Show mrarous OF HER trlDRy From the Cornhill Magazine Heraldry has been variously regarded by its admirers and regrel Is exponents amirers as a sci once an art a religion or CVlVrt a Philosophy relgon To the Ignorant outsider Phiosonhy it appears rather in the light or a human system akin to grammar and theology gammar y based upon laws arbitrarv and imniuti = < bie as are all laws of mans construc tion In a natural art or science the are man many surprises since at any moment a genius may arise who overturns ac acrept m cd facts nd revolutionizes accredited theories But while We submit with a good grace to natures apparent inconse quences md inconsistencies we bitterly resent any Interference wIll the biterly rity of a system of human manufacture A gramatkl Wagner or a theological Whistler could thelogcnl never hope for recognI lion still less an heraldic Darwin Macaulay when inveighing aCula against the correct school of poetry aginst con temptuously Is poetry like heraldry mere matter of arbitrary regulation The heralds tell us that certain scutcheons and bearings denote certain condition and that to put colors on conditons rst ala on metals is i false blazonry l orIfl all this were reversed if every coat of arms in Europe were newfashioned if It were wcrp decreed that or should dPreed thlt never be placed but on argent or argent but on or that illegitimacy should he denoted by a loz once and widowhood by c bend the new science would he just a good as the old science because both the new and the old would be nothing I must be urged in excuse for this rank heraldic blasphemy that at the time it was written no vision of the future peerage floated before Mac aulays eyes In spite of its dogmatic spirit and con Fervatlve tendencies there is yet a charD about the subject of heraldry If only because be-cause the whole system is In such direct antagonism to all the ideas theories and I prejudices of the 1e utilitarian times The very existence of such an institution as i the College of Arms at the end of the I nineteenth century must be regarded I centur regarted as J I I an anomaly an anachronism or a pre historic survival The heraldic world i possesses a government a language a scheme of ethics a fauna and a llora all Its own In that strange land he who wlshes to get on must g back and he who desires to keep his place in the struggles lor existence must stand still There k no question of the SUI1 the fittest or rather the fittest are the most ancient and effete The heraldic S morillst has no care for the greatest happiness hap-piness of the greatest number since quality not quantity alone has any value i his eyes For the heraldic politician 5 the masse are nonexistent and the clas ees reign supreme In such a world cas j I may imagine Garter King of Arms Nor J rays and Clarenceux wandering through t < o 0 SS 0 I fields or an argent surrounded by Heraldic monsters rampant passant or Couchant talking AngloXorman French or punning in motto Latin listening to the song of the feelless martlet of the I beakless allerion and plucking the conventional con-ventional trefoil and fleurtFelys According to medaeval heraldic writars I the institution of coat armor is of the 1 most ancient and indeed sacred origin At hevyn I will begin says Dame Jul yan Berners the accomplished prioress of Scpewell in her Boke of St Albans 1 published in 14SG where were five orders of angels and now stand but fOr in I ccat armor of knowledge encrowned full I high with precious stones where Lucifer I with millions of angels out of hevyn fell into hell and Oder places and ben there holden in bondage and all were erected In I hevyn of gentill nature I is satisfactory i satisfac-tory to learn on the same authority that the four Evangelists were gentlemen I come by the right line of that worthy conqueror Judas Maccabeus and also that the four great Doctors of Holy ChurchSt Jerome St Ambrose St Augustine Au-gustine and St Gregory were gentlemen gentle-men of blood and cot a < mor Although heraldic authorities have made no direct attempt to solve the vexed question ques-tion When Adam delved and Eve span Who was then the gentleman yet they have assigned t Adam two coatsofarms The first which was borne in Eden before the fall when he needed neither coat for covering nor arms for defense consisted of a shield gules upon which the arms of Eve a shield argent were quartered as an escutcheon of pretense pre-tense she being a heiress The second I from the coat borne after the expulsion garden was paly tranche divided every 1 way md tinctured of every color Tie I use of furs in blazonry is it has been solemnly asserted a relic of the garments of skin worn by our first parents The second man who lived upon the earth Abel was we are told a true gentleman proof that it does not necessarily take three generations to manufacture the article gEcrtions tide Cain was no gentleman by behavior be-havior but he was the first man who desired God sired to have his arms changed so set His mark upon him Nearly all the principal characters In Xery al lrincipal charac the Old Testament have been accredited with coatsofarms These are as 3 rule highly appropriate except in the case of TcsephN heraldic coat which was merely black tinctured with white chequy saMe sa-Me and argent whereas something after second coat would the pattern of Adams woul surely have been more in keeping with I the youthful Josephs favorite attire Gideon bore arms sable a fleece argent I a chief azure gutte deau David a harp I or in a field argent and Samson gules alien