The Curiosities of Heraldry

by Mark Antony Lower

Roundles are charges, as their name implies, of a circular form. The first idea of bearing them as charges in heraldry may have been suggested by the studs or knobs by which the parts of an actual buckler were strengthened and held together. As soon as blazon was introduced they received distinctive names, according to their tinctures. The bezant (or) was supposed to represent a gold coin, in value about a ducat, struck at Constantinople (Byzantium) in the times of the Crusades. Leigh, however, assigns it a much greater value, and calls it a talent weighing 104 lbs. troy, and worth 3750l. “Of these beisaunts you shall rede dyversly in Scripture, as when Salomon had geuen unto Hiram xx cities, he again gave vnto Salomon 120 beisaunts of gold, whereof these toke their first name,” (‘obeisance?’) The plate (argent) was probably some kind of silver coin. The torteaux (red) called in the Boke of S. A. “tortellys, or litill cakys,” are said to be emblematical of plenty, and to represent a cake of bread. The modern French ‘torteau’ is applied more exclusively to a kind of oil-cake of an oblong form used as food for cattle. ‘Tortilla,’ in Spanish, is a cake compounded of flour and lard. Dame J. Berners says it should be called wastel. ‘Wastel-brede’ is defined in the glossary to Chaucer, as bread made of the finest flour, and derived from the French ‘gasteau.’ Chaucer represents his Prioresse as keeping small hounds

“that she fedde
With rosted flesh, and milk and wastel brede.”
Prol. Cant. Tales.

Pommes (green), says Dallaway, are berries; but if etymology is worth anything, they must be apples, and such Leigh calls them. Hurts (blue) the same authority considers berries, and most heralds have taken them to be those diminutive things, whortleberries, or as they are called in Sussex, Cornwall, and Devonshire, ‘hurts.’ But I am rather inclined with Leigh to consider them representations of the ‘black and blue’ contusions resulting from the “clumsy thumps” of war. Pellets or Ogresses (black) are the ‘piletta’ or leaden knobs forming the heads of blunt arrows for killing deer without injuring the skin.[96] Golpes (purple) are wounds, and when they stand five in a shield may have a religious allusion to the five wounds of Christ. Oranges (tenne) speak for themselves; and Guzes, Leigh says, are eyeballs; but as their colour is sanguine, or dull red, this seems unlikely.

The Annulet seems to have been taken from the ring armour, much in use about the period of the Norman Conquest. The Orle, or false escocheon, is merely a band going round the shield at a short distance from the edge: it was probably borrowed from an antient mode of ornamenting a shield, serving as a kind of frame to the principal charge. Animals or flowers disposed round the escocheon in the same form, are also termed an orle. The bordure, or border, explains itself. Like the orle, it was primarily designed as an ornament. The lozenge, derived by Glover from the quarry, or small pane of glass of this shape, Dallaway thinks originated in the diamond-shaped cushions which occur on tombs to support the heads of female effigies, as helmets do those of men. The mascle is taken for the mesh of a net. When many are united the arms are blazoned masculy, and then represent a rich network thrown over the armour. At the siege of Carlaverok a certain knight is described as having his armour and vestments ‘masculy or and azure:’

“Son harnois et son attire
Avoit masclé de or et de azure.”

Billets have been conjectured to be representations of oblong camps, but from the name they would seem to be letters. They may have been originally assigned to bearers of important despatches. Guttée is the term applied to a field or charge sprinkled over with drops of gold, silver, blood, tears, &c. according to the tincture. This kind of bearing is said to have originated with the Duke of Anjou, King of Sicily, who, after the loss of that island, appeared at a tournament with a black shield sprinkled with drops of water, to represent tears, thus indicating both his grief and his loss.[97] A warrior returning victorious from battle, with his buckler sprinkled with blood, would, in the early days of heraldry, readily have adopted the bearing afterwards called ‘guttée de sang.’ In those times the besiegers of a fortress were often assailed with boiling pitch, poured by the besieged through the machicolations of the wall constructed for such purposes. Splashes of this pitch falling upon some besieger’s shield, in all probability gave the first idea of ‘guttée de poix.’ The fusil is like the lozenge, but narrower. Whatever the charge may mean, the name is evidently a corruption of the Fr. fuseau, a spindle. The fret may have been borrowed from the architectural ornaments of the interior of a roof, or more probably, from a knotted cord. It is sometimes called Harington’s Knot, though it is not peculiar to the arms of that family, for it was also borne by the baronial races of Echingham, Audley, and Verdon, and by many other families.[98]

