A Fourteenth-century Coat of Arms identified

Extract

In Heraldry from Military Monuments before 1350 (Harl. Soc, vol. xcviii) the late Rev. Henry Lawrance listed, on p. 51, six coats for which no satisfactory identification had been offered. One of these, ‘…in the quarter an eagle displayed…’, is on the shield of a recumbent effigy in the south transept of Minchinhampton church (pl. xx, a and b). From the style of the armour and the architecture of the tomb-recess, the monument may be dated c. 1330–5 (Ida M. Roper, Monumental Effigies of Gloucestershire and Bristol).

The only other survival of these arms so far known is in the east window of Bristol Cathedral (pl. xx, c), where it is one of seventeen coats of arms in the glass of the tracery, headed by England, Maurice de Berkeley of Stoke Giffard and Brimsfield, and his brother Thomas, Lord Berkeley (d. 1361), in that order, the selection of the remaining coats being clearly made from among the associates of Lord Berkeley and his brother. The date of this glass is c. 1350. Among the coats included are those of Sir Thomas de Bradeston and Sir Simon Basset of Uley, both near neighbours of Minchinhampton. There can be no reasonable doubt that the arms here shown with the tinctures Gules, on a quarter argent an eagle displayed, are those of the same family, and probably of the same person as the effigy at Minchinhampton. Unfortunately the eagle is not leaded, but is in yellow stain, thus appearing as gold on silver; and as this was not an uncommon makeshift in the early days of the use of yellow stain, the colour of the eagle remains undetermined.