Sir Ralph Mounchensy bore in the 14th century “Silver a cheveron between three billets sable.”
Haggerston bore “Azure a bend with cotices silver and three billets sable on the bend.”
With the Billet, the Ordinaries, uncertain as they are in number, may be said to end. But we may here add certain armorial charges which might well have been counted with them.
First of these is the Molet, a word corrupted in modern heraldry to Mullet, a fish-like change with nothing to commend it. This figure is as a star of five or six points, six points being perhaps the commonest form in old examples, although the sixth point is, as a rule, lost during the later period. Medieval armorists are not, it seems, inclined to make any distinction between molets of five and six points, but some families, such as the Harpedens and Asshetons, remained constant to the five-pointed form. It was generally borne pierced with a round hole, and then represents, as its name implies, the rowel of a spur. In ancient rolls of arms the word Rowel is often used, and probably indicated the pierced molet. That the piercing was reckoned an essential difference is shown by a roll of the time of Edward II., in which Sir John of Pabenham bears “Barry azure and silver, with a bend gules and three molets gold thereon,” arms which Sir John his son differences by piercing the molets. Beside these names is that of Sir Walter Baa with “Gules a cheveron and three rowels silver,” rowels which are shown on seals of this family as pierced molets. Probably an older bearing than the molet, which would be popularized when the rowelled spur began to take the place of the prick-spur, is the Star or Estoile, differing from the molet in that its five or six points are wavy. It is possible that several star bearings of the 13th century were changed in the 14th for molets. The star is not pierced in the fashion of the molet; but, like the molet, it tends to lose its sixth point in armory of the decadence. Suns, sometimes blazoned in old rolls as Sun-rays—rays de soleil—are pictured as unpierced molets of many points, which in rare cases are waved.
Harpeden bore “Silver a pierced molet gules.”
Gentil bore “Gold a chief sable with two molets goles pierced gules.”
Grimston bore “Silver a fesse sable and thereon three molets silver pierced gules.”
Ingleby of Yorkshire bore “Sable a star silver.”
Sir John de la Haye of Lincolnshire bore “Silver a sun gules.”
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| Mounchensy. | Haggerston. | Harpeden. | Gentil. |
The Crescent is a charge which has to answer for many idle tales concerning the crusading ancestors of families who bear it. It is commonly borne with both points uppermost, but when representing the waning or the waxing moon—decrescent or increscent—its horns are turned to the sinister or dexter side of the shield.
Peter de Marines (13th century) bore on his seal a shield charged with a crescent in the chief.
William Gobioun (14th century) bore “A bend between two waxing moons.”
Longchamp bore “Ermine three crescents gules, pierced silver.”
Tinctures.—The tinctures or hues of the shield and its charges are seven in number—gold or yellow, silver or white, red, blue, black, green and purple. Medieval custom gave, according to a rule often broken, “gules,” “azure” and “sable” as more high-sounding names for the red, blue and black. Green was often named as “vert,” and sometimes as “synobill,” a word which as “sinople” is used to this day by French armorists. The song of the siege of Carlaverock and other early documents have red, gules or “vermeil,” sable or black, azure or blue, but gules, azure, sable and vert came to be recognized as armorists’ adjectives, and an early 15th-century romance discards the simple words deliberately, telling us of its hero that
| “His shield was black and blue, sanz fable, |
But gold and silver served as the armorists’ words for yellows and whites until late in the 16th century, when gold and silver made way for “or” and “argent,” words which those for whom the interest of armory lies in its liveliest days will not be eager to accept. Likewise the colours of “sanguine” and “tenné” brought in by the pedants to bring the tinctures to the mystical number of nine may be disregarded.
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| Grimston. | Ingilby. | Gobioun. | Longchamp. |
A certain armorial chart of the duchy of Brabant, published in 1600, is the earliest example of the practice whereby later engravers have indicated colours in uncoloured plates by the use of lines and dots. Gold is indicated by a powdering of dots; silver is left plain. Azure is shown by horizontal shading lines; gules by upright lines; sable by cross-hatching of upright and horizontal lines. Diagonal lines from sinister to dexter indicate purple; vert is marked with diagonal lines from dexter to sinister. The practice, in spite of a certain convenience, has been disastrous in its cramping effects on armorial art, especially when applied to seals and coins.
Besides the two “metals” and five “colours,” fields and charges are varied by the use of the furs ermine and vair. Ermine is shown by a white field flecked with black ermine tails, and vair by a conventional representation of a fur of small skins sewn in rows, white and blue skins alternately. In the 15th century there was a popular variant of ermine, white tails upon a black field. To this fur the books now give the name of “ermines”—a most unfortunate choice, since ermines is a name used in old documents for the original ermine. “Erminees,” which has at least a 15th-century authority, will serve for those who are not content to speak of “sable ermined with silver.” Vair, although silver and blue be its normal form, may be made up of gold, silver or ermine, with sable or gules or vert, but in these latter cases the colours must be named in the blazon. To the vairs and ermines of old use the heraldry books have added “erminois,” which is a gold field with black ermine fails, “pean,” which is “erminois” reversed, and “erminites,” which is ermine with a single red hair on either side of each black tail. The vairs, mainly by misunderstanding of the various patterns found in old paintings, have been amplified with “countervair,” “potent,” “counter-potent” and “vair-en-point,” no one of which merits description.
No shield of a plain metal or colour has ever been borne by an Englishman, although the knights at Carlaverock and Falkirk saw Amaneu d’Albret with his banner all of red having no charge thereon. Plain ermine was the shield of the duke of Brittany and no Englishman challenged the bearing. But Beauchamp of Hatch bore simple vair, Ferrers of Derby “Vairy gold and gules,” and Ward “Vairy silver and sable.” Gresley had “Vairy ermine and gules,” and Beche “Vairy silver and gules.”
Only one English example has hitherto been discovered of a field covered not with a fur but with overlapping feathers. A 15th-century book of arms gives “Plumetty of gold and purple” for “Mydlam in Coverdale.”
Drops of various colours which variegate certain fields and charges are often mistaken for ermine tails when ancient seals are deciphered. A simple example of such spattering is in the shield of Grayndore, who bore “Party ermine and vert, the vert