I a-lien conchant or within an orle argent isemce of bees sable Armorial ensign are supposed to have received divine sane I I tion for God when prescribing unto Moses ton ses the form of conducting the Israelite in their journey through the wilderness expressly commnnded the use of armorial I signs saying The children of Israel shall pitch their t5e every nmao by his I own camp and every man by his own standard i Turning from scriptural to classical heraldry her-aldry the devices and badges borne by tlP < the Greek warriors upon the shield or helmet were eagerly seized upon by the I mediaeval heralds a a proof of the an tlqulty of their art and with the help of la I little imagination were developed into lttle Imainaton an elaborate system of armory The beginning be-ginning of arms according to a curious 1 old MS preserved at the Heralds College llS first found at the great siege of Troye within the citie and without The Irrioof lr Tv1oa rrnthotW totrptllfir and UCCOr jded that every man that fa great act of arms should bear upon him a merke in token of his doughty deeds 0 When I tokt the siege was ended the lords went forth I Into divers lands to peek adventures and I Brute and his knights with his merkeo Icpnie I to England and inhabited the land I I and after because the name of merkes was rude they turned the same into I I arms forasmuch the name was far fairer 1 that merkes were gotten and because goten I through might of arms of men i through heralds repudiate alI al-I connection with Greek ani Roman as I well as with Scriptural armory The I modern system of heraldry it is now I i believed had its rise in the standards used by the German princes in the centuries I cen-turies immediately preceding the Nor man conquest Henry the Fowler advanced ad-vanced it to its next step when in regulating regu-lating the tournaments he ordered that all combatant should be distinguished by liveries composed of narrow piece of stuff of various colon But if the Ger muii invented heraldry h2 French reduced re-duced it to a system To them s due the arrangement of tinctures and metals the attitudes of the animals and the technical terms used in blazonry Although Al-though coat armor is said to have been In use during the latter years of the Conquerors reign it did not become hereditary he-reditary until the time of Henry III In 1S4S Richard III incorporated the English En-glish herald who before that date had been attached to the court or to the households of great nobles Into a fraternity fra-ternity and founded the establishment known a the College of Arms In the days of great pageants the revenues of the heralds from one source or another must have been considerable At a coronation coro-nation they received 100 and on the kings marr receive f50 with the gift of the kings and the queens uppermost garments They were also paid largesse lar-gesse for proclaiming the styles and titles ti-tles of the nobility on public occasions and could claim valuable perquisites in the shape of rich stuffs velvets tissues and cloth of gold that were used for the furniture and decorations of state functions func-tions tons < time went on the heralds performed other and more useful duties than the Solemn mummeries required by their royal roy-al employers They took charge of the genealogies of noble or gentle families more especially after the dissolution of monasteries in which during the lawless mediaeval days valuable documents had been placed for safe custody About once in a generation visitations were made by the heralds to inquire into the pedigree pedi-gree of every family In the country claiming the honor of gentility The visitations vis-itations were especially necessary in and after the prosperous reign of Elizabeth when many nouveaux riches sprang up who desired to bear arms To meet this demand heraldic adventurers such as are not unknown In our own day undertook to forge pedigrees and invent coatsof arm for the sake of filthy lucre One of the most remarkable Incidents in the history of English heraldry is to be found in the triumphant career of the college of arms during the storms of the great rebellion and under the stern rule of the corm nweath Garter King at Arms kept his head and his title after King Charles head had fallen after the name Kings Bench had been changed even after the word kingdom had been blotted out of the Republican dictionary i Cromwell indeed like most parvenus I loved romp and finery his pageants are said to have surpassed those of his royal predecessor in splendor and costliness and we doubt not that he kept the heralds II her-alds hard at work It was natural that in the days when 1 the shield was meant for use as welL as for ornament when the crest was worn on the helmet instead of on the livery buttons and when the family motto was a war cry the study of heraldry should have been included in the educational curriculum and that a copious literature litera-ture on the subject should have arisen In the sixteenth century a curious little book called The Accedens of Armory was published by Gerard Legh This urortci to be a dialogue between Gerard Ger-ard tIle Herehaught and the Callgu I Knight wherein by the aid of roughly drawn illustrations the former explained ex-plained to the latter the existing system I of armory In the preface Legh divides I the ungpntle into three unequal part as follows The first whereof are gentle i ungentle Such be they who will rather swear arms than bear arms Who of negligence stop mustard pots with their fathers pedigrees The second sort are