Records and grants
- Related Topics:
- ecclesiastical heraldry
- coat of arms
- tartan
- herald
- monogram
In England an important development came with the heraldic visitations. From 1530 in the reign of Henry VIII to 1686 in the reign of James II, commissions were issued by the sovereign to the heralds directing them to proceed to a county in England or Wales and to inspect the arms in use there. The records of these visitations have been preserved and constitute a valuable body of genealogy as well as of heraldry. From the period of the visitations the heralds compiled huge collections of family history and pedigrees.
For about a half century before the foundation of the College of Arms, the English heralds are found to be issuing grants of arms on behalf of the sovereign. This is some 300 years after the first appearance of heraldry, which obviously much antedated not only royal colleges or corporations of heralds but even the existence of heralds themselves. From this evidence, it seems that in the early days of heraldry men may have assumed arms without reference to any authority. A very simple coat of arms would not be difficult to invent. That three unrelated persons from three different counties could bear the same arms, as is documented in the famous Scrope v. Grosvenor case of the 14th century, is not only not surprising but tends to indicate that the arms were self-chosen. Scrope v. Grosvenor was referred to King Richard II, and his judgment was final. While it is reasonably certain, however, that a majority of ancient arms were probably self-assumed, many early nobles bore arms that clearly referred to the arms of their liege lords—Kirkpatrick, Jardine, and Johnstone toward Bruce, for example—and if this required permission, as seems practical, such permission would have been in the nature of a grant. A progress from this to the king alone making grants would have been natural as the government of the realm became more centralized.
Early writers
The earliest writing on heraldry extant is a short treatise by Bartolo da Sassoferrato, Tractatus de insigniis et armis (“Treatise on Insignia and Arms”), which was published about 1356. In his small book Bartolo describes the various categories of armorial bearings and how they have been assumed. He refers specifically to arms granted by a prince and gives reasons for their value but asks why one man may not bear arms identical with those of another. In 1355 Bartolo had been sent to Pisa from Perugia as an envoy to the Holy Roman emperor, Charles IV, from whom he received many privileges, including a grant of arms, which were the same as those of the emperor as king of Bohemia but with changed tincture: or a lion rampant with two tails gules. An American scholar, L.M. Mladen, remarked of this grant and others made by Charles IV at the same time:
Charles was in all probability the first ruler ever to grant arms. To my knowledge, no earlier occurrence has been found.
The first English heraldic writer was John of Guildford, or Johannes de Bado Aureo, whose Tractatus de armis (“Treatise on Arms”) was produced about 1394. Then came a Welsh treatise by John Trevor, the Llyfr arfau (“Book of Arms”). Nicholas Upton, a canon of Salisbury Cathedral, about 1440 wrote De studio militari (“On Military Studies”). John of Guildford’s treatise was printed in 1654 with Upton’s work and the Aspilogia of Sir Henry Spelman by Sir Edward Bysshe, Garter King of Arms, who edited and annotated all three works. The whole was in Latin; no complete English version of Upton’s book has been published.
These books are by authorities who were concerned with the realities of heraldry in their own day, but from the end of the 15th century a tendency away from the actual and toward the fanciful and absurd manifested itself. Some of these far-fetched conceits showed themselves in The Boke of Saint Albans (1486) by Juliana Berners, and yet, by comparison with the vast mass of nonsense contained in the folios of the 16th century, such conceits were not entirely unreasonable. The works of Sir John Ferne, Blazon of Gentrie (1586), Gerard Legh, The Accedens of Armorie (1562), and John Guillim, A Display of Heraldrie (1610), not only perpetuate the nonsensical natural history of olden days but are largely responsible for erroneous beliefs about heraldic charges having definite symbolic meanings and their being granted as rewards for valorous deeds—beliefs that today are perpetuated by the vendors of mail-order and shopping mall “family coats of arms.”
Continental versus British heraldry
Much greater significance was attached in former times to heraldic insignia than is acknowledged today, although the attitude varied from country to country. Heraldry has become more widespread than at any other time, but as a sign of rank in popular perception its value is much reduced.
