CHAPTER I.

Fabulous History of Heraldry.

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"You had a maister that hath fetched the beginning of Gentry from Adam, and of Knighthood from Olybion."

_Ferne's Blazon of Gentrie._

"Gardons nous de mêler le douteux an certain, et le chimérique avec le vrai."

_Voltaire, Essai sur les Moeurs._

Antiquity has, in a greater or less degree, charms for all; and it is supposed to stamp such a value on things as nothing else can confer. This feeling, unexceptionable in itself, is liable to great abuse; especially in relation to historical matters. In States and in Families, Antiquity implies greatness, strength, and those other attributes which command veneration and respect. Hence the first historians of nations have uniformly endeavoured to carry up their annals to periods far beyond the limits of probability, thus rendering the earlier portions of their works a tissue of absurdity deduced from the misty regions of tradition, conjecture, and song.[7]

This reverence for antiquity has extended itself to genealogists, and to those who have recorded the history of sciences and inventions. Thus has it been with the earliest writers on =Heraldry=, a system totally unknown till within the last thousand years; but which in the fancies of its zealous admirers has been presumed to have existed, not merely in the first ages of the world, but at a period

"Ere Nature was, or Adam's dust Was fashioned to a man!"

We are gravely assured by a writer of the fifteenth century that heraldric ensigns were primarily borne by the 'hierarchy of the skies,' "_At hevyn_," says the author of the Boke of St. Albans, "_I will begin_; where were V orderis of aungelis, and now stand but IV, in _cote armoris_ of knawlege, encrowned ful hye with precious stones, where Lucifer with mylionys of aungelis, owt of hevyn fell into hell and odyr places, and ben holdyn ther in bondage; and all [the remaining angels] were erected in hevyn of gentill nature!"

Thus, in one short sentence, the origin both of nobility and of its external symbols is summarily disposed of. When _proofs_ are not to be adduced, how can we regret that it is no longer?

But to descend a little lower, let us quote again the poetical language of this indisputable authority: "Adam, the begynnyng of mankind, was as a stocke unsprayed and unfloreshed,"--having neither boughs nor leaves--"and in the braunches is knowledge wich is rotun and wich is grene;" that is, if I rightly understand it, (for poetry is not always quite intelligible,) both the gentle and the ungentle, the earl and the churl, are descended from one progenitor; _omnes communem parentem habent_; a truth which, it is presumed, will not be called in question.

The _gentility_ of the great ancestor of our race is stoutly contended for, and, that his claim to that distinction might not want support, Morgan, an enthusiastic armorist of the seventeenth century, has assigned him _two coats of arms_; one as borne in Eden--when he neither used nor needed either _coat_ for covering or _arms_ for defence--and another suited to his condition after the fall. The first was a plain red shield, described in the language of modern heraldry as 'gules,' while the arms of Eve, a shield of white, or 'argent,' were borne upon it as an 'escocheon of pretence,' she being _an heiress_! The arms of Abel were, as a matter of course, those of his father and mother borne 'quarterly,' and ensigned with a crosier, like that of a bishop, to show that he was a 'shepheard'[8]

Sir John Ferne, a man of real erudition, was so far carried away by extravagant notions of the great antiquity of heraldric insignia, as seriously to deduce the use of furs in heraldry from the 'coats of skins' which the Creator made for Adam and Eve after their transgression. This, independently of its absurdity, is an unfortunate idea; for coats of arms are as certainly marks of honour as these were badges of disgrace; and as Morgan says, 'innocens was Adam's best gentility.'[9] The second coat of Adam, says this writer, was '_paly tranche_, divided every way and tinctured of every colour.' Cain, also, after _his_ fall, changed his armorials "by ingrailing and _indented_ lines--to show, as the preacher saith, There is a generation whose _teeth_ are as swords, and their jaw-_teeth_ as knives to devour the poor from the earth." He was the first, it is added, who desired to have his arms changed--'So God set a mark upon him!'[10]

This ante-diluvian heraldry is expatiated upon by our author in a manner far too prolix for us to follow him through all his grave statements and learned proofs. I shall therefore only observe, _en passant_, that arms are assigned to the following personages, viz.: Jabal, the inventor of tents, _Vert, a tent argent_, (a white tent in a green field!) Jubal, the primeval musician, _Azure, a harp, or, on a chief argent three rests gules_;[11] Tubal-Cain, _Sable, a hammer argent, crowned or_, and Naamah, his sister, the inventress of weaving, _In a lozenge gules, a carding-comb argent_.

Noah, according to the Boke of St. Albans, "came a _gentilman_ by kynde ... and had iij sonnys begetyn by kinde ... yet in theys iij sonnys gentilness and ungentilnes was fownde." The sin of Ham degraded him to the condition of a churl; and upon the partition of the world between the three brethren Noah pronounced a malediction against him. "Wycked kaytiff," says he, "I give to thee the north parte of the worlde to draw thyne habitacion, for ther schall it be, where sorow and care, cold and myschef, as a churle thou shalt live in the thirde parte of the worlde wich shall be calde Europe, that is to say, _the contre of churlys_!"

"Japeth," he continues, "cum heder my sonne, thou shalt have my blessing dere.... I make the a gentilman of the west parte of the world and of Asia, that is to say, _the contre of gentilmen_." He then in like manner creates Sem a gentleman, and gives him Africa, or "_the contre of tempurnes_."[12]

"Of the offspryng of the gentleman Japheth come Habraham, Moyses, Aron, and the profettys, and also the kyng of the right lyne of Mary, of whom that gentilman Jhesus ... kyng of the londe of Jude and of Jues, gentilman by his modre Mary prynce[ss] of cote-armure!"... "Jafet made the first target and therin he made a ball in token of all the worlde."

Morgan's researches do not seem to have furnished him with the arms of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but those of the twelve patriarchs are given by him and others. Joseph's "coat of many colours," Morgan, by a strange oversight, makes to consist of two tinctures only, viz. black, chequered with white--in the language of heraldry, _chequy sable and argent_,--to denote the lights and shadows of his history.

The pathetic predictions and benedictions pronounced by the dying patriarch Jacob to his sons, furnished our old writers with one of their best pretences for giving coat-armour to persons in those remote ages. The standards ordered to be set up around the Israelitish camp in the desert[13] are likewise adduced in support of the notion that regular heraldry was then known. The arms of the twelve tribes are given by Morgan in the following hobbling verses:[14]

"Judah bare Gules, a lion[15] couchant or; Zebulon's black Ship's[16] like to a man of war; Issachar's asse[17] between two burthens girt; As Dan's[18] sly snake lies in a field of vert; Asher with _Azure_ a Cup[19] of gold sustains; And Nephtali's Hind[20] trips o'er the flow'ry plains; Ephraim's strong Ox lyes with the couchant Hart; Manasseh's Tree its branches doth impart; Benjamin's Wolfe in the field gules resides; Reuben's field argent and blew bars wav'd glides; Simeon doth beare his Sword; and in that manner Gad, having pitched his Tent, sets up his Banner."

The same authority gives as the arms of Moses a _cross_, because he preferred "taking up the cross," and suffering the lot of his brethren to a life of pleasure and dignity in the court of Pharaoh. The 'parfight armory of Duke Joshua,' given by Leigh, is _Partie bendy sinister, or and gules, a backe displayed sable_. The arms of Gideon were _Sable, a fleece argent, a chief azure gutté d'eau_,[21] evidently a 'composition' from the miracle recorded in the Book of Judges. To Samson is ascribed, _Gules, a lion couchant or, within an orle argent, semée of bees sable_, an equally evident allusion to a passage in the bearer's history. David, as a matter of course, bore _a golden harp in a field azure_.[22]

But it is not alone to the worthies of sacred history that these honourable insignia are ascribed--the heroes of classical story, too, had their 'atchievements,' Hector of Troy, for example, bore, _Sable, ij lyons combatand or_.[23] Here again our great authority, Dame Julyan Berners,[24] may be cited. "Two thousand yere and xxiiij," says she, "before thyncarnation of Christe, =Cote-Armure= was made and figurid at the sege of Troye, where in gestis troianorum it tellith that the first begynnyng of the lawe of armys was; the which was effygured and begunne before any lawe in the world bot the lawe of nature, and before the X commaundementis of God."

I have been favoured with the following curious extract from a MS. at the College of Arms,[25] which also refers the origin of arms to the siege of Troy. I believe it has never been printed.

"=What Armes be, and where they were firste invented.= As kinges of Armes record, the begynynge of armes was fyrste founded at the great sege of Troye w{th}in the Cytie and w{th}out, for the doughtines of deades don on bothe partyes and for so mouche as thier were soo many valliaunt knights on bothe sydes w{ch} did soo great acts of Armes, and none of them myght be knowen from other, the great Lords on both p'ties by thier dyscreate advice assembled together and accorded that every man that did a great acte of armes shoulde bere upon him a marke in token of his doutye deades, that the pepoell myght have the bet{r} knowledge of him, and if it were soo that suche a man had any chylderen, it was ordeyned that they should also bere the same marke that their father did w{th} dyvers differences, that ys to saye, Theldeste as his father did w{th} a labell, the secounde w{th} a cressente, the third w{th} a molett, the fourth a marlet, the v{th} an annellet, the vj{th} a flewer delisse. And if there be anye more than sixe the rest to bere suche differences as lyketh the herauld to geve them. And when the said seige was ended y{e} lordes went fourth into dyvers landes to seke there adventures, and into England came Brute and [his] knights w{th} there markes and inhabited the land; and after, because the name of MERKES was rewde, they terned the same into ARMES, for as mouche _as that name was far fayerer_, and becausse that markes were gotten through myght of armes of men."

The humour of Alexander the Great must have been somewhat of the quaintest when he assumed the arms ascribed to him by Master Gerard Leigh, to wit, _Gules a_ GOLDEN LYON SITTING IN A CHAYER and holding _a battayle-axe of silver_.[26] The 'atchievement' of Cæsar was, if we may trust the same learned armorist, _Or, an eagle displayed with two heads sable_.[27]

Arms are also assigned to King Arthur, Charlemagne, Sir Guy of Warwick, and other heroes, who, though belonging to much more recent periods, still flourished long before the existence of the heraldric system, and never dreamed of such honours.

That these pretended armorials were the mere figments of the writers who record them, no one doubts. In these ingenious falsehoods we recognize a principle similar to that which produced the 'pious frauds' of enthusiastic churchmen, and to that which led self-duped alchemists to deceive others. In their zeal for the antiquity of arms--a zeal of so glowing a character that no one who has not read their works can estimate it--they imagined that they must have existed from the beginning of the world. Then, throwing the reins upon the neck of their fancy, they ascribed to almost every celebrated personage of the earliest ages, the ensigns they deemed the most appropriate to his character and pursuits. The feeling inducing such a procedure originated in a mistake as to the antiquity of chivalry, of which heraldry was part and parcel. Feelings unknown before the existence of this institution are attributed to the heroes of antiquity. '_Duke_ Joshua' is presumed to have been only another Duke William of Normandy, influenced in war by similar motives and surrounded by the same social circumstances in time of peace. Chaucer talks of classical heroes as if they were knights of some modern order; and Lydgate, in his =Troy Boke= invests the heroes of the Iliad with the costume of his own times, carrying emblazoned shields and fighting under feudal banners:

"=And to behold in the knights shields The fell beastes.

"Where that he saw, In the shields hanging on the hookes, The beasts rage.

"The which beastes as the storie leres Were wrought and bete upon their banners Displaied brode, when they schould fight.="[28]

The fabulous history of the science might be fairly deduced to the eleventh century, as the Saxon monarchs up to that date are all represented to have borne arms. Yet as there are not wanting, even in our day, those who admit the authenticity of those bearings, their claims will be briefly referred to in the next chapter.

