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The Cross in Medieval Heraldry
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 November 2011
Extract
The multiplicity of terms used to blazon crosses and the diversity of manners in which they were depicted constitute one of the most confusing aspects of medieval heraldry. Sir William St. John Hope deplored this situation in the following terms:
As regards the cross, heraldic writers have gone mad, and from the few simple crosses of pre-Tudor days there have been evolved scores of fantastic forms for which it would be difficult to find instances outside the heraldry books. In the Glossary of Heraldry, published in 1847, upwards of fifty varieties are enumerated, and there are other modern works in which they exceed two hundred!
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- Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1967
References
page 214 note 1 A Grammar of English Heraldry, 2nd ed., revised by Anthony R. Wagner (Cambridge, 1963), p. 89Google Scholar.
page 214 note 2 For an illustration of the Colchester arms, see Scott-Giles, C. W., The Romance of Heraldry (London and Toronto, 1929), p. 24, fig. 33Google Scholar.
page 214 note 3 A Grammar of English Heraldry, p. 91; drawn here in fig. 10, however, as a Latin cross flory at the ends; cf. fig. 22. On the variant forms of this cross, consult Stanford, H. London, ‘Pattee, Patonce and Formee’, The Coat of Arms, no. 34, v (1958), 33Google Scholar.
page 214 note 4 See Stanford, H. London, ‘Some Medieval Treatises on English Heraldry’, Antiquaries Journal, xxxiii (1953), 169–83Google Scholar. The twenty tractates studied by London are conveniently listed in an Appendix on pp. 182–3. Add the Dean Tract, c. 1340 (see below), the Raine-Dunn Tract, c. 1510 (see London, ‘The Raine-Dunn Roll’, The Coat of Arms, no. 29, iv [1957], 197Google Scholar), and the Sloane Tract, 1470 or later (modernized English transcription by Humphery-Smith, C. R. in his ‘Heraldry in School Manuals of the Middle Ages’, The Coat of Arms, no. 43, vi [1960], 115–23Google Scholar). On the mid fifteenth-century Ashmolean Tract (London, no. 8), see Humphery-Smith, , ‘Heraldry in School Manuals of the Middle Ages, II. The Ashmolean Tract’, The Coat of Arms, no. 44, vi (1960), 163–70Google Scholar (edition and modernized text). On Loutfut’s Poem, 1494 (London, no. 17), consult O’Neil, Terence, ‘Adam Loutfut’s Book’, The Coat of Arms, no. 32, iv (1957), 307–10Google Scholar. Finally, on The Boke of St. Albans, 1486, see Moran, James, ‘The Book of St. Albans’, The Coat of Arms, no. 58, viii (1964), 48–53Google Scholar. The first clear evidence, however, of the sort of rationalizing which is characteristic of these tractates appears in the blazon of the Mortimer arms in the Caerlaverock Poem, c. 1300; see my article entitled ‘Heraldic Terminology and Legendary Material in the Siege of Caerlaverock (c. 1300)’, forthcoming in the Edward Billings Ham memorial volume being edited by Professor Urban T. Holmes, Jr., of the University of North Carolina.
page 215 note 1 ‘Pattee, Patonce and Formee’, The Coat of Arms, no. 33, v (1958), 358–64Google Scholar; no. 34, v (1958), 26–33; correcting London’s earlier note entitled ‘Paty and Formy’, The Coat of Arms, no. 23, iii (1955), 285–6Google Scholar.
page 215 note 2 ‘A Return to First Principles, V—Heraldry Eternal’, The Coat of Arms, no. 56, vii (1963), 338–9Google Scholar.
page 215 note 3 In addition to the article mentioned above on p. 214, n. 4, see, notably, his masterly studies entitled ‘The Heraldic Roundel or Rotund’, Notes and Queries, cxcv (1950), 288–90, 310–11, 331–3, 354–6, 377–80Google Scholar, and ‘The Hamaide or Humet’, Antiquaries Journal, xxxii (1952), 52–64Google Scholar (in collaboration with Dr. Adam-Even).
page 215 note 4 Other studies along this line by the present author, in addition to the article mentioned above on p. 214, n. 4, include ‘The Emergence of the Heraldic Phrase in the Thirteenth Century’, The Coat of Arms, no. 61, viii (1965), 186–92Google Scholar; ‘The of Heraldic Term Cotice “Narrow Bend”, Romania, lxxvii (1966), 98–115Google Scholar; ‘The Chief in Early Blazon’, Notes and Queries, ccxii (1966), 82–86Google Scholar; ‘Ancien français de l’un en l’autre’, Romania, lxxxviii (1967), 84–91Google Scholar; ‘On the Nature and Diversity of Separators in Early Blazon’, The Coat of Arms, no. 66, ix (1966), 54–59Google Scholar; and ‘The Use of Plain Arms in Arthurian Literature and the Origin of the Arms of Brittany’, Bulletin Bibliographique de la Société Internationale Arthurienne, xviii (1966), 117–23Google Scholar.
page 215 note 5 e.g. the cross fichty in the Vescy arms in the Matthew Paris shields (Wagner, Anthony R., A Catalogue of English Medieval Rolls of Arms [London, 1950], pl. iGoogle Scholar), and in the Heralds’ Roll, nos. 157, 345, 346 (edited as ‘Planché’s Roll’ by James Greenstreet in The Genealogist, N.S. iii [1886], 148–55, 240–4; iv [1887], 17–22, 197–203; v [1888], 173–9); the cross Potent in the Heralds’ Roll, no. 2, and Segar’s Roll, no. 70 (Greenstreet, James, ‘The “Segar” Roll of Arms as an Ordinary’, The Genealogist, iv [1880], 50–58, 90–97Google Scholar).
page 215 note 6 A kind of ragged or raguly cross was drawn by the miniaturist who illustrated one of the manuscripts of the thirteenth-century Tournoi de Chauvency (see the edition by Delbouille, Maurice [Li`ge-Paris, 1932], pl. viii, miniature 9)Google Scholar. Where the poet had correctly blazoned the Gymnich family arms as having ‘une crois d’or endentee’ (v. 1769), the miniaturist, misunderstanding the term endenté, showed a plain cross ornamented with triangular points jutting from the edges, forming an unbalanced and discontinuous line. On this curious painted blazon, see Delbouille, pp. xcvi–xcvii, and Dr. Adam-Even’s remarks apropos of the Gymnich arms in the Roll, Bigot (‘Un Armorial français du milieu du XIIIe siècle. Le rôle d’armes Bigot—1254’, Archives héraldiques suisses [1949], 71Google Scholar, note relative to items 79–80).
page 216 note 1 e.g. the cross Calvary in Segar’s Roll, no. 72; the cross of Toulouse on seals dated 1177, 1242, and 1243 (Lesdain, L. Bouly de, ‘Éludes héraldiques sur le XIIe siècle’, Annuaire du Cornell héraldique de France, xx [1907], 210Google Scholar; Mathieu, Rémi, Le Système héraldique français [Paris, 1946], pp. 35–36Google Scholar), and the Matthew Paris shields (Wagner, Catalogue, pl. i); the cross voided in the Dering Roll, f. 89, shield 15, and f. 90b, shield 1 (James Greenstreet and Russell, Charles, ‘Dering Roll’, Jewitt’s Reliquary, xvi [1875], 135–40Google Scholar, 237–40; xvii [1876], 11–16, 209–12; xviii [1877], 23–28, 89–92, 171–5).
page 216 note 2 As a rule, descriptive phrases are not used when shields are mentioned in literary sources before the earliest rolls of arms (see Brault, ‘The Emergence of the Heraldic Phrase in the Thirteenth Century’, p. 189; with a few exceptions, e.g. lion rampant). In the early thirteenth century the Red Cross Knight became a familiar literary character, notably after his appearance in the Perlesvaus and the Queste del Saint Graal. The Knight’s shield is always illustrated as argent, a plain cross gules. On the other hand, in Huon de Bordeaux, written between 1216 and 1229, the hero bears three golden crosses on his shield and is, as a consequence, immediately recognized as French by a captive French maiden (see my review of Pierre Ruelle’s edition of that work [Brussels, 1960] in the Romanic Review, lv [1964], 207Google Scholar). Mr. Allen M. Barstow, a graduate student in French at the University of Pennsylvania is preparing a Ph.D. dissertation under my supervision which will feature a concordance of fourteenth-century heraldic terms.
