Fig. 142.—Shield of John, Fifth Lord Erskine. Painted gesso. Geo. W. Eve.
The tone effect of diapering must be taken into account, and the consequent emphasis of the charges, unless their character is very elaborate and broken up, and in that case there may be a tendency to confuse their lights and thus obscure and spoil the whole effect. Discretion is therefore very necessary in applying that which properly handled is a very useful and decorative device. It has been said that diaper must have no design of heraldic significance, and this must be so wherever it is employed on the actual armorials. When, however, it is used as a background or other extra-armorial decoration the converse is the case, and badges and charges of an allusive character become the most suitable motives that can be employed.
Diapers of complete arms occur on a box of champlevé enamel in the Victoria and Albert Museum, whose decorations consist of lozenge-shaped spaces filled with the arms of de Valence and others, and in the similar work on the table of the tomb of William de Valence in Westminster Abbey. In the portrait medals the background was often enriched with armorial diapers of distinctive charges, such as the fleur-de-lis background to the head of Louis XII and the ermine one of Anne de Bretagne, both of which are excellent examples (Fig. 143). Similar diapers applied to architectural features are alluded to at p. 205.
Fig. 143.—Medal of Louis XII and Anne of Brittany. Fifteenth Century.
CHAPTER VI
Helm, Crest and Mantling
The treatment of the helm and mantling is a matter of especial interest both as a significant part of an achievement of arms and as that part of it which affords a great amount of freedom and variety in artistic arrangement, for the lines of the helm, the character of the mantling, its direction and flow, and to some extent its colour effect, are like the shape of the shield, at the disposal of the designer to do as he will or can with them.
With regard to the shield, which in course of time developed into a merely ornamented surface on which to bear a device, the sense of personal allusion was always retained, even when the close association of armorials with a military idea became to a great extent weakened, but a more essentially warlike character was always ascribed to the helmet and crest, as is evidenced by their omission from the arms of ecclesiastics and, in many instances and with great propriety, from those of corporations. This feeling may also have influenced the small size of the helmets of the later sixteenth century onwards. The intention, however, was not strong enough to dispense with them altogether as the mediaeval men did, and the result was merely to weaken the design in including the helmet and crest in a somewhat shamefaced way.
In the stately ceremonial of the tournament, helm and crest played no less distinguished a part than the shield, for those military sports which took so firm a hold on the vigorous tastes of mediaeval chivalry were accompanied by brilliant ceremonial, in which heraldry found its widest field of display in all kinds of sumptuous application to the dress and decoration of the scene.
The lodgings of the knights and nobles were distinguished by paintings of their armorials, and banners and pennons projected from the windows. The tribunes of the Ladies and of the Judges of the Tournament were gay with badges brilliant in colour and of endless variety of form, while the combatants themselves in surcoats and shields of Arms and with crested helms and armorial horse trappings, exhausted the heraldic possibilities of personal adornment.