A Complete Guide to Heraldry Part 43

If uncertainty exists as to the origin of arms, it is as nothing to the huge uncertainty that exists concerning the beginnings of the crest. Most wonderful stories are told concerning it; that it meant this and meant the other, that the right to bear a crest was confined to this person or the other person. But practically the whole of the stories of this kind are either wild imagination or conjecture founded upon insufficient facts.

The real facts--which one may as well state first as a basis to work upon--are very few and singularly unconvincing, and are useless as original data from which to draw conclusions.

First of all we have the definite, a.s.sured, and certain fact that the earliest known instance of a crest is in 1198, and we find evidence of the use of arms before that date.

The next fact is that we find infinitely more variation in the crests used by given families than in the arms, and that whilst the variations in the arms are as a rule trivial, and not affecting the general design of the shield, the changes in the crest are frequently radical, the crest borne by a family at one period having no earthly relation to that borne by the same family at another.

Again, we find that though the occasional use of a crest can (by isolated instances) be taken back, as already stated, to a fairly early period, the use of crests did not become general until very much later.

Another fact is that, except perhaps in the persons of sovereigns, there is no official instance, nor any other authentic instance of importance, in which a crest appears ever to have been used by a woman until these recent and unfortunate days when unofficial examples can be found of the wildest ignorance of all armorial rules.

The foregoing may be taken as general principles which no authentic instance known can be said to refute.

Bearing these in mind, let us now see what other results can be obtained by deduction from specific instances.

The earliest form in which anything can be found in the nature of a crest is the lion upon the head-dress of Geoffrey, Count of Anjou (Fig. 28). This has been already referred to. {327}

The helmet of Philippe D'Alsace, Count of Flanders (_c._ 1181), has painted upon the side the same figure of a lion which appears upon his shield.

What is usually accepted as the earliest authenticated instance of a regular crest is that afforded by the Great Seal of King Richard I. of England, which shows over the helmet a lion pa.s.sant painted upon the fan-shaped ornament which surmounts the helmet.

If one accepts--as most people nowadays are inclined to do--the Darwinian theory of evolution, the presumption is that the development of the human being, through various intermediate links including the ape, can be traced back to those cell-like formations which are the most "original" types of life which are known to us. At the same time one is hardly disposed to a.s.sert that some antediluvian jellyfish away back in past ages was the first human being. By a similar, but naturally more restricted argument, one cannot accept these paintings upon helmets, nor possibly can one accept paintings upon the fan-like ornaments which surmounted the helmet, as examples of crests. The rudiments and origin of crests doubtless they were.

Crests they were not.

We must go back, once again, to the bed-rock of the peac.o.c.k-popinjay vanity ingrained in human nature. The same impulse which nowadays leads to the decoration of the helmets of the Life Guards with horsehair plumes and regimental badges, the c.o.c.ked hats of field-marshals and other officers with waving plumes, the kepis of commissionaires, and the smasher hