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Some medieval treatises on English heraldry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

H. Stanford London
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Extract

The object of this paper is to invite attention to some early treatises on English heraldry in the hope of stimulating interest in that somewhat neglected phase of this study. None of the manuscripts in question has been printed, but first it may not be amiss to recall briefly the half-dozen tractates which have been printed.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 33 , Issue 3-4 , October 1953 , pp. 169 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1953

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References

page 169 note 1 De Bado Aureo has been englished as John of Guildford, and Professor Evan Jones identifies him with John Trevor, bishop of St. Asaph 1394, died 1410. The question of his identity is, however, outside the scope of this paper and I use the name de Bado Aureo as that under which this tract is best known.

page 169 note 2 I say ‘based on Upton’ because I know of no earlier or fuller treatise resembling the De Studio. But De Bado Aureo acknowledges his indebtedness t o Francis de Foveis, and Sir Richard Strangways acknowledges his to his ‘doctor’, while the writer of the Pakenham tract says expressly that that was collected from the Tractatus and other works. In these circumstances it would be no surprise if Upton were found to have taken some earlier treatise as the basis of his work.

page 169 note 3 The E.E.T.S. edition includes some notes by G. E. Adams (later G. E. Cokayne, Clarenceux). These are based on an insufficient knowledge of medieval heraldry books and must be read with caution.

page 173 note 1 Mr. Wagner's dating ‘1446 or soon after’ is a slip. The key to the date is the inclusion of the arms of the Duke of Warwick, a title which only existed for 14 months from Henry Beauchamp's creation on 5th April 1445 until his death on 11 June 1446. It follows that the roll cannot have been compiled before April 1445 and it is unlikely that it was compiled much after June 1446. The writing of both roll and tract fits that dating. The D.N.B. and other works date the duke's creation and death in 1444 and 1445 respectively, but G.E.C. showed in the Complete Peerage (sub tit. Warwick and Bucking-ham) that they must be dated 1445 and 1446.

page 174 note 1 There can be no question as to the meaning of the terms used in Thomas Jenyns' Book, for it is one of the few rolls which are both blazoned and painted. It dates from the first or second decade of the fifteenth century.

page 175 note 1 Mr. George Squibb suggests this may be Thomas Dereham of Crimplesham, who died 13 Edw. IV (1563 Visn. of Norfolk, ed. Dashwood and Bulwer, i, 227). He had a legal connexion, for his wife was daughter and coheir of Gilbert Haltoft, Baron of the Exchequer.

page 175 ntoe 2 In the discussion which followed the reading of this paper it was suggested that undergraduate enthusiasm and the desire of the ‘doctor’ to make the science of heraldry as mysterious and difficult as possible would go a long way to explain the many extravagances in the treatises. That suggestion is borne out by the contrast between the elaboration, not to say absurdity, of the textbook jargon and the comparatively simple language of the rolls. The rolls in the main I take to be the work of professional heralds or herald-painters. The treatises, at least in England, were apparently the work of amateurs—Upton and de Bado Aureo (if Professor Jones is right) were clerics and Strangways was a lawyer, as was the Italian Bartholus. In this con-nexion it must not be forgotten that right down to Elizabethan days and even later heraldry was an important subject in a gentleman's education; a herald might give an occasional lecture, but he could not possibly undertake a regular course of tuition in such institutions as Queen Elizabeth's ‘Achademy’.

page 176 note 1 That ‘sabbatine’ meant pertaining to the sabbath is true, but that the episcopal foot-gear was called sabbatine is incredible. Without a doubt Strangways meant sabaton (cf. French sabot), an old word for a sort of buskin which was applied to the bulbous-toed shoes familiar from pictures of Henry VIII.

page 178 note 1 What might be blazoned a square fret couped may be seen on a late Elizabethan brass at Noke, Oxon., as arms of Joan Hurst of Kingston upon Thames, who died in 1598, having been married first to William Manwayringe and afterwards to Bradshaw, Henry—see The Oxford Portfolio of Monumental Brasses, Series 2, part 3, no. 5 (1952)Google Scholar. This is the same coat which the General Armory blazons: Argent, six billets azure fretty, 3 in fess and as many in pale.

page 181 note 1 Some months after this paper was read the revival of the Ancestor-al heresy about the so-called prescriptive right to arms and the appearance of the first part of our Fellow Mr. Squibb's, G. D. essay on ‘The law of arms’ (The Coat of Arms, July 1953)Google Scholar moved me to re-examine the relevant passages in Strangways' Book. The following general conclusions may be drawn:

(a) The law of arms, lex armorum, was recognized as a part of English law and was a familiar branch of legal studies.

(b Gentility flowed from and depended on the right to arms; no one, not even a knight or esquire, was gentle unless he was armigerous.

(c) The right to arms was acquired (l) by inheritance from an armigerous forbear, or (2) by marriage to an armigerous woman, or (3) by grant from a prince or herald, or (4) by conquest especially in trials for treason.

(d) The assumption of arms by a man's own motion was not recognized, but anyone might take a mark.

page 181 note 2 In connexion with this coat Mr. Michael Maclagan opined that many of the coats invented for the Knights of the Round Table were deliberately devised to display out-of-the-way terms and charges. May that not also be true of some coats attributed to strange personages like the Great Turk mentioned above and some of the outlandish potentates who appear at the end of Randle Holme's Book?