dropped with gold.” Sir Richard le Brun (14th century) bore “Azure a silver lion dropped with gules.”
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| Brittany. | Beauchamp. | Mydlam. | Grayndorge. |
A very common variant of charges and fields is the sowing or “powdering” them with a small charge repeated many times. Mortimer of Norfolk bore “gold powdered with fleurs-de-lys sable” and Edward III. quartered for the old arms of France “Azure powdered with fleurs-de-lys gold,” such fields being often described as flowered or flory. Golden billets were scattered in Cowdray’s red shield, which is blazoned as “Gules billety gold,” and bezants in that of Zouche, which is “Gules bezanty with a quarter ermine.” The disposition of such charges varied with the users. Zouche as a rule shows ten bezants placed four, three, two and one on his shield, while the old arms of France in the royal coat allows the pattern of flowers to run over the edge, the shield border thus showing halves and tops and stalk ends of the fleurs-de-lys. But the commonest of these powderings is that with crosslets, as in the arms of John la Warr “Gules crusily silver with a silver lion.”
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| Mortimer. | Cowdray. | Zouche. | La Warr. |
Trees, Leaves and Flowers.—Sir Stephen Cheyndut, a 13th-century knight, bore an oak tree, the cheyne of his first syllable, while for like reasons a Piriton had a pear tree on his shield. Three pears were borne (temp. Edward III.) by Nicholas Stivecle of Huntingdonshire, and about the same date is Applegarth’s shield of three red apples in a silver field. Leaves of burdock are in the arms (14th century) of Sir John de Lisle and mulberry leaves in those of Sir Hugh de Morieus. Three roots of trees are given to one Richard Rotour in a 14th-century roll. Malherbe (13th century) bore the “evil herb”—a teazle bush. Pineapples are borne here and there, and it will be noted that armorists have not surrendered this, our ancient word for the “fir-cone,” to the foreign ananas. Out of the cornfield English armory took the sheaf, three sheaves being on the shield of an earl of Chester early in the 13th century and Sheffield bearing sheaves for a play on his name. For a like reason Peverel’s sheaves were sheaves of pepper. Rye bore three ears of rye on a bend, and Graindorge had barley-ears. Flowers are few in this field of armory, although lilies with their stalks and leaves are in the grant of arms to Eton College. Ousethorpe has water flowers, and now and again we find some such strange charges as those in the 15th-century shield of Thomas Porthelyne who bore “Sable a cheveron gules between three ‘popyebolles,’ or poppy-heads vert.”
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| Cheyndut. | Applegarth. | Chester. | Rye. |
The fleur-de-lys, a conventional form from the beginnings of armory, might well be taken amongst the “ordinaries.” In England as in France it is found in great plenty.
Aguylon bore “Gules a fleur-de-lys silver.”
Peyferer bore “Silver three fleur-de-lys sable.”
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| Eton College. |
Trefoils are very rarely seen until the 15th century, although Hervey has them, and Gausill, and a Bosville coat seems to have borne them. They have always their stalk left hanging to them. Vincent, Hattecliffe and Massingberd all bore the quatrefoil, while the Bardolfs, and the Quincys, earls of Winchester, had cinqfoils. The old rolls of arms made much confusion between cinqfoils and sixfoils (quintefoilles e sisfoilles) and the rose. It is still uncertain how far that confusion extended amongst the families which bore these charges. The cinqfoil and sixfoil, however, are all but invariably pierced in the middle like the spur rowel, and the rose’s blunt-edged petals give it definite shape soon after the decorative movement of the Edwardian age began to carve natural buds and flowers in stone and wood.
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| Aguylon. | Peyferer. | Hervey. | Vincent. |
Hervey bore “Gules a bend silver with three trefoils vert thereon.”
Vincent bore “Azure three quatrefoils silver.”
Quincy bore “Gules a cinqfoil silver.”
Bardolf of Wormegay bore “Gules three cinqfoils silver.”
Cosington bore “Azure three roses gold.”
Hilton bore “Silver three chaplets or garlands of red roses.”
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| Quincy. | Bardolf. | Cosington. | Hilton. |
Beasts and Birds.—The book of natural history as studied in the middle ages lay open at the chapter of the lion, to which royal beast all the noble virtues were set down. What is the oldest armorial seal of a sovereign prince as yet discovered bears the rampant lion of Flanders. In England we know of no royal shield earlier than that first seal of Richard I. which has a like device. A long roll of our old earls, barons and knights wore the lion on their coats—Lacy, Marshal, Fitzalan and Montfort, Percy, Mowbray and Talbot. By custom the royal beast is shown as rampant, touching the ground with but one foot and clawing at the air in noble rage. So far is this the normal attitude of a lion that the adjective “rampant” was often dropped, and we have leave and good authority for blazoning the rampant beast simply as “a lion,” leave which a writer on armory may take gladly to the saving of much repetition. In France and Germany this licence has always been the rule, and the modern English herald’s blazon of “Gules a lion rampant or” for the arms of Fitzalan, becomes in French de gueules au lion d’or and in German in Rot ein goldener Loewe. Other positions must be named with care and the prowling “lion passant” distinguished from the rampant beast, as well as from such rarer shapes as the couchant lion, the lion sleeping, sitting or leaping. Of these the lion passant is the only one commonly encountered. The lion standing with his forepaws together is not a figure for the shield, but for the crest, where he takes this position for greater stableness upon the helm, and the sitting lion is also found rather upon helms than in shields. For a