page 216 note 3 B = Glover’s Roll (College of Arms MS. L. 14, pt. 1, ff. 38–42, as published in Ancient Rolls of Arms. Glover’s Roll of the Reign of King Henry III, ed. Armytage, George J. [London, 1868]Google Scholar); Ba = another copy of Glover’s Roll, British Museum, Add. MS. 29796; Bb = another copy of Glover’s Roll, British Museum, MS. Harl. 6589, f. IIb; BA = Bigot Roll (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS. fonds français 18,648; edition by DrAdam-Even, Paul, ‘Un Armorial français du milieu du XIIIe siècle. Le rôle d’armes Bigot—1254’, Archives héraldiques suisses [1949], pp. 15–22Google Scholar, 68–75, 115–21); C = Walford’s Roll (British Museum, MS. Harl. 6589; edition by Walford, W. S., ‘A Roll of Arms of the Thirteenth Century’, Archaeologia, xxxix [1864], 373–87)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cl = lost copy of Walford’s Roll, as published in Joannis Lelandi Antiquarii de Rebus Britannicis Collectanea cum Thomae Hearnii Praefatione Notis et Indice, 2nd ed. (London, 1770), ii, pt. 2, pp. 610–16Google Scholar; Cd = another copy of Walford’s Roll, Dublin, Trinity College, MS. E. 1–17; D = Camden Roll (British Museum, Cotton Roll XV. 8; edition by Greenstreet, James, ‘The Original Camden Roll of Arms’, Journal of the British Archaeological Asscn., xxxviii [1882], 309–28)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; CP = Chifflet-Prinet Roll (Besançon, Bibliothèque Municipale, Collection Chifflet, MS. 186, pp. 145–54; edition by Prinet, Max, ‘Armorial de France composé à la fin du XIIIe siècle ou au commencement du XIVe‘, Le Moyen Age, xxxi [1934], 1–49)Google Scholar; H = Falkirk Roll (British Museum, MS. Harl. 6589, ff. 9–9b; edition by Greenstreet, James, ‘The “Falkirk” Roll of Arms’, Jewitt’s Reliquary, XV [1875], 27–32, 68–74Google Scholar); K = Siege of Caerlaverock (British Museum, MS. Cotton Caligula A. XVIII, ff. 23b–30b; edition by Thomas Wright as The Roll of Arms of the Princes, Barons and Knights Who Attended King Edward I to the Siege of Caerlaverock, in 1300 [London, 1864]Google Scholar). A number of corrections are published here (earlier readings are indicated in parentheses with a letter denoting the editor’s name) based upon a collation of all the copies mentioned here, except B, which was not accessible to me.
page 216 note 4 On the Vescy arms, which properly should feature a cross patonce, see London, ‘Pattee, Patonce and Formee’, The Coat of Arms, no. 33, v (1958), 358–9Google Scholar; see also below, item 11, Cross Patonce. Greenstreet, James, ‘The “Nativity” Roll of Arms, Temp. Edward I’, Jewitt’s Reliquary, xv (1875), 230Google Scholar, reads item 74 as follows: ‘Sr Geffray de Upsal port d’argent ou ung croys passeur de sable.’ The copy in question, however (British Museum, MS. Harl. 6589, f. 10), reads ‘ung croys passens,’ i.e. a cross passant, a reading confirmed by other sources (see Papworth’s Ordinary of British Armorials, reproduced by Squibb, G. D. and Wagner, A. R. [London, 1961], p. 606Google Scholar, s.v. ‘Arg. a cross sable’).
