the middle ages standardized by artists. A crest upon a 15th-century brass shows him as a lean wolf-like figure, with a dash of the boar, gazing after his vain wont into a looking-glass; and the 16th-century heralds gave him the body of a lion with the head of a wolf, head and body being tufted here and there with thick tufts of hair. But it is noteworthy that the arms of Sir John Norwich, a well-known knight of the 14th century, are blazoned in a roll of that age as “party azure and gules with a tiger rampant ermine.” Now this beast in the arms of Norwich has been commonly taken for a lion, and the Norwich family seem in later times to have accepted the lion as their bearing. But a portion of a painted roll of Sir John’s day shows on careful examination that his lion has been given two moustache-like tufts to the nose. A copy made about 1600 of another roll gives the same decoration to the Norwich lion, and it is at least possible we have here evidence that the economy of the medieval armorist allowed him to make at small cost his lion, his leopard and his tiger out of a single beast form.
Take away the lions and the leopards, and the other beasts upon medieval shields are a little herd. In most cases they are here to play upon the names of their bearers. Thus Swinburne of Northumberland has the heads of swine in his coat and Bacon has bacon pigs. Three white bears were borne by Barlingham, and a bear ramping on his hind legs is for Barnard. Lovett of Astwell has three running wolves, Videlou three wolves’ heads, Colfox three foxes’ heads.
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| Lovett. | Talbot. | Saunders. |
Three hedgehogs were in the arms of Heriz. Barnewall reminds us of extinct natives of England by bearing two beavers, and Otter of Yorkshire had otters. Harewell had hares’ heads, Cunliffe conies, Mitford moles or moldiwarps. A Talbot of Lancashire had three purple squirrels in a silver shield. An elephant was brought to England as early as the days of Henry III., but he had no immediate armorial progeny, although Saunders of Northants may have borne before the end of the middle ages the elephants’ heads which speak of Alysaunder the Great, patron of all Saunderses. Bevil of the west had a red bull, and Bulkeley bore three silver bulls’ heads. The heads in Neteham’s 14th-century shield are neat’s heads, ox heads are for Oxwyk. Calves are for Veel, and the same mild beasts are in the arms of that fierce knight Hugh Calveley. Stansfeld bore three rams with bells at their necks, and a 14th-century Lecheford thought no shame to bear the head of the ram who is the symbol of lechery. Lambton had lambs. Goats were borne by Chevercourt to play on his name, a leaping goat by Bardwell, and goats’ heads by Gateshead. Of the race of dogs the greyhound and the talbot, or mastiff, are found most often. Thus Talbot of Cumberland had talbots, and Mauleverer, running greyhounds or “leverers” for his name’s sake. The alaund, a big, crop-eared dog, is in the 15th-century shield of John Woode of Kent, and “kenets,” or little tracking dogs, in a 13th-century coat of Kenet. The horse is not easily found as an English charge, but Moyle’s white mule seems an old coat; horses’ heads are in Horsley’s shield, and ass heads make crests for more than one noble house. Askew has three asses in his arms. Three bats or flittermice are in the shield of Burninghill and in that of Heyworth of Whethamstede.
As might be looked for in a land where forest and greenwood once linked from sea to sea, the wild deer is a common charge in the shield. Downes of Cheshire bore a hart “lodged” or lying down. Hertford had harts’ heads, Malebis, fawns’ heads (testes de bis), Bukingham, heads of bucks. The harts in Rotherham’s arms are the roes of his name’s first syllable. Reindeer heads were borne by Bowet in the 14th century. Antelopes, fierce beasts with horns that have something of the ibex, show by their great claws, their lion tails, and their boar muzzles and tusks that they are midway between the hart and the monster.
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| Griffin. |
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| Drake. |
Of the outlandish monsters the griffon is the oldest and the chief. With the hinder parts of a lion, the rest of him is eagle, head and shoulders, wings and fore legs. The long tuft under the beak and his pointed ears mark him out from the eagle when his head alone is borne. At an early date a griffon rampant, his normal position, was borne by the great house of Montagu as a quartering, and another griffon played upon Griffin’s name.
The wyver, who becomes wyvern in the 16th century, and takes a new form under the care of inventive heralds, was in the middle ages a lizard-like dragon, generally with small wings. Sir Edmund Mauley in the 14th century is found differencing the black bend of his elder brother by charging it with three wyvers of silver. During the middle ages there seems small distinction between the wyver and the still rarer dragon, which, with the coming of the Tudors, who bore it as their badge, is seen as a four-legged monster with wings and a tail that ends like a broad arrow. The monster in the arms of Drake, blazoned by Tudor heralds as a wyvern, is clearly a fire-drake or dragon in his origin.
The unicorn rampant was borne by Harlyn of Norfolk, unicorn’s heads by the Cambridgeshire family of Paris. The mermaid with her comb and looking-glass makes a 14th-century crest for Byron, while “Silver a bend gules with three silver harpies thereon” is found in the 15th century for Entyrdene.
Concerning beasts and monsters the heraldry books have many adjectives of blazonry which may be disregarded. Even as it was once the pride of the cook pedant to carve each bird on the board with a new word for the act, so it became the delight of the pedant herald to order that the rampant horse should be “forcené,” the rampant griffon “segreant,” the passant hart “trippant”; while the same hart must needs be “attired” as to its horns and “unguled” as to its hoofs. There is ancient authority for the nice blazonry which sometimes gives a separate colour to the tongue and claws of the lion, but even this may be set aside. Though a black lion in a silver field may be armed with red claws, and a golden leopard in a red field given blue claws and tongues, these trifles are but fancies which follow the taste of the painter, and are never of obligation. The tusks and hoofs of the boar, and often the horns of the hart, are thus given in some paintings a colour of their own which elsewhere is neglected.
As the lion is among armorial beasts, so is the eagle among the birds. A bold convention of the earliest shield painters displayed him with spread wing and claw, the feat of a few strokes of the brush, and after this fashion he appears on many scores of shields. Like the claws and tongue of the lion, the beak and claws of the eagle are commonly painted of a second colour in all but very small representations. Thus the golden eagle of Lymesey in a red field may have blue beak and claws, and golden beak and claws will be given to Jorce’s silver eagle upon red. A lure, or two wings joined and spread like those of an eagle, is a rare charge sometimes found. When fitted with the cord by which a falconer’s lure is swung, the cord must be named.
Monthermer bore “Gold an eagle vert.”
Siggeston bore “Silver a two-headed eagle sable.”
Gavaston, earl of Cornwall, bore “Vert six eagles gold.”
Bayforde of Fordingbridge sealed (in 1388) with arms of “An eagle bendwise, with a border engrailed and a baston.”
Graunson bore “Paly silver and azure with a bend gules and three golden eagles thereon.”
Seymour bore “Gules a lure of two golden wings.”
Commoner than the eagle as a charge is the martlet, a humbler bird which is never found as the sole charge of a shield. In all
