Gentil bore “Gold a chief sable with two molets goles pierced gules.”
Grimston bore “Silver a fesse sable and thereon three molets silver pierced gules.”
Ingleby of Yorkshire bore “Sable a star silver.”
Sir John de la Haye of Lincolnshire bore “Silver a sun gules.”
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| Mounchensy. | Haggerston. | Harpeden. | Gentil. |
The Crescent is a charge which has to answer for many idle tales concerning the crusading ancestors of families who bear it. It is commonly borne with both points uppermost, but when representing the waning or the waxing moon—decrescent or increscent—its horns are turned to the sinister or dexter side of the shield.
Peter de Marines (13th century) bore on his seal a shield charged with a crescent in the chief.
William Gobioun (14th century) bore “A bend between two waxing moons.”
Longchamp bore “Ermine three crescents gules, pierced silver.”
Tinctures.—The tinctures or hues of the shield and its charges are seven in number—gold or yellow, silver or white, red, blue, black, green and purple. Medieval custom gave, according to a rule often broken, “gules,” “azure” and “sable” as more high-sounding names for the red, blue and black. Green was often named as “vert,” and sometimes as “synobill,” a word which as “sinople” is used to this day by French armorists. The song of the siege of Carlaverock and other early documents have red, gules or “vermeil,” sable or black, azure or blue, but gules, azure, sable and vert came to be recognized as armorists’ adjectives, and an early 15th-century romance discards the simple words deliberately, telling us of its hero that