page 218 note 1 C 10 provides a cross couped, or crosslet, of a slightly different sort: ‘Le roy de Boeme, d’argent un lion sable coronné d’or un crois sur l’espall (W: l'espalle).’ On these arms, which are those of the Przemyslides of Bohemia, consult Prinet, Max, ‘Armoiries franchises et allemandes décrites dans un ancien rôle d’armes anglais’, Le Moyen Age, 2e série, xxv (1923), pp. 226–7Google Scholar.
page 219 note 1 On the identity of OF endenté and engreslé in early heraldic terminology, consult Oswald Barron’s article ‘Heraldry’ in the Encyclopaedia Britannica; Prinet, ‘Armoiries françaises et allemandes’, pp. 242, 243, 255; Prinet, ‘Les Armoiries des Français dans le poème du siège du Carlaverock’, Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Charles, xcii (1931), 348–9Google Scholar. The terms refer either to a continuous sawtooth line (as in a bordure) or to an ordinary made up of lozenges or fusils presenting two continuous sawtooth edges (a bend, for example, or, in the case under consideration, a cross). While the zigzag line with concave indentations appears at times on thirteenth-century painted shields, the term engreslé is not restricted to this sense until later.
page 219 note 2 The type of crosslets is specified beginning with the Parliamentary Roll of Arms, c. 1312; e.g. items 64, 753, 804: ‘a les crusules patés’ (edition by Barron, Oswald in The Genealogist, N.S. xi [1885], 108–16Google Scholar, 174–82, 238–44; xii [1886], 59–62, 133–6, 206, 211, 268–82). A semy of crosslets was blazoned by using one of the following expressions in thirteenth-century rolls of arms: a croiseles semé, a croisetes semé, croiselé, croiseté, croisetes ou, croisillié, croisillié tout environ, estre croisillié, poudrié croiseles, poudrié a croisilles, semé de croisetes. Croisié was also used to designate a lion’s tail which was forked and crossed in saltire (synonyms: fourchié, fourchié en som).
page 219 note 3 The cross moline was sometimes rendered as a stylized fer de moulin or mill-iron, the retaining piece at the centre of a millstone.
page 220 note 1 According to Prinet, ‘Armoiries franchises et allemandes’, p. 234, there was no bordure in the arms of the thirteenth-century Counts of Toulouse.
page 220 note 2 London, H. S., ‘Scintillatum Auro. The Spark in Armory’, The Coat of Arms, ii (1952), 112Google Scholar, emends this blazon to read ‘a une crois a deux passans d’azure’, for the patriarchal cross is a feature of the arms of Hungary. According to the Larousse du XXe siècle, s.v. ‘Lorraine (Croix de)’: ‘On appelle ainsi, à tort d’ailleurs, la croix à double traverse. Cette croix n’est entrèe dans les armes de Lorraine qu’avec René d’Anjou, qui l’a naturellement empruntée aux armes données à la maison d’Anjou par le due Louis Ier, ` cause de sa dévotion pour une relique de la vraie croix affectant cette forme et conservée dans l’abbaye bénédictine de La Boissière, à laquelle elle avait été donnée en 1244. Elle provenait de Manuel Comnène.’ It should be noted, finally, that thirteenth-century heraldry also knew the charge constituted by escallops in cross, e.g. BA 108: ‘Aubris de Guensenille (A: Aubri de Gueisaulle), l’escu blanc a une croix de cokilles de gueulles (A: geules) au lablel (A: lalbel) vert. Rujers (A: Ruyer).’
page 220 note 3 See ‘An Early Treatise on Heraldry in Anglo-Norman’, by Ruth J. Dean, forthcoming in the Edward Billings Ham memorial volume mentioned above on p. 214, n. 4. According to Wagner, Catalogue, p. 60, Cotgrave’s Ordinary, c. 1340, classifies crosses as follows: cross engrailed, cross paty, cross recercelé, cross floretty. Wagner, p. 59, adds that the contemporary Cooke’s Ordinary provides a classification of charges ‘largely identical with those of Cotgrave’s Ordinary’.
page 221 note 1 Les Œuvres d’Adenet le Roi, ed. Henry, Albert, iii (Bruges, 1956)Google Scholar.
page 221 note 2 The miniature shows St. George and Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster (Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 231); see Wagner, Anthony R., Heraldry in England (London, 1949), pl. iv (with note on p. 29)Google Scholar.