ungentle gentlemen who being enhanced to honors by their fathers yet cannot keep so much money from the dice as to make worshipful obsequies for the said fathers wIth any point of armory H Most of these desire the title to worship but none do work the deed that appertalneth thereto The third sort and worst of all are neither gentle ungentle nor ungentle gentle but very stubble cur and be neither doers sufferers nor I wellspeakers of honors token Even as late as the seventeenth century I cen-tury the science of heraldry scei rc have been in a slate of some confusion If we may judge from the address to the courteous reader at the beginning of GuHlims Displale of Heraldry published publish-ed in Pill wherein the writer observes i How difficult a thing i is to produce forms out of things shapeless and deformed de-formed and to prescribe limits to things confused there Is none but may easily perceive if he shall take but a slight view of the chaoslike contemplation of things not only diverse but repugnant in nature hitherto incorporated In the generous profession of heraldry as the formes of the pure celestial bodies mixt with grosse terrestrials earthly animals with watery savage beasts with tame wholefooted beasts with divided reptiles rep-tiles with things gressible fowles of prey with homebred these again with river fowles aery insecta with earthly also things natural with artificial arts liberal with mechanical military with rustca and rustic with civil The author au-thor proceeds to inform his intending readers that he has done his best to dissolve this deformed lump distributing and digesting each particle thereof into his particular rank Legh Gulllim and other early heralds waste a good deal of time and Ingenuity in ascribing meanings to the colors metals met-als and animals used In blazonry Each color i supposed to represent some more or less desirable quality such as or wisdom wis-dom argent chastity charity and a clear conscience azure a goodly disposition rules strength sable constancy divine strengh sorrow for the loss of friends vert joy love and gladness and purple jurisdiction It is curious that the poets should have adopted two of the heraldic her-aldic colors to the exclusion of the other i five They sing of azure skies but not of gules runsets while their ladies tresses are often sable but never or Mr Swin burne If we remember right once clothed a heroine in a robe of vert The use of poetical figures and similes drawn from the terms used in heraldry has gone out of fashion to a great extent with the decline de-cline of popular interest in the subject One fine example however occurs in the story of Enid in th Idyls of the King where the poet describes how Enid and Geraint remained Apart by all the chambers width and mute A creatures voiceless through a fault of birth Or two wild men supporters of a shield Painted who stare at open space nor glance The ole at other parted by the shield The heraldic fauna i chiefly remarkable for the large number of chimerical animals ani-mals that it contains The predilection of heralds for such creatures as dragons grilfins and unicorns may perhaps be explained ex-plained by the fact that it is sometimes convenient to be unable to compare portraits por-traits with originals There is an old story of the provincial heraldic painter who on his first visit to London was taken to seethe see-the lions In the Tower lons What tell me those are lions he exclaimed ex-claimed Indignantly Why Ive painted lions rampant passant couchant and sta tant for the last twenty years and I shall hope I know better than to believe that those are lions One of the humors of heraldry is to l r > > e found in the rule that a lion is only u lion when he is rampant in any other attitude 10r Most of the qualities tude he is a leopard 110st qual ties represented by the animals are obvious obvi-ous enough such as strength and courage by the ass and deliberation by the lion patience liberation by the snail but others are a lberaton snai the trifle farfetched as politeness by crane policy by the goat and skill in mu polcy heraldic sic the hart Some of the by 116rt Sme monsters are monstrous indeed Few to bear upon their families would care shield the wonderful pig of the ocean oi still with hounds ear stI the falcon fish a less the scarlet beast of the bottomless pit Canting arms 0 as they are sometimes antn have always been called allusive arms popular and this is not surprising when and appropriate as for they are so simple shells for Shelly a instance three whelk rabbit for Warrender three trumpets for I Call or a horse for Trotter In the reign of Henry VIII family arms began to assume as-sume a more complicated and elaborate character insomuch that some of them I have been compared to a garrison well stocked with fish flesh and fowl The nift f 6 adoption of a florirt style of armory was followed as Bontell says bv the substitution substitu-tion of pictorial representations often of a ton most 2frJvolous and unintelligible description descrip-tion for the simple and dignified Insignia of true heraldry The same writer describes de-scribes a grant of arms made to a family named Tetlow in 1760 which with thirteen other figures included the representation of a book duly clasped and ornamented having on it a silver penny upon which was written the Lords prayer while above the book hovered a dove with a crowquill in its beak This was to commemorate com-memorate is of the family having written writ-ten the Lords prayer with a crowquill in the compass of a silver penny |