A Complete Guide to Heraldry

by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies

The ship its name a painted helmet gives.'

"Hence comes the frequent mention of ships called Pegasi, Scyllæ, Bulls, Rams, Tigers, &c., which the poets took liberty to represent as living creatures that transported their riders from one country to another; nor was there (according to some) any other ground for those known fictions of Pegasus, the winged Bellerophon, or the Ram which is reported to have carried Phryxus to Colchos."

To quote another very learned author: "The system of hieroglyphics, or symbols, was adopted into every mysterious institution, for the purpose of concealing the most sublime secrets of religion from the prying curiosity of the vulgar; to whom nothing was exposed but the beauties of their morality." (See Ramsay's "Travels of Cyrus," lib. 3.) "The old Asiatic style, so highly figurative, seems, by what we find of

its remains in the prophetic language of the sacred writers, to have been evidently fashioned to the mode of the ancient hieroglyphics; for as in hieroglyphic writing the sun, moon, and stars were used to represent states and empires, kings, queens, and nobility—their eclipse and extinction, temporary disasters, or entire overthrow—fire and flood, desolation by war and famine; plants or animals, the qualities of particular persons, &c.; so, in like manner, the Holy Prophets call kings and empires by the names of the heavenly luminaries; their misfortunes and overthrow are represented by eclipses and extinction; stars falling from the firmament are employed to denote the destruction of the nobility; thunder and tempestuous winds, hostile invasions; lions, bears, leopards, goats, or high trees, leaders of armies, conquerors, and founders of empires; royal dignity is described by purple, or a crown; iniquity by spotted garments; a warrior by a sword or bow; a powerful man, by a gigantic stature; a judge by balance, weights, and measures—in a word, the prophetic style seems to be a speaking hieroglyphic."

It seems to me, however, that the whole of these are no more than symbolism, though they are undoubtedly symbolism of a high and methodical order, little removed from our own armory. Personally I do not consider them to be armory, but if the word is to be stretched to the utmost latitude to permit of their inclusion, one certain conclusion follows. That if the heraldry of that day had an orderly existence, it most certainly came absolutely to an end and disappeared. Armory as we know it, the armory of to-day, which as a system is traced back to the period of the Crusades, is no mere continuation by adoption. It is a distinct development and a re-development ab initio. Undoubtedly there is a period in the early development of European civilisation which is destitute alike of armory, or of anything of that nature. The civilisation of Europe is not the civilisation of Egypt, of Greece, or of Rome, nor a continuation thereof, but a new development, and though each of these in its turn attained a high degree of civilisation and may have separately developed a heraldic symbolism much akin to armory, as a natural consequence of its own development, as the armory we know is a development of its own consequent upon the rise of our own civilisation, nevertheless it is unjustifiable to attempt to establish continuity between the ordered symbolism of earlier but distinct civilisations, and our own present system of armory. The one and only civilisation which has preserved its continuity is that of the Jewish race. In spite of persecution the Jews have preserved unchanged the minutest details of ritual law and ceremony, the causes of their suffering. Had heraldry, which is and has always been a matter of pride, formed a part of their distinctive life we should find it still existing. Yet the fact remains

that no trace of Jewish heraldry can be found until modern times. Consequently I accept unquestioningly the conclusions of the late J. R. Planché, Somerset Herald, who unhesitatingly asserted that armory did not exist at the time of the Conquest, basing his conclusions principally upon the entire absence of armory from the seals of that period, and the Bayeux tapestry.

Fig. 1.—Kiku-non-hana-mon. State Mon of Japan.		Fig. 2.—Kiri-mon. Mon of the Mikado.		Fig. 3.—Awoï-mon. Mon of the House of Minamoto Tokugawa.
	Fig. 4.—Mon of the House of Minamoto Ashikaya.		Fig. 5.—Tomoye. Mon of the House of Arina.

The family tokens (mon) of the Japanese, however, fulfil very nearly all of the essentials of armory, although considered heraldically they may appear somewhat peculiar to European eyes. Though perhaps never forming the entire decoration of a shield, they do appear upon weapons and armour, and are used most lavishly in the decoration of clothing, rooms, furniture, and in fact almost every conceivable object, being employed for decorative purposes in precisely the same manners and methods that armorial devices are decoratively made use of in this country. A Japanese of the upper classes always has his mon in three places upon his kimono, usually at the back just below the collar and on either sleeve. The Japanese servants also wear their service badge in much the same manner that in olden days the badge was worn by the servants of a nobleman. The design of the service badge occupies the whole available surface of the back, and is reproduced in a miniature form on each lappel of the kimono. Unfortunately, like armorial bearings in Europe, but to a far greater extent, the Japanese mon has been greatly pirated and abused.

Fig. 1, "Kiku-non-hana-mon," formed from the conventionalised bloom (hana) of the chrysanthemum, is the mon of the State. It is formed of sixteen petals arranged in a circle, and connected on the outer edge by small curves.