Eugène Viollet-le-Duc

“ All kinds of flowers are employed in the coat of arms; however one hardly meets before the 15th century that the pinks, the poppy, the clover, the quad and cinquefoils and the flower of lily 4. By indicating the species and the number of the flowers or fruits in the shield, one must also indicate if they are accompanied by sheets, one says them then broken into leaf; if they hang with a branch, one them known as constant. The fruits which one generally meets in the old coat of arms are: apples, pine cones, grapes, nipples, the coquerelles ones. ”

“ It is especially in the monuments of the 16th century that we will seek these types, because it is during this century that the heraldry adopted figures whose quite distinct characters were reproduced without modifications sensitive until the moment when the artists, accustomed to a vulgar imitation of nature, did not include any more the fundamental laws of the decoration applied to the monuments, the pieces of furniture, with the weapons, with clothing. ”

“ But about 1245, at the time when ogival architecture arrived at its apogee, the blind arcades, in the buildings built with luxury, take a greatter importance, grow rich by low-reliefs, ornaments, of openings, tend to form under the windows a splendid decoration, while always letting see naked walls in between-colonnements ”

“ If in their massive constructions, inébranlables, the Romans had included/understood the need for leaving with the archs a certain elasticity by extradossant them, and by forming them of concentric rows of archstones, when they needed to give them a great resistance, with stronger reason in the masonries of the Middle Ages, where all is balance, and movement consequently, was one not to lose sight of the fact the principle which must direct the architects in the construction of the arcs. ”

“ The same cities and corporations took also coat of arms; the good cities, those which were more particularly associated with the efforts of the royal capacity to be freed from feudality, had the right to place as a chief the weapons of France; such were the weapons of Paris, of Amiens, of Narbonne, Turns, Holy, of Lyon, of Béziers, of Toulouse, of Uzès, of Castrate, etc. Some same cities carried: from France, particularly in Languedoc. The corporations generally took for weapons figures drawn from the trades which they exerted; it was the same for the middle-class men annoblis. ”

“ The quad and cinquefoils are bored by the medium of a round hole, which lets see the field of the shield. The pink it is called buttoned when its heart is not same enamel as the flower. Among the stars, those which are in the past employed are the sun, the stars and the crescent; the sun is always silver. When it is of color, it takes the name of sun shade. The position of the crescent is to be rising, i.e. its horns are turned towards the chief of the shield. When its horns look at the point of the shield, one it known as versed ”

“ The oldest Nobility of our States, which owes its first origin with the glory of the weapons, will undoubtedly see with pleasure that we look at the communication of its Privileges as the most flattering price which those can obtain which went on its traces during the war. Already annoblis by their actions, they have the merit of the Nobility, if they do not have yet the title of it ”

“ The blind arcade, by its larger apparatus, the firmness of its jambs monoliths, gives solidity to this base by decorating it, it accompanies and crowns this bench which reigns all along the low side. Generally even at that time, the blind arcades are supported by posts isolated decorated from bases and carved capitals ”

“ The animals represented on the coat of arms usually look at the line of the shield; if they look at the left, they are said circumvented.
The lions and the leopards are the animals most usually employed, they have over all the others the privilége to be heraldic, i.e., that their form and their posture are subjected to fixed rules. The lion is always illustrated of profile: it is crawling, i.e., high on its legs of behind, the dextral leg of front raised, and the sinistral leg of behind behind ”

“ One meets in certain buildings of the Lower Empire of the blind lines of arcades which have of another goal only to decorate naked walls. This reason for decoration appears particularly allowed and to be preserved by the architects of the carolingian time, and it persists for the periods Romance and ogival, in all the provinces of France. It is wise to observe however that the use of the blind arcades is more or less well justified in the Romance buildings ”

“ The regular clergy and sshieldlar, like feudal lord, adopted weapons as of the 13th century; i.e. the abbeys, the chapters, évêchés had their weapons; what did not prevent the bishops from carrying their hereditary weapons. Those, to distinguish their escutcheons from those of the sshieldlar members of their family, surmounted them episcopal hat or mitre, whereas the nobility did not pose any sign above its weapons. We saw keystones, paintings of the 13th and 16th centuries, where the escutcheons of the bishops are surmounted hat or mitre 10. ”

“ These stamps, which one surmounted the armoyés escutcheons, were not, like the supports and holding, which variable accessories during the course of the 15th century. Noble which had jouté in a brilliant way during the duration of a tournament, the covered head of a heaume stamped some singular emblem, and under the name of knight of the unicorn, of the dragon, etc, stamped of this heaume the shield of the weapons of its family, during a certain time, or its life during, if new prowesses did not make forget the first. ”

“ From time immemorial, the men who faced dangers liked to preserve the dumb witnesses of their long sufferings, their efforts and their successes. The enamelled weapons of varied colors, of singular figures, carrying the trace of their engagements, were religiously suspended on the walls of the feudal castles ”

“ While imitating or believing to imitate the forms of Roman antiquity, the architects of the rebirth deviated more of the principle of ancient construction than the architects of the XII E and XIII E centuries ”

“ From the end of the 16th century, one frequently sees the shields supported by supports and holding, overcome sometimes cimiers, stamps, and being detached on lambrequins.
The support is a tree, to which the shield is suspended; holding are one or two figures of men-at-arms, knights, forks and spoons of their armours and the coat armoyée with the weapons of the shield. ”

“ One wanted to give to the animals a more real aspect, and as the heraldry is an art purely of convention, this attempt was contrary with its principle. It is thus of great importance to penetrate itself of the traditional forms given to the animals as with all the other figures, when it is a question of painting coat of arms. ”

“ The blind arcades of which we previously spoke are “bâties”, almost always form part of construction, their arcs are composed of archstones, and form, as emphasized we it higher, like as many relieving arches related to columns monolythes; while the blind arcades of bases are most of the time hollow in blocks of stone. Such are the blind arcades placed below the statues now destroyed of the gates of the cathedral of Sées (fig. 19) , which date from the first years from
XIIIth century ”

“ The essential quality of the arch, it is elasticity. The wider it is, the broader the space which it must cross is, and the more necessary it is that it is flexible. The manufacturers of the Middle Ages followed this principle perfectly by multiplying the joints in their archs, by composing them of equal archstones, always extradossés carefully. ”

“ It is only to the XVI E century, whereas art to build, itself, subjected the use of materials to forms which were appropriate neither for their qualities, nor with their dimensions, that the arch was not applied any more because of its true function. ”

“ Blind arcades on the ground floor These kinds of blind arcades are generally placed, in French architecture, inside, under the supports of the low windows, and form a series of small blind arcades between the ground and these supports. The large rooms, the low sides of the churches, the vaults, are almost always papered in their bases by a succession of blind arcades not very projecting ranges by detached pilasters or posts resting on a bench or continuous base of stone. ”

“ The castles are sometimes surmounted turrets, one says them then summoned of so much; they are said built..., when the stone joints are indicated by a different enamel. The kingdom of Castille (114) is called: reds, with the summoned of three turns of silver, built, openwork castle of azure. The surmounted towers of a turret are called donjonnées. If the turns do not have keeps, but only one notched crowning, one must say crenelated of so many parts.
Openwork is used when the doors or windows of the turns or castles are of an enamel different from the building. ”

“ To the 13th century mainly, the abacuses are more or less thick, and their profiles are more or less complicated, according to whether the capitals are placed more or less close to the ground. In the high parts of the buildings, the abacuses are very-thick, largely shaped, while in the low parts they thinner and are finely profiled. ”

“ COAT OF ARMS When the Western armies precipitated in the East, with the conquest of Holy Sepulchre, their meeting formed such a mixture of different populations by the practices and the language, that it was well necessary to adopt certain signs made to recognize his people when coming from abroad to the battlefield with the enemy. ”

“ It is particularly in the Norman buildings built in England, that this abuse is felt; the frontage of the church of Peterborough in is an example. Nothing is more monotonous than this superposition of equal blind arcades like heights and widths, of which one includes/understands neither the utility like system of construction, nor the goal like decoration. ”

“ Moreover in the Romance buildings construction becomes almost always a reason for decoration, and when while building one needed relieving arches one sought to show them, that is to say by a projection, and even sometimes by a net decorated or profiled with the suction face. ”

“ In high Roman constructions in small materials and blockings, one often meets relieving arches out of bricks and hardcores set in full wall, in order to defer gravities on points of the foundations and bases established more firmly than the remainder of the masonry. ”

“ Parts arranged like D B E G I C H F, in orle. A figure placed in A, in the medium of several others which would be different by their form, is in abyss. When one shield is not in charge of any figure one says: X is called of such metal or such color. The former counts de Gournai carried of full black. If the shield is charged only with one fur, one says: X is called “ermine” (fig. I) . If it is in charge of figures, it is necessary to examine whether it is simple, i.e., without partitions, or if it is made up. ”

“ Blind Arcade or Blind Arch Word by which one indicates a series of arcades of a small dimension, which are rather intended to decorate the parts, smooth of the walls under the supports of the windows or the cornices, rather than to answer a need for construction. ”

“ One sees little by little the blind arcades “ornements”being thinned down towards the end of the XIIIth century; they lose their particular character to merge with the blind arcades of base whose we gave examples. ”

“ The most used animals are, among the quadrupeds: the lion, the leopard, the wolf, the bull, the stag, the ram, the wild boar, the bear, the horse, the squirrel, the dog, the cat, the hare, etc; among the birds: the eagle, eaglets, the corbel, the merlettes, the swan, let us alérions them, the canetes, etc ”

“ The leopard always shows its mask of face, its usual posture is to be busy; if it crawls, it is said lionné or crawling.
The lion and the leopard have additional terms which are common for them; they are armed, lampassés, joined, are membrés, crowned, leaned, faced, circumvented, contrepassants, issuant, being born, mornés, defamed, burellés, bandaged, crossed, left, fascés, chequered, of ermine, squirrel fur. ”

“ It is more actually only the lower part of the window which is stopped, and by the fact, the wall forced to reprocess itself inside with naked stained glasses, to let half of the mullions release itself in low-relief, preserves nothing any more but one low thickness which is equivalent to a simple partition. ”

“ The knights made carry their lances, heaumes and shields by pages and servants disguised as strange characters or animals. To open the step of weapons holding them of the tournament made attach their shields to trees on main road, or in certain assigned places, so that those which would like to fight against them were going to touch these shields. To keep them one put dwarves, giants, mores, men disguised in monsters or wild beasts ”

“ Each compartment of the ornamentation is carved in a height of base. Unfortunately the hand of the iconoclasts of 1792 passed by there, and the majority of the figures placed in the corner pieces were mutilated. As for the small low-reliefs arranged under the tympanums, they were used as goal with the stones of the children during strong a long time. These low-reliefs can go hand in hand with what the ancient sculpture produced of more beautiful. ”

“ For the ogival period, the manufacturers have to cross great empty spaces, they unceasingly seek to decrease at ground floor the points of support, in order to leave the most possible place with crowd, not to obstruct the sight ”