Chapter VI

.)

The central boss, at once an appropriate ornament of an early shield, and an important addition to its defensive qualities, when extended in the form of decorative metal-work, would readily suggest a variety of heraldic figures, and amongst others several beautiful modifications of a simple cruciform device which it might be made to assume. The figure called an escarbuncle, No. 19, is simply a shield-boss developed into decorative structural metal-work. This figure appears in the Temple Church, London, upon the shield of an Effigy, which Mr. J. Gough Nichols has shown to have been incorrectly attributed to Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex.

[Illustration: No. 19.--The Escarbuncle.]

The greater number of the earliest devices that appear in English Heraldry were adopted for the express purpose of their having some _allusive association_, through a similarity of sound in their own names or descriptions with the names and titles or the territories of certain persons, dignities, and places. In exact accordance with the principles and aim of primitive mediæval Heraldry, and in perfect harmony with the sentiments and requirements of the age in which it grew up into a science, devices of this kind addressed themselves in very plain and expressive language to the men of their own era. In them they saw the kind of symbolical writing that they could remember, as well as understand. They also evidently liked the quaint style of suggestiveness that was a characteristic of these allusive devices: and, it is more than probable that there frequently lurked in them a humorous significance, which by no means tended to detract from their popularity. Devices of this same order have never ceased to be in favour with Heralds and lovers of Heraldry. They were used in the sixteenth century at least as commonly as in the thirteenth; but, as would be expected, in the later period they often became complicated, far-fetched, and extravagant.

This allusive quality, distinguished in English Heraldry as "_canting_," has commonly been misunderstood, and therefore incorrectly estimated, by modern writers, who have supposed it to be a fantastic conceit of the Heralds of a degenerate age. By writers such as these, accordingly, all "_canting arms_" (by French Heralds called "_armes parlantes_") have been absurdly assigned to a separate class, in their estimation having an inferior heraldic grade.

The prevalence of the allusive quality in early arms may be assumed to have been even more general than is now apparent, since so many of the original echoes and allusions have become obscured or altogether lost in the lapse of time, and through the changes that have taken place since the accession of HENRY III. in the French language and in our own also. The use of the Latin language, again, in the Middle Ages led, at later periods, to translations of names; French names, too, were translated in the same manner into English equivalents: and, at other times, the sound of a Latin or a French (Anglo-Norman) name was transferred to an English representative having a somewhat similar sound, without the slightest reference to the original signification. Who, for example, in the name of MONTAGU now recognises instinctively the original allusion to a _mountain_ with its _sharply_ peaked crests, and so discerns the probable allusive origin of the _sharp_ triple points of the devices on the old Montacute shield, No. 20? It is easy to see how much must have been unconsciously done, by such changes in names and their associations, to obliterate what once was clear, significant, and expressive. I must be content here to give, simply by way of explanatory illustration, a very few examples of allusive arms; and, in so doing, it may be well for me to observe that the early Heralds of our country always employed the French language as it was spoken in their own times in England as well as in France. In the time of HENRY III., G. de Lucy has for his arms _three lucies_--fish now known as pike: Robert Quency has a _quintefueil_--a flower of five leaves: Thos. Corbett has _two corbeaux_--ravens: A. de Swyneburne has "_trois testes de senglier_"--three heads of the wild boar, or _swine_: (E. 2), Sir R. de Eschales has _six escallops_--_shells_: Sir G. de Trompintoun, of Trumpington, near Cambridge, has _two trompes_--trumpets: Sir J. Bordoun has _three bourdons_--pilgrim's staves: Sir G. Rossel has _three roses_: and Sir O. Heron has the same number of _herons_. So also, for the Spanish provinces Castile and Leon, a _castle_ and a _lion_: for Falconer, a _falcon_: Butler, _cups_: Forester, _bugle-horns_: Arundel, _hirondelles_--swallows: Wingfield, _wings_: Shelley, _shells_: Pigot, _pick-axes_: Leveson, _leaves_: and Martel, _martels_--hammers. The _Broom-plant_ with its seed-pods, in Latin _Planta genista_, No. 21, gave its name to the PLANTAGENET Dynasty. I shall hereafter add several other curious examples of devices of this class, when treating of _Badges_, _Rebuses_, and _Mottoes_.

[Illustration: No. 20.--Shield of Montacute.]

[Illustration: No. 21.--Planta Genista.]

[Illustration: No. 22.--WILLIAM I.]

[Illustration: No. 23.--Saxon Princes.]

There is one class of early arms, which it is important that students of Armory should observe with especial care, lest they be led by them into unexpected errors. These are arms that were invented _after_ Heraldry had been established, and then were assigned to personages of historical eminence who had lived and died _before_ the true heraldic era. In the days in which every person of prominence bore heraldic arms, and when Heraldry had attained to high renown, it was natural enough to consider that suitable armorial devices and compositions should be assigned to the men of mark in earlier ages, both to distinguish them in accordance with the usage then prevalent, and to treat their memory with becoming honour. Such arms were also in a sense necessary to their descendants for the purposes of quartering. No proof can be shown that the arms said to have been borne by WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR are not of this order--made for him, that is, and attributed to him in after times, but of which he himself had no knowledge. These arms, No. 22, differ from the true Royal Insignia of England only in there being _two_, instead of _three_, lions displayed upon the shield. The arms of EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, No. 2, were certainly devised long after his death, and they appear to have been suggested to the heralds of HENRY III. by one of the Confessor's coins: the shield is blue, and the cross and five birds (martlets) are gold. In like manner, the arms attributed to the earlier Saxon Sovereigns of England, No. 23, a gold cross upon blue, are really not earlier than the thirteenth century. The arms, No. 2, having been assigned to ST. EDWARD, a patron saint of mediæval England, were long regarded with peculiar reverence. I have placed them, drawn from a fine shield of the thirteenth century in Westminster Abbey, to take a part in forming a group at the head of my Preface, with the shields of the two other saintly Patrons of "old England," ST. GEORGE and ST. EDMUND, No. 1 and No. 3--a red cross on a silver shield, and three golden crowns upon a shield of blue.

##