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

by G. W. Eve

Wyvern (so-called “Dragon”)
From Paradin, “Devices Heroiques,” 1557.

Privy Seal of Henry VIII.

CHAPTER V
Heraldic Birds and other Figures, Animate and Inanimate

In the same way that the lion asserted its pre-eminence among heraldic beasts the Eagle, the most powerful of birds of prey, was adopted as the symbol of victory from a time so early that one hesitates to set a period to it, for in Chaldea and Assyria, 4000 B.C., the eagle typified conquest, even as it did in the Middle Ages. The especially characteristic attitude of the heraldic eagle when it is said to be displayed is first found in these early picture writings of the East, and from thence through countless stages comes to adorn the surface of the shields, to whose decoration its spreading form and radiating lines so admirably lend themselves. The pose is, of course, a natural one, as one may see when a gull hovers and backs in the air; but its decorative power and its adaptability to a shield shape are so striking as to suggest its invention for the purpose. The same necessity for clear definition that influenced the drawing of the mediaeval lion caused the eagle to be treated in a somewhat similar way, and the feathers of the wings being wide spread with ample clear space between them, while the body became to some extent attenuated, made the figure as conventional as the lion, and similarly adaptable to decorative distribution on a surface.

Fig. 105.—Shield of the Emperor from the Tomb of Prince Edmund at Kings Langley. Early Fifteenth Century.

A good example of the heraldic eagle of the Middle Ages is on one of the shields that decorate the tomb of Edmund Plantagenet at Kings Langley, Herts (Fig. 105). This, the eagle with two heads of the Holy Roman Empire, alludes to Richard, Earl of Cornwall, who though he was never actually Emperor, got so far as to be elected King of the Romans in 1257, and the arms of the Empire are constantly ascribed to him.

The skeleton sketch that is useful in blocking out an eagle in its space will take some such form as Fig. 106.