always mentioned in describing it. 
 Engrailed. Already described. 
 *Enqnerre is said of coats which violate the heraldic laws 
 
 by putting metal on metal and colour on colour. 
 *Eqnerre. This has been already described.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 109 
 
 Ermine. A fur having black spots on a white ground. 
 
 Erminois. The same with the colours reversed. 
 
 Per de moulin. A piece of iron, having four small limbs 
 and pierced in the centre, used in the machinery of 
 mills. 
 
 Fesse. One of the principal honourable ordinaries. 
 
 Fleur-de-lys. The most frequent flower, both in English 
 and French heraldry. 
 
 * Franc-canton . A canton in the dexter side of the chief, 
 one-third larger than a canton proper. 
 
 Fret, Fretty. A trelliswork, sometimes consisting of a 
 single diminutive saltire braced by a voided lozenge, 
 sometimes extended over the field like fretwork. 
 
 Fruit. Apples, pears, and pomegranates are the most 
 frequent. 
 
 Fusils. Lozenges of a larger size than the ordinary size. 
 
 Gemelles. Two cottises placed close together. 
 
 Gerbe. A sheaf of wheat. 
 
 Giron, Gironnt*. A division of the field, already described. 
 
 Griffin. An imaginary creature having the upper portion 
 of the eagle and the hinder parts of a Hon. 
 
 Gules. One of the most frequent and earliest of the 
 heraldic colours, called so from the throat of an 
 animal. 
 
 Hands. Of occasional occurrence in arms, but more often 
 in crests, as bearing some other object. Sometimes 
 we find them conjoined. 
 
 Head. Always couped, sometimes filleted. 
 
 Hills. Frequent in Italian armoury, rare in other coun- 
 tries, and scarcely known to English heraldry. In- 
 stanced in the Chigi, Albani, and many Roman 
 families. 
 
 Lance. As in the arms of Shakespeare. 
 
 Leopard. Supplanted in the arms of England by the 
 lion. The heraldry is the same in both.
 
 i io HERALDRY 
 
 Lion. The positions of the heraldic lion have been given 
 
 already. 
 Lozenge, Lozengy. The lozenge is the smaller of the 
 
 figures of this shape found in heraldry. 
 Manche. A loose sleeve, chiefly found in England ; and 
 
 instanced in the coats of the Norton and Hastings 
 
 families. 
 Martlet. A small bird, called in French heraldry mer- 
 
 /<?/&, and represented without claws or beak ; generally 
 
 blazoned, sable. 
 
 Mascle. This is a voided lozenge not unfrequent in Eng- 
 lish blazonry. 
 Orle. A voided inescutcheon, or (according to Grand- 
 
 maison) a fillet, half the size of a bordure, placed 
 
 within the field. 
 
 Pale, Paly. Already described. 
 Pelican. Represented as wounding herself, and poetically 
 
 described by English heralds as " a pelican in her 
 
 piety." 
 
 Point. Already described. 
 Portcullis, Porte-coulisse. A figure in the shape of a 
 
 harrow (and frequently thus occurring in Italian 
 
 heraldry), representing the suspended defence of a 
 
 gateway. 
 Potence, Potence. Used of a cross whose limbs are in the 
 
 form of a T. 
 Pitrpure. A tincture which is regarded by French heralds 
 
 as (like sable) neither colour nor metal, and therefore 
 
 may be placed either on the one or the other. 
 Quarterly, Ecartele. Said of a field divided, or of shields 
 
 added to one another in four divisions. 
 Quatrefeuille, Cinquefeuille, Trefoil. Figures of four, five, 
 
 and three leaves respectively. 
 * Rencontre. Said of an animal, so represented as to show 
 
 its eyes in front. A stag's head is often thus shown.
 
 ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 
 
 Rose. A very frequent device both in English and foreign 
 heraldry ; generally seeded and barbed, and repre- 
 sented in its fullest state. 
 
 Sable. A tincture of heraldry which is held to be neither 
 a colour nor a metal. 
 
 Saltire. A St. Andrew's cross covering the shield. 
 
 Star. A frequent device, and represented either with five 
 or six points. In the former case it is called in Eng- 
 lish heraldry a mullet. 
 
 Supporters. Figures, either human or animal, supporting 
 the shield. 
 
 *Taille, * Tierce-tierce". Already described. 
 
 *Tau. A figure of a T, rarely found in English armour}', 
 but instanced in the coat of the Drurys. 
 
 Towers. These are frequent in heraldry, both foreign and 
 English. Sometimes they represent outworks, some- 
 times simple towers, and are connected with walls, 
 and generally are mdconnh or exhibit masonry. 
 
 Trelisse". Fretty. 
 
 Tressnre. An internal bordure somewhat resembling the 
 orle. 
 
 Vaire. A coat variegated as already described. 
 
 Vert, Sinople. One of the chief (but later) colours of 
 
 heraldry, less frequent than gules or azure. 
 Water-bouget. A vessel for water of a peculiar shape, not 
 uncommon in English heraldry, and well known as 
 borne by the De Ros and Bourchier families. 
 
 THE END.
 
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