A distinction may be made between the Continent and Great Britain regarding medieval and later heraldry. The doctrine of seize quartiers (“16 quarters”) prevailed over most of the Continent but not in Britain. This theory required that, in order for a person to claim a specific degree of nobility, all of his 16 great-great-grandparents should have been entitled to bear arms. This, the “proof of the seize quartiers,” was the reason Frederick the Great of Prussia, though professing the views of the Enlightenment in the Age of Reason, diligently scrutinized his courtiers’ quarterings. The principle is based on the rigidity of a noble caste that married only with its own kind. On the Continent every member of a noble family is noble, as is reflected in the enormous numbers of titles. Similarly, the Continental royalty tended to marry only with other royal families. As a result both royal and noble families formed a class apart from the bulk of the people.
Continental heraldic insignia, therefore, from their origins until the late 18th century, provided symbols to indicate a higher caste. Yet, strangely, in several countries heraldry was in wide general use as a means of identification, serving in the same way as a surname. In France, for example, it is abundantly clear that from the 13th century not only the bourgeoisie of the towns but also the peasants bore heraldic arms. The usage had percolated down from the noble class. The earliest example of the use of arms by a peasant is that of Jaquier le Brebiet in 1369; his arms show a punning allusion to his name: three sheep (brebis) held by a girl. In other European lands—e.g., Hungary and the Low Countries—burgher or peasant arms were also found, but neither in these lands nor in France were their possessors regarded as noble.
In France the regulations of arms followed a quite different course from those in England. Although King Charles VI had in 1407 led the way in creating a college of arms, over the next two centuries his heralds lost influence. Unlike their Scottish and English counterparts, they had no power to grant arms, and they gradually faded into insignificance. To overcome the loss, Louis XIII in 1615 appointed a juge géneral d’armes (“general judge of arms”), an official whose powers resembled those of the Lord Lyon in Scotland. But the French royal government was lax about the possession of arms. A decree of Louis XIV in 1696, designed to raise money, ordered all persons who bore arms to register them. Those who were not part of the arms-bearing population were forced to buy arms. Later, in 1760, an ordinance was framed by which the lesser townsfolk, artisans, and peasants were to be excluded from the use of arms—after these classes had borne them for 400 years. But the Parlement of Paris refused to allow the ordinance to be implemented, and then later, during the French Revolution (1789), arms were suppressed as signs of feudalism.
The view of arms was and remains quite different in England. The Continental system of a noble caste has not existed in England since early medieval days, and the past seven centuries have rarely seen the use of caste to prevent vertical movement in society, even though it has usually impeded it. The landed gentry, recognized as Britain’s untitled aristocracy, intermarried with the peerage families and were recognizable as a caste, and a noble caste at that, identifiable by their arms, but its membership was not protected by law and privilege to the degree prevalent on the Continent. Younger sons of the peerage families dropped into the landed gentry with a small legacy or through marriage, and a couple of generations later their younger grandsons might be yeoman farmers or city merchants or professional officers in the army or navy. During that journey they would have passed the wealthy granddaughters of newly landed squires whose own grandfathers had been successful merchants or lawyers or sea captains enriched by prize money. Those rich and fashionable girls were about to marry newly impoverished peers. Britain had a flexible society that allowed success to prosper socially.
In Britain only the reigning peer and his wife are regarded as “noble” as that term is popularly misused, and the rest of the family are commoners, only a few bearing what are called courtesy titles. Moreover, except during the Hanoverian (1714–1837) and Victorian (1837–1901) epochs when British royalty sought to marry foreign royalty, the royal house has tended to marry with the British aristocracy, which is to say the peerage and landed classes (the “nobility” in its correct meaning). As a result, the Continental ideas of seize quartiers never held sway in England. Nor are there in the British Isles non-noble arms. All arms are on the same basis; all are signs of gentility—“the ensigns of nobility.” Arms then have long had a high social significance in England; those who bear them lawfully have social prestige.
The situation tends to be a little different in Scotland, where arms have the same significance as in England but where many are tied to clanship and family solidarity and where their use is controlled tightly by Lyon Court in accordance with the laws of Scotland. To most Scots, arms are more a matter of family or clan than of social status, and they prove their right to them by process of law before the Lord Lyon.
