Heraldry as art: An account of its development and practice, chiefly in England

by G. W. Eve

Fig. 30.
Shields by Aldegrever. 1552.

The Italian form derived from the tournament shield took a longer shape, still retaining the bouche, and often had the base divided into three parts, and many examples of this shape occur on the walls of the Palazzo del Podesta, Florence. The surface was generally kept whole and not fluted, as in the analogous English form. The most characteristic Italian shield, however, was that derived from the angular Roman ones, such as those on Trajan’s column, with the outlines curved into cusps. This is sometimes called the champfrien shape from its resemblance to the face-plate of horse-armour, but the appearance of the form at the time of the revived interest in classic art leaves little doubt of the source from which it was taken. Among others were oval shields, also of classic origin; and the round-topped Norman shape also occurs very frequently. Triangular shields with concave outlines were also used.

In the use of more or less elaborate decoration the German artists participated. Virgil Solis and Jost Amman among others frequently used the scrolled shield, as Beham also had done. That English heraldry felt all these influences is evident in the examples from St. Alban’s Abbey (Figs. 31 and 32), sculptures whose forms are directly derived from the tournament shield and were carved in the early sixteenth century.

The application of foliated ornament occurs in the Garter Plates early in the fifteenth century, in that of Henry, Prince of Wales, afterwards Henry V (Fig. 33), and more completely in the sixteenth century shield, which bears the arms of the Abbey of St. Alban’s (here omitted), Fig. 32.

In the Elizabethan and Jacobean decoration there is a reversion to the plain square shield, which usually occurs as a centre for scrolls and strapwork, the corners becoming slightly pointed, a feature which developed into the hideous eared shields of later times, when also the decorated form had become the clumsy “ornamental” shield that was so long endured.

Fig. 31.—Sixteenth Century.

Fig. 32.—Sixteenth Century.