We have only to compare the bold and frank heraldry of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries with the coach-painter's heraldry of the present to realize the great change in feeling. Compare a Plantagenet lion with a Victorian one, a mediæval griffin with a nineteenth century specimen.
SICILIAN SILK TISSUE. TWELFTH CENTURY (SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM).
The Gothic heraldic designer felt he must be simple and bold for the sake both of distinctness and ornamental effect. He emphasized certain features of his animals: he insisted very much, for instance, upon the claws of the lion, its mane and tail, its open mouth and tongue; in short, he felt it was his first business to make a bold and striking pattern, and whatever the forms of his heraldry, they were controlled by this feeling.
Heraldic devices formed a large part of the ornamental design of the Middle Ages in all kinds of materials. They were abundantly used in dress patterns and in hangings and textiles of all kinds. In the beautiful Sicilian silk stuffs, for instance, a leading feature of the repeat often consists of an emblematic or heraldic device of animals or birds, which give character and agreeable massiveness to the pattern.
Mediæval brasses afford many beautiful examples of heraldic treatment. Indeed, for ornamental feeling, expressed by very simple means and under very limited conditions, those of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries afford beautiful instances, which may be most profitably studied by designers of all kinds. Mr. Creeny's book on the Continental brasses may be recommended as containing many very beautiful examples from his own rubbings, notably from Belgium. Two specimens are given in Chapter VIII.
EX BELLO PAX, (From Alciati's "Emblems," 1522.)
But the love of symbol and emblem did not expire with the vigour of heraldic design. Indeed, a certain impetus was given to it by the invention of printing, which, diverting it into another channel, seemed to give it fresh life in association with literature. The sixteenth century was remarkable for its love of allegory and emblem, which was no doubt stimulated by the opening up of the stores of classical lore at the Renascence, and by the general stir and activity of thought of a time of transition, when new and old ideas were in conflict or in process of fusion. Life was full of variety, contrast, hope, fear, strife, love, art, romance and poetry, learning and the beginnings of scientific discovery. Out of the seethings of such elements, joined with the relics of mediæval naïveté and quaintness, came into existence the emblem book, which offered compact pictorial epigrams, by means of the woodcut and the printing press, to fit every phase of human life, thought, and vicissitude.
Holbein's "Dance of Death" was really a book of emblems, and the subject was a favourite one with the German sixteenth century designers. Very ancient ideas reappeared in these books, unearthed by scholars, from all sorts of sources, from the ancient Egyptians onwards. Such designs as those of the pelican feeding its young from its own breast, and the stork carrying its parent on its back, constantly reappear; and also the bees making their hive in a helmet, with the motto Ex bello pax, which reminds one of Samson's riddle of sweetness and strength.