20th-century heraldry
France and Italy
Without a monarchy, heraldry can still flourish, but it does not normally do so. The French Revolution abolished arms, which returned with the monarchy, and now, although France is a republic, a person assuming arms to which he is not entitled may be prosecuted. In the same way, it is not permissible to assume a name of a great family (whereas in England, the assumption of the surname Windsor, that of the British royal family, is possible for anyone). There is, however, no recognized heraldic authority in France, nor for that matter in other European countries that have abolished their monarchies. Most such republican states have associations that seek to maintain heraldic standards. Thus in Italy the Collegio Araldico (Heraldic College) consists of experts whose main object is to promote heraldic and genealogical studies. An association of nobles was formed as the National Heraldic Council of the Italian nobility, under the authority of former king Umberto II, and this association tries to regulate the use of arms and titles.
Communist countries
In Soviet-dominated European countries, the study of genealogy and heraldry was suppressed until the fall of communism. From 1956 there had been some relaxation in respect to statistical information, but historic heraldic data (directly associated with the symbolism of nobility) remained inaccessible until 1991. Many heraldic archives had, however, been carefully preserved, and now institutions and societies are being formed to protect and to disseminate their contents.
Ireland
Two of the republics that emerged from the British Empire—Ireland and South Africa—have established their own heraldic offices. As early as 1382, there was an Ireland King of Arms responsible for all matters armorial in that country. The last holder of the office died in 1487, and in 1553 Edward VI created a new king of arms under the title of Ulster, to control bearings throughout Ireland. His place of business was in Dublin Castle. When the Irish Free State, or Eire (now the Republic of Ireland), was established in 1921–22, the Ulster Office was reserved as an appointment of the British crown with the then-current Ulster to hold office for life. After his death in 1940, an arrangement was made between the British and Irish governments by which the heraldic office in Dublin Castle with its records was acquired by the Irish authorities. Photostat copies were made of the records and sent to the College of Arms, London. The Irish government appointed a Chief Herald of Ireland, and the Ulster Office became known as the Genealogical Office. A civil servant was then appointed as Chief Herald of Ireland. The office of Ulster King of Arms has now been united with that of Norroy King of Arms in the College of Arms in London. The Irish Herald undertakes the duties formerly performed by Ulster in the 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland; Norroy and Ulster has jurisdiction over the six counties of Northern Ireland (Ulster) in addition to the English counties north of the River Trent.
South Africa
In South Africa an act was passed in 1962 under which was established a Bureau of Heraldry and a Heraldry Council for the grants, registration, and protection of coats of arms, badges, and other emblems. A state herald is appointed as head of the Bureau of Heraldry. The Heraldry Council consists of the state herald and at least seven other members appointed by the government minister responsible.
The United States
There has been a remarkable evolution of heraldry in the United States. Ever since the American Revolution the use of arms, especially of arms of English families with whom the users were related or whose surname they bore, has continued. The College of Arms in London claims heraldic jurisdiction over persons of English and Welsh descent (Wales has been reckoned with England in this and all other administrative matters since the union of England and Wales, 1542). The Lord Lyon in Scotland claims jurisdiction likewise over persons of Scottish descent throughout the world. In addition the College of Arms at one time claimed a worldwide imperial jurisdiction over anyone who could be brought within the definition of British subject. Under this jurisdiction even the Indian princes were occasionally granted arms by the College of Arms, although they were not British subjects but independent rulers who had entered into treaty relations with the British crown. Many Americans have been granted arms by the college by virtue of their descent from English or Welsh forebears or by the Lord Lyon if they were of Scottish descent. Irish Americans often were granted arms from Dublin, from either the Ulster King of Arms or his successor, the Chief Herald of Ireland. Americans of Northern Irish descent have been granted arms by Norroy and Ulster King of Arms. In addition, there are several states of the United States that were formerly Spanish territory, and the Spanish Kings of Arms, the equivalent of the English and Scottish heralds, exercised an heraldic authority over persons of Spanish descent in the old Spanish Empire. By extension, they have recently granted arms to Americans who are resident in those formerly Spanish states but who are not of Spanish descent.
