The appeal, moreover, should largely be confined, if one would have what is best, to our own land. In the beginning heraldry was much the same in most European countries, but in course of time foreign armory became complicated by needless subdivisions and new methods of expression and combination. It would indeed be foolish to maintain that nothing can be learnt from foreign sources, but in the earlier stages of study English heraldry should come first. Not only is it characterized by a beautiful simplicity which continued practically unchanged until the beginning of the sixteenth century, but no other country outside England possesses such a wealth of examples of its various applications, and they lie immediately to hand for purposes of study and comparison. Moreover, English heraldry so fully illustrates the general principles followed in other countries that it is unnecessary at first to go further afield.
Heraldry, or armory as it was anciently called, is a symbolical and pictorial language of uncertain and disputed origin, which, by the beginning of the thirteenth century, had already been reduced to a science with a system, classification, and nomenclature of its own. The artistic devices known as arms, which may be formed by proper combinations of the colours, ordinaries, and figures that represent the letters of this language, had each their significance, and soon came to be regarded as the hereditary possession of some person, family, dignity, or office.
Fig. 1. Tile with the arms of King Henry III, c. 1255, from the chapter-house of Westminster abbey.
The display of arms was restricted primarily to shields and banners, but occasionally to horse-trappers (pls. [XI] B and [XII] B) and such garments as jupes, gowns, and mantles. Later on heraldry came also to be used ornamentally, either upon shields or without them, in all kinds of ways, in architecture and on monuments, on tiles and in glazing, in woodcarvings and in paintings, in woven stuffs and embroideries, in jewellery and on seals.
Fig. 2. Shield of the arms of St. Edward, c. 1259, in the quire of Westminster abbey church. An early instance of the use of heraldry in architecture.