page 221 note 3 ‘The “Segar” Roll of Arms as an Ordinary’, no. 72.
page 221 note 4 ‘Planché’s Roll’, no. 16; ‘The Original Camden Roll of Arms’, no. 12 (painted shield = no. 13).
page 222 note 1 Œuvres complètes de Froissart, ed. Lettenhove, Baron Kervyn de, xv (1871), 180Google Scholar.
page 222 note 2 London, ‘Pattee, Patonce and Formee’, The Coat of Arms, no. 33, v (1958), 363Google Scholar
page 222 note 3 Planché, J. R., The Pursuivant of Arms, 3rd ed. (London, 1873), p. 53Google Scholar (illustration, p. 54).
page 222 note 4 Cf. L. C. Douet d’Arcq, ‘Armorial de France à la fin du xive siècle’ [Armorial du Héraut Navarre, c. 1370, according to Dr. Adam-Even], Cabinet historique, vi (1860), 122Google Scholar, no. 888: ‘M. Hardouin de la Haie, de gueules a une croiz d’ermine patee pommetee’ = patonce; see London, ‘Pattee, Patonce and Formee’, The Coat of Arms, no. 34, v (1958), 30Google Scholar (cited erroneously as ‘patée pommelée’; see also p. 29).
page 222 note 5 Argentaye Tract = Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français, MS. 11464, f. 19 recto; Strangways’ Book = British Museum, MS. Harl., 2259; John’s Tretis on Armes, ed. Jones, Evan John in his Medieval Heraldry (Cardiff, 1943), pp. 213–20Google Scholar; Berners, Dame Juliana, The Boke of St. Albans (St. Albans, 1486), facsimile edition by Blades, William (London, 1901)Google Scholar.
page 222 note 6 Curtius, Ernst Robert, Europäische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter, Fr. translation by Jean Bréjoux (La Littérature européenne et le moyen âge latin) (Paris, 1956), p. 609Google Scholar (on the symbolic value of number 12).
page 222 note 7 f. 2 verso.
page 222 note 8 Johannes de Bado Aureo, Tractatus de Armis, ed. Jones in his Medieval Heraldry, p. 124. Jones provides ample notes on and plates of the illustrations found in the various copies of that work. The same list of twelve crosses appears in Strangways’ Book and the Welsh Llyfr Arfaw (ed. Jones in his Medieval Heraldry).
page 223 note 1 In the various copies of Bado Aureo, crux truncata is depicted either as a plain cross with the top removed, a ragged cross, or a cross couped; see Jones, p. 50, n. 1.
page 223 note 2 On the various illustrations for crux florida nodulata, see Jones, p. 55, n. 4: ‘Most of the MSS. give one button at the end of each terminal of the flowers. Simwnt Vychan gives one button on the central terminal of each flower, and the Stowe MS. gives a cross flory composed of buttons.’
page 223 note 3 Planché, The Pursuivant of Arms, p. 50 (illustration, p. 49).
page 223 note 4 Bado Aureo, Tractatus de Armis, ed. Jones, p. 142: ‘Sunt insuper aliqui qui portant crucem furcatem quam quidem vidi portari a quodam Anglico qui vocabatur Iohannes Vescy (Beisy), qui Gallice sic portavit, Il port de goules un crois furché d’argent.’
page 223 note 5 d’Arcq, L. C. Douet, ‘Un Traité de blason du xve siècle’, Revue archéologigue, xv (1858), 329–30Google Scholar: ‘La pratique et notice desquelles choses, avecques la difference qui est entre crois patee, crois fichee, crois potencee, crois croisee et crois floronnee, sera manifesté par les XVI figures [suivantes].’ Copies of this popular treatise include Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français, MSS. 6129, 14357, and 25184.
page 223 note 6 Argentaye Tract, f. 19 recto and verso. See also the Enseignements du Héraut Hongrie = Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français, MS. 5242, ff. 16 recto–21 recto; finally, there is another list of crosses in the same manuscript, f. 96 verso (unidentified treatise).