To these classes of arms obtained by Americans from overseas must be added such instances as the grant of arms to President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Denmark. Also, Americans of French, German, Italian, Polish, and other European descent have inherited from their immigrant ancestors arms once granted or recorded by heraldic authorities no longer in existence. All these classes of arms share one feature whatever their origin: they are hereditary honors granted to American citizens by other countries. As they do not carry titles, they do not contravene the principle of the American Constitution on this subject (although, of course, arms are historically “the ensigns of nobility” whose lawful use defines the nobles). An American who receives a knighthood of some foreign state possesses only an honorary knighthood; he does not prefix his forename with the title “Sir.” However, for the citizen of an independent sovereign power to approach and receive from another power a hereditary honor has seemed to many Americans an undesirable procedure. There have been and still are thousands of assumptions of arms by Americans who buy cheaply produced depictions from mail-order firms and in shopping malls, seemingly in the erroneous belief that every surname has its own coat of arms (“names” do not possess arms), but these transactions have no justification in either law or history.
Endeavors have been made to establish American authorities who would not only record but also grant arms. The New England Historic Genealogical Society of Boston appointed a Committee on Heraldry that since 1928 has issued rolls of arms, in which have been entered the names and arms of those who have submitted their claims to its judgment. The use of this method of issuing or publicizing arms recalls the usage of visitations previously described, which has not been practiced in Europe for more than 300 years. In the introduction to the second roll (1932) it is stated,
There is certainly no legal reason, perhaps no reason at all, why an American gentleman should not assume in more majorum any new coat that pleases his fancy, but he should not assume an old coat, for if he does, he is very likely denying his own forefathers and he surely is affirming what he has no sufficient reason to be true.
Not only British-derived arms but also continental European arms have been registered. In addition, the committee has assisted inquirers in devising new coats of arms, not only for schools, colleges, and other institutions but also for individuals. In the introduction to the first roll a very reasonable view toward heraldry was expressed:
Taking into consideration the early history of coat armour there seems to be no reason in this country at least, why anyone, provided he observes the simple rules of blazon and does not appropriate the arms of another, may not assume and use any coat he desires.
The American College of Heraldry and Arms, Inc., was established in the state of Maryland in 1966. It has two divisions: the American College of Arms, which is concerned with the arms of individuals, their registration, and, more importantly, the granting of arms; and the College of Arms of the United States, which deals with such items as arms, crests, and standards for corporate concerns. Arms were granted to various U.S. presidents in the 20th century.
The work of the American College of Heraldry and Arms may be said to invalidate in America the historical relationship between arms and nobility, an argument which may lead to the concept of two classes—American arms, which are non-noble, and classical arms, which are noble. This is a situation that already exists in some European countries, such as Switzerland, Italy, and France. In the Netherlands there are three classes—noble, patrician (the older and very senior families of the cities), and the patriciate burgher (the newer and richer families of the cities). However, clear distinctions are almost impossible to define. The office of president of state is by the ancient definitions a noble office, and thus the arms of the U.S. presidents may be held to be noble arms.
England
In 1954 the ancient Court of Chivalry was revived. This was once the court of the Lord High Constable and the earl marshal, and it dealt with matters relating to nobility, knighthood, and gentility. Although it was concerned also with matters of military discipline, it was not the forerunner of the modern court-martial in the armed forces. The court gradually declined in the 17th and 18th centuries and had not sat from 1735 until its revival.
The office of Lord High Constable has long ceased to be hereditary or of permanent status in England. During coronations a constable is appointed for the occasion. Therefore, in the revived court that sat in 1954 to deal with a test case, Manchester Corporation v. Manchester Palace of Varieties (in which the City of Manchester succeeded in preventing one of the Manchester theaters from displaying the City’s coat of arms on its stage curtains), the earl marshal (the duke of Norfolk) presided with a surrogate, who was the Lord Chief Justice of England appearing in his capacity as a doctor of civil law. As a result of the sitting, the jurisdiction of the court was confirmed.
International organizations
The unorganized condition of heraldry in many European countries has spurred private attempts to bring some order into the field. The movement known as the International Congresses of Heraldry and Genealogy began in 1928 with a meeting in Barcelona, Spain. A second Congress was held in Rome and Naples in 1953, and from that time regular meetings occurred at two- or three-year intervals. From these was established the International Institute of Genealogy and Heraldry, with its headquarters in Madrid.