In justice to the credulous and inventive armorists of the 'olden tyme,' the reader should be reminded that warriors did, in very antient times, bear various figures upon their shields. These seem in general to have been engraved in, rather than painted upon, the metal of which the shield was composed. The French word _escu_ and _escussion_, the Italian _scudo_, and the English _escocheon_, are evident derivations from the Latin _scutum_, and the equivalent word _clypeus_ is derived from the Greek verb [Greek: gluphein], TO ENGRAVE. But those sculptured devices were regarded as the peculiar ensigns of one individual, who could change them at pleasure, and did not descend hereditarily like the modern coat of arms.

A few references to the shields here alluded to may not be unacceptable. Homer describes the shield of Agamemnon as being ornamented with the Gorgon, his peculiar badge; and Virgil says of Aventinus,[29] the son of Hercules--

"Post hos insignem palmâ per gramina currum, Victoresque ostentat equos, satus Hercule pulchro Pulcher Aventinus: clypeoque, _insigne paternum_, Centum angues, cinctamq: gerit serpentibus _hydram_." _Æneid._ vii, 655.

"Next Aventinus drives his chariot round The Latian plains, with palms and laurels crowned; Proud of his steeds he smokes along the field, His father's _hydra_ fills his ample shield." _Dryden_, vii, 908.

The Greek dramatists describe the symbols and war-cries placed upon their shields by the seven chiefs, in their expedition against the city of Thebes. As an example, Capaneus is represented as bearing the figure of a giant with a blazing torch, and the motto, "_I will fire the city_!" Such ensigns seem to have been the peculiar property of the valiant and well-born, and so far they certainly resembled modern heraldry. Virgil, speaking of Helenus, whose mother had been a slave, says,

"Slight were his arms--a sword and silver shield; No _marks of honour_ charged its empty field."[30]

Several of our more recent writers, while they disclaim all belief of the existence of armorial bearings in earlier times, still think they find traces of these distinctions in the days of the Roman commonwealth. The family of the Corvini are particularly cited as having hereditarily borne a raven as their crest; but this device was, as Nisbet has shown,[31] merely an ornament bearing allusion to the apocryphal story of an early ancestor of that race having been assisted in combat by a bird of this species. The _jus imaginum_ of the Romans is also adduced. In every condition of civilized society distinctions of rank and honour are recognized. Thus the Romans had their three classes distinguished as _nobiles_, _novi_, and _ignobiles_. Those whose ancestors had held high offices in the state, as Censor, Prætor, or Consul, were accounted nobiles, and were entitled to have statues of their progenitors executed in wood, metal, stone, or wax, and adorned with the insignia of their several offices, and the trophies they had earned in war. These they usually kept in presses or cabinets, and on occasions of ceremony and solemnity exhibited before the entrances of their houses. He who had a right to exhibit his own effigy only, was styled _novus_, and occupied the same position with regard to the many-imaged line as the upstart of our own times, who bedecks his newly-started equipage with an equally new coat of arms, does to the head of an antient house with a shield of forty quarterings. The ignobiles were not permitted to use any image, and therefore stood upon an equality with modern plebeians, who bear no arms but the two assigned them by the heraldry of nature.

The patricians of our day to a certain extent carry out the _jus imaginum_ of antiquity, only substituting painted canvas for sculptured marble or modelled wax; and there is no sight better calculated to inspire respect for dignity of station than the gallery of some antient hall hung with a long series of family portraits; in which, as in a kind of physiognomical pedigree, the speculative mind may also find matter of agreeable contemplation. The _jus imaginum_ doubtless originated in the same class of feelings that gave birth to heraldry, but there is no further connexion or analogy between the two. It is to hereditary shields and hereditary banners we must limit the true meaning of heraldry, and all attempts to find these in the classical era will end in a disappointment as inevitable as that which accompanies the endeavour to gather "grapes of thorns or figs of thistles."

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