This inception of the ikonomatic method, in the effort to express phonetically proper names, is admirably illustrated in mediæval heraldry. Very early in the history of armorial bearings, we find a class of scutal devices called in Latin arma cantantia, in English canting arms, in French armes parlantes. The English term canting is from the Latin cantare, in its later sense of chanting or announcing. Armorial bearings of this character present charges, the names of which resemble more or less closely in sound the proper names of the family who carry them.
Some writers on heraldry have asserted that bearings of this character should be considered as what are known as assumptive arms, those which have been assumed by families, without just title. Excellent authorities, however, such as Woodham and Lower, have shown that these devices were frequent in the remotest ages of heraldry.[[211]] For instance, in the earliest English Roll of Arms extant, recorded in the reign of the third Henry, about the year 1240, nine such charges occur, and still more in the Rolls of the time of Edward the Second. They are also abundant in the heraldry of Spain, of Italy and of Sweden; and analogous examples have been adduced from ancient Rome. In fact, the plan is so obvious that instances could be quoted from every quarter of the globe. In later centuries, such punning allusions to proper names became unpopular in heraldry, and are now considered in bad taste.
To illustrate their character, I will mention a few which are of ancient date. The well-known English family of Dobells carry a hart passant, and three bells argent, thus expressing very accurately their name, doe-bells. The equally ancient family of Boltons carry a device representing a cask or tun, transfixed by a cross-bow or bolt. Few canting arms, however, are so perfect as these. The Swinburnes, who are among those mentioned on the Roll of 1240, already referred to, bear three boar-heads, symbolical of swine; the Boleynes carry three bulls’ heads, which reminds us of Cardinal Wolsey’s pronunciation of the name in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, Bullen:
“Anne Bullen? No; I’ll no Anne Bullens for him;
There’s more in’t than fair visage.—Bullen!
No, we’ll no Bullens.”—King Henry VIII, Act III.
Not rarely the antiquity of such bearings is evidenced by the loss of the allusion in the current language, and recourse must be had to ancient and obsolete words to appreciate it. The English Harrisons display in their shield a hedge-hog, which is to be explained by the French hérisson, and testifies to their Norman origin. The Sykes of the north of England show a fountain in their shield, whose significance is first ascertained on learning that in the Northumbrian dialect syke means a flowing spring or stream. The celebrated fleurs-de-lys of the royal house of France are traced back to the first Louis, whose name was pronounced Loys, and from the similarity of this to the common name of the flower, the latter was adopted as the charge on his shield.
Hundreds of such examples could be adduced, and the task of examining and analyzing them would not be an altogether vain one, as the principles upon which they were applied are the same which control the development of ikonomatic writing wherever we find it. But I pass from the consideration of these facts of general knowledge to the less known and much misunderstood forms of this writing which are presented in American archæology.
These are best exemplified in the so-called Mexican picture writing. For many years scholars have been divided in opinion whether this was purely ikonographic or partly phonetic. About forty years ago M. Aubin wrote an essay maintaining that it is chiefly phonetic, and laid down rules for its interpretation on this theory. But neither he nor any who undertook to apply his teachings succeeded in offering any acceptable renderings of the Aztec Codices. I am persuaded, however, that the cause of this failure lay, not in the theory of Aubin, but in the two facts, first, that not one of the students who approached this subject was well grounded in the Nahuatl language; and, secondly, that the principles of the interpretation of ikonomatic writing have never been carefully defined, and are extremely difficult, ambiguous and obscure, enough so to discourage any one not specially gifted in the solution of enigmas. At first, every identification is as puzzling as the effort to decipher an artificial rebus.
There are, indeed, some able scholars who still deny that any such phoneticism is to be found in Mexican pictography. To convince such of their error, and to illustrate the methods employed by these native American scribes, I will present and analyze several typical examples from Aztec manuscripts.