My purpose being not to describe all the charges or figures occurring in heraldry, but merely to assign a reasonable origin for those which appear to the uninitiated to have neither propriety nor meaning, I pass by many others, and come to those to which a symbolical sense is more readily attachable, as the heavenly bodies, animals, vegetables, weapons of war, implements of labour, &c. &c. Here I shall merely offer some general remarks, for it is less my object to gratify curiosity on this subject than to excite that attention to it which it really deserves, and therefore I must say, with gentle Dame Julyan, “Bot for to reherce all the signys that be borne in armys it were too long a tarying, nor I can not do hit: ther be so mony!”

The heavenly bodies occur frequently in heraldry, and include the Sun, ‘in his glory,’ or ‘eclipsed;’ the Moon, ‘incressant,’ ‘in her complement,’ ‘decressant,’ and ‘in her detriment,’ or eclipse; stars and comets. The crescent was the standard of the Saracens during the crusades, as it is of their successors, the Turks, at this day. As one of the antient laws of chivalry enacted that the vanquisher of a Saracen gentleman should assume his arms, it is not remarkable that the crescent was, in the latter Crusades, often transferred to the Christian shield; although we must reject the notion that the infidels bore regular heraldric devices. It is probable, however, that their bucklers were ornamented in various ways with their national symbol. Several authentic instances of arms with crescents borne by English families from that early date, are to be found. Most of the families of Ellis, of this country, bear a cross with four or more crescents, derived from Sir Archibald Ellis, of Yorkshire, who went to the Holy Land. From a miraculous event said to have happened during the Crusade under Rich. I. to Sir Robert Sackville, the noble descendants of that personage still bear an estoile, or star, as their crest.

The ELEMENTS also furnish armorial charges, as flames of fire, rocks, stones, islands, thunderbolts, clouds, rainbows, water, and fountains. These last are represented by azure roundles charged with three bars wavy argent. In the arms of Sykes, of Yorkshire, they are called sykes—that being a provincialism for little pools or springs. The antient family of Gorges bore a gurges, or whirlpool, an unique instance, I believe, of that bearing.

If we derive heraldry from the standards of antient nations, then, undoubtedly, ANIMALS are the very oldest of armorial charges, since those standards almost invariably exhibited some animal as their device. Familiar examples present themselves in the Roman eagle and the Saxon horse. Of QUADRUPEDS the lion occupies the first place, and is far more usual than any other animal whatever. The king of beasts is found in the heraldric field in almost every variety of posture, and tinctured with every hue recognized by the laws of blazon. It may be remarked here, that in the early days of heraldry animals were probably borne of their ‘proper’ or natural colour, but as, in process of time, the use of arms became more common, and the generous qualities of the lion rendered him the object of general regard as an armorial ensign, it became absolutely necessary to vary his attitudes and colours, for the purposes of distinction. The same remark applies, in a greater or less degree, to other animals and objects. As the emblem of courage the lion has been represented and misrepresented in a thousand forms. A well-drawn heraldric lion is a complete caricature of the animal; and hence the ire displayed by the country herald-painter when shown the lions in the Tower is very excusable: “What!” said the honest man, “tell me that’s a lion; why I’ve painted lions rampant and lions passant, and all sorts of lions these five and twenty years, and for sure I ought to know what a lion’s like better than all that!”