Of instances of single objects from which shields are found depending or supported the "Treatise on Heraldry" states:—
"Allusion has been made to the usage by which on vesica-shaped shields ladies of high rank are represented as supporting with either hand shields of arms. From this probably arose the use of a single supporter. Marguerite de Courcelles in 1284, and Alix de Verdun in 1311, bear in one hand a shield of the husband's arms, in the other one of their own. The curious seal of Muriel, Countess of Stratherne, in 1284, may be considered akin to these. In it the shield is supported partly by a falcon, and partly by a human arm issuing from the sinister side of the vesica, and holding the falcon by the jesses (Laing, i. 764). The early seal of Boleslas III., King of Poland, in 1255, bears a knight holding a shield charged with the Polish eagle (Vossberg, Die Siegel des Mittelalters). In 1283 the seal of Florent of Hainault bears a warrior in chain mail supporting a shield charged with a lion impaling an eagle dimidiated.
"On the seal of Humphrey de Bohun in 1322 the guige is held by a swan, the badge of the Earls of Hereford; and in 1356 the shield of the first Earl of Douglas is supported by a lion whose head is covered by the crested helm, a fashion of which there are many examples. A helmed lion holds the shield of Magnus I., Duke of Brunswick, in 1326.
"On the seal of Jean, Duc de Berri, in 1393 the supporter is a helmed swan (compare the armorial slab of Henry of Lancaster, in Boutell, Plate LXXIX.). Jean IV., Comte d'Alençon (1408), has a helmed lion sejant as supporter. In 1359 a signet of Louis van Male, Count of Flanders, bears a lion sejant, helmed and crested, and mantled with the arms of Flanders between two small escutcheons of Nevers, or the county of Burgundy ["Azure, billetty, a lion rampant or"], and Rethel ["Gules, two heads of rakes fesswise in pale or"].
"A single lion sejant, helmed and crested, bearing on its breast the quartered arms of Burgundy between two or three other escutcheons, was used by the Dukes up to the death of Charles the Bold in 1475. In Litta's splendid work, Famiglie celebri Italiane, the Buonarotti arms are supported by a brown dog sejant, helmed, and crested with a pair of dragon's wings issuing from a crest-coronet. On the seal of Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent, in 1380 the shield is buckled round the neck of the white hind lodged, the badge of his half-brother, Richard II. Single supporters were very much in favour in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the examples are numerous.
