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

by G. W. Eve

Fig. 88.

There are also illusions of an optical nature that are produced by certain combinations of lines. If, for instance, three pallets are charged upon a chevron, it will be found that the middle one must be appreciably wider than those beside it if the three are to appear equal. Fig. 88 shows this, though the fact is more clearly appreciable in a drawing on a larger scale.

The Pose of the Animals must be carefully observed as being of the utmost heraldic importance, and must in the main be adhered to with complete fidelity. To neglect in this respect is due much of the bad heraldry which too often vitiates otherwise good work.

In the early days of the science, when the bearings were few, the nature of the creature was, no doubt, sufficient for the intended purpose, for there would be no other near with which to confuse it, and the pose was probably dictated by the form of the space that the animal was required to fill, but when it became necessary to distinguish between different bearers of the same animal, pose assumed a special significance and therefore became one of the principal means of heraldic distinction.

Of the two principal poses, rampant and passant, the former is more suitable to upright spaces and the latter to horizontal ones. When however a passant lion has to fill an upright space, such as a canton or a quarter of a shield, or a rampant lion to fill a horizontally flattened one such as the second quarter of the Royal Standard when it is constructed in accordance with Admiralty measurements difficulties occur. One such problem occurs in the arms of Cambridge University, Gules a cross Ermine between four lions of England, a Bible fesswise of the field clasped and garnished Or (Fig. 89).

Fig. 89.—Arms of the University of Cambridge.
Panel in copper silvered and oxidized. G. W. Eve.

It was the rampant position that was considered the typical leonine one, however, and therefore it was that the lions of England were called leopards in early times: not that they differed in their relation to the natural form, but simply that they were not in the understood leonine posture. It will be seen from the example (Fig. 90) that rampant signifies an upright pose with all the legs separated in a suggestion of vigorous rage. This arrangement of the limbs is heraldically essential, for when the hind legs are placed together the position is called salient or leaping (Fig. 91). With regard to the heads of animals, it must be understood that in heraldry the normal position is in profile, and then it requires no special mention in the blazon. If, however, the blazon is, for example, a lion rampant guardant, the head is turned until it looks straight out of the shield at the spectator (Fig. 92). Regardant is when the head is turned still farther so that it looks backward over the shoulder (Fig. 93). In some early works the term regardant is used in the same sense as guardant, full faced, but the position first described is what is now understood by the term.