Heraldic shield

“ In many ancient heraldic shields, especially in painted glass, and to a lesser extent in carved work and on seals, the plain uncharged surfaces of the field or ordinaries are relieved by covering them with the purely ornamental decoration called diapering (figs. 45, 48) . An early instance in relief occurs on the shield of the effigy in the Templars' church in London usually ascribed to Geoffrey de Magnavilla; and another delicately sculptured example of later date [Pg 106] is to be seen on the Vere effigy in Hatfield Broadoak church in Essex (fig. 47) . ”

“ Other supporters of shields only may be seen on seals of Thomas Beauchamp earl of Warwick (1369) , [Pg 199] where they are bears; and of Roger Mortimer earl of March and Ulster (1381) , where they are lions, as is also the case in a seal of John Batour used in 1418-9. In each of these cases the shield is hung upon a tree.
In heraldic representations where the shield of arms is surmounted by a helm and crest, there is the same hesitation in arriving at true supporters; the space at the sides being filled at first by a badge or such device. ”

“ A compartment is anything depicted below the shield as a foothold or resting-place for the supporters, or indeed for the shield itself. Sometimes it is a fixed part of the blazon and a constituent part of the heritable heraldic bearings. At other times it is a matter of mere artistic fancy, and no fixed rules exist to regulate or control nor even to check the imagination of the heraldic artist. The fact remains that supporters must have something to stand upon, and if the blazon supplies nothing, the discretion of the artist is allowed considerable laxity. ”

“ These plates are interesting as being some of the examples from which most of the heraldic handicraft of a recent period was adapted. The {66}official shield eventually stereotyped itself into a shape akin to that shown in Fig. 32, though nowadays considerable latitude is permitted. For paintings which are not upon patents the design of the shield rests with the individual taste of the different officers of arms, and recently some of the work for which they have been responsible has reached a high standard judged even by the strictest canons of art. ”

“ The Shield of the ancient kingdom of the Isle of Man, No. 158, still continues to be the heraldic ensign of that island: it is—Gu., three human legs in armour ppr., conjoined in the fesse-point at the upper part of the thighs, and flexed in triangle. This true curiosity of Heraldry leads Mr. Planché to remark, that “the arms of Man are legs” (“Pursuivant of Arms,” p. 112) . The Shield represented in No. 158 is drawn from an original example of the age of Edward I. in the Heralds’ College. ”

“ The Parts and Points of an heraldic Shield, 33 which is also entitled an “Escutcheon,” are thus distinguished:—
In blazoning the Divisions of a Shield, the term “Per,” signifying “in the direction of,” is employed sometimes alone, and sometimes (having the same signification) preceded by the word “parted” or “party.” The primary Divisions of a Shield are indicated in the following diagrams, Nos. 28-35:—
No. ”

“ The wife of a Knight shares his knightly title, and takes precedence from her husband’s knightly rank; and a knight, with perfect heraldic consistency, might marshal his own knightly insignia about the Shield which is charged with his own arms and those of his wife, whether united by impalement, or when the latter are borne in pretence: and thus a single Shield would be borne, and there would cease to exist any motive for endeavouring to impart to a second Shield some general resemblance to its companion by wreaths or other unmeaning accessories. ”

“ In the absence of a crown or coronet the Helmet rests directly on the upper part of a shield. In fifteenth and sixteenth century seals it shows very large in comparison with the coat-of-arms, and so does the crest; the helmet often shows the guige or shield belt, and the shield often hangs couchée or sideways. The Helmet, so says Guillim, is the true mark of English nobility, and it certainly shows as such on seals dating from the fourteenth until about the end of the sixteenth century, when rank coronets began to be used instead of, or together with, a corresponding form of helmet. ”

“ Marshalling coats of arms, is the act of disposing the arms of several persons in one escutcheon, so that their relation to each other may be clearly marked.
In Heraldry, the husband and wife are called baron and femme; and when they are descended from distinct families, both their arms are placed in the same escutcheon, divided by a perpendicular line through [Page 39] the centre of the shield. As this line runs in the same direction, and occupies part of the space in the shield appropriated to the ordinary called the pale, the shield is in heraldic language said to be parted per pale. ”

“ The Shield:—its Parts, Points, and Divisions.—Their Shield, which the knights of the Middle Ages derived from the military usage of antiquity, and which contributed in so important a degree to their own defensive equipment, was considered by those armour-clad warriors to be peculiarly qualified to display their heraldic blazonry. And, in later times, when armour had ceased to be worn, and when shields no longer were actually used, a Shield continued to be regarded as the most appropriate vehicle for the same display. ”

“ An early example of a helm with a heraldic device occurs on an effigy of Johan le Botiler about 1300. It is figured in Hewitt. The shield on the brass of Sir John Daubernoun bears a distinctly heraldic device. Heraldry seems to have been most studied, prized, and practised during the fourteenth century. An illumination in the Loutterell Psalter, dating from the middle of the same century, shows heraldic devices spread over the entire person of a knight ”

“ So also is the adoption of the armorial insignia of the Confessor, No. 2, by Richard II., and his marshalling it upon his own Royal Shield, impaled to the dexter with the quartered arms of France and England.
English Heraldry has been required to recognise another and a perfectly distinct class of “Augmentations,” which consist of additions to the blazonry of a Shield or of additional quarterings or accessories, granted as tokens of Royal favour, for heraldic display, but without any particular “merit” in the receiver, or any special historical significance in themselves. ”

“ True Supporters: their Introduction; Supporters of Crested Helms; Pairs of Supporters; Dissimilar Supporters; The use of Supporters by Ladies; Other ways of supporting Shields.
The misuse of crests to which reference has been made unfortunately does not stand alone, for modern artists are quite as much at fault with regard to the proper treatment of supporters.
There can be little doubt that these charming adjuncts to heraldic compositions originated with the seal engravers, in their desire to fill up the vacant space in a round seal between the shield and its surrounding margin. ”

