A still more remarkable example is the large displayed fan crest (the earliest authenticated instance of a regular crest),[86] in the centre of which is a lion passant, on the top of the flat helmet of Cœur de Lion (second seal, 1197-99), used after his return from captivity, and quite possibly, therefore, borrowed from the East.
The fan-plume or panache appears also on the flat-topped helmet of Alexander III., King of Scots (second seal); the horse also bearing the fan-plume.
These fan crests are also seen on the seal of Richard Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel; of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, 1301; and of Edward of Carnarvon, Prince of Wales, 1305; and on the effigy of
FEATHER-FAN.
(Milan.) Sir Geoffrey de Luttrel, c. 1340, showing a fan upon which the entire Luttrel arms are depicted. A large fan crest, having little tufts of feathers at each division of the fold, appears on the arms of the family of Schaler, Basle; another is to be found on the common seal of the City of London (dated 1539), charged with the cross of the city arms. ‘In course of time this fan, in the case of London, as in so many instances, has through ignorance been converted or developed into a wing, but the “rays” of the fan in this instance are preserved in the “rays” of the dragon’s wing (charged with a cross) which the crest is now supposed to be.’[87]
| Fan of Mica, Italian, decorated with painted arabesques, ivory stick, guards with mica insertions. | Mr. L. C. R. Messel. |
With respect to the origin of these fan crests, we must go back, says Mr. Fox-Davies, to the bed-rock of the peacock popinjay vanity ingrained in human nature; the same impulse which nowadays leads to the decoration of the helmets of the Life Guards with horse-hair plumes and regimental badges, the cocked-hats of field-marshals and other officers with wavy plumes.... The matter was just a combination of decoration and vanity.
Notwithstanding the foregoing instances, it is abundantly clear that the folding-fan, though it may have been in intermittent use during these early periods, obtained no great vogue in Europe until the sixteenth century, when it was in general use in Portugal, Spain, and Italy, and that the prevalence of the fashion was resultant upon the influx of Eastern manufactures.