“ The shape of the shield was largely a governing factor in the manner in which we find it depicted; the old artists, with a keener artistic sense than is evidenced in so many later examples of heraldic design, endeavoured to fill up as large a proportion of the space available as was possible, and consequently when only one lion was to be depicted upon the shield they very naturally drew the animal in an upright position, this being the one most convenient and adaptable for their purpose. ”

“ From the above remarks it will be seen that no datings, at any rate in the earlier centuries, can be deduced from the presence of supporters; indeed, there are instances of stone carvings on dwellings, in which it seems to me that the cutter, as in early seals, has added supporters merely to beautify his design and balance his shield, without any heraldic intention or authority whatever. ”

“ The forms of the shield or field upon which arms are emblazoned are varied according to the taste of the painter. The Norman pointed shield is generally used in Heraldic paintings in ecclesiastical [Page 6] buildings: the escutcheons of maiden ladies and widows are painted on a lozenge-shaped shield. Armorists distinguish several points in the escutcheon in order to determine exactly the position of the bearings or charges. ”

“ Eve certainly seems inclined to follow the older heraldic writers in giving as wide an interpretation as possible to the word heraldic, but it is significant that none of these early instances which he gives appear to have any relation to a shield, so that, even if it be conceded that the figures are heraldic, they certainly cannot be said to be armorial. ”

“ If a shield is divided by an angular line in a gable form, the two lowest lines of a division per Saltire, it is called per Chevron, and if this line is thickened so as to become a charge, it is called a Chevron.
When a third part of the top of a shield is marked off by a horizontal line it forms what is called a Chief, and when the top left-hand corner is marked off as a small square, measuring about a third of the chief, it is called a Canton, and is often an honourable augmentation to a coat-of-arms, granted for some distinguished service. ”

“ Six or eight form the usual basis for the division of a field, but the seven on the seal of the earl of Warenne and Surrey attached to the Barons' Letter of 1300-1 is not without its artistic advantages. On an ordinary, such as a fesse or cross, there should be at least two rows of checkers. Here, however, as in other cases, much depends upon the size of the shield, and a large one could obviously carry with advantage either on field or ordinary more squares than a small one without infringing any heraldic law.
Besides the plain cross familiar to most of us in the arms of St. ”

“ While fully appreciating the fact that the forms of modern coronets only date from the time of Charles II., it is still interesting to inquire by what methods peers of earlier date marked their dignity pictorially, and it seems that this was done by means of the use of a crest-chapeau, and the use of a helmet under it. But in sculpture certain forms of coronets also appear. Crowns and coronets are placed immediately upon the top of the shield. Over the crown or coronet comes the helmet, and over the helmet the crest. ”

“ Badges and charges on coats-of-arms have often developed into Supporters. Henry VIII., in 1528, borrowed one of the lions of England from his coat-of-arms and adopted him as a Dexter Supporter, a dignity he has retained ever since.
At Tournaments, before the combatants entered the Lists their banners and shields were displayed and held by retainers or pages. These serving-men were dressed in their Lord's livery or in some fancy dress. So that a Knight's shield would be recognised not only by the devices upon it, but also by the colours and appearance of its Supporter. ”

“ By the help of coronets it is possible to fix the exact rank of the owner, and this alone, together with the date of the book, ought to make the identification easy, by help of a Peerage of the same date.
The decorations which surround a shield are often of great use; the coat-of-arms and coronet of an Earl, for instance, may be easily identified, but there may nevertheless be three or four persons who succeeded each other rapidly, and bore the same coat, to whom the book may have belonged. ”

“ King adds, that traditions exist which represent the mythic heroes bearing “engraved on their signets the same devices that decorated their shields.” It would seem that the argument from such traditions would rather indicate the signet-devices to have been arbitrary, than the shield-devices to have been unalterable. While I readily admit the very interesting devices of antiquity to possess decided heraldic attributes, I cannot consider Mr. ”

“ A single sword as a charge may be seen in the shield of Dick of Wicklow, and Macfie, and a sword entwined by a serpent in that of Mackesy. A flaming sword occurs in the arms of Maddocks and Lewis. Swords frequently figure, too, in the hands or paws of supporters, accordingly as the latter are human figures or animals, whilst they figure as the "supporters" themselves in the unique case of the French family of Bastard, whose shield is cottised by "two swords, point in base." The heraldic sword is represented as Fig. ”

“ With the bouche, in the Ramrage Chantry, St. Alban's Abbey, of about the same date (Boutell's Heraldry, p. 98) .
Also in heraldic drawings of 1536, in Willement's Regal Heraldry.
No. 12, but without the bouche, occurs in Henry VII.'s chapel (Archæologia, vol. xvi, p. 194) .
The annexed engraving shows a most interesting knightly shield of the Schutz family, of Shotover, co. Oxford, dating from the fifteenth century. It is 2 feet 8 inches long by 1 foot 11⁄2 inches broad, and [61] was, when Mr. Hewitt wrote his book, in the possession of the Rev. J. Wilson, President of Trinity College, Oxford. ”

“ Helmet, wreath, and mantling disappear, whilst the shield and coronet no longer face one boldly and squarely, but appear in fantastic perspective; the supporters assume attitudes never before contemplated in heraldry—under or over the shield, or playing at hide and seek behind the shield. Cupids, angels, cherubim, and mythological deities lend their aid, and a background of clouds, with or without rainbows, completes the curious fashion in vogue about 1750, which lasted, with some modifications, down to the time of the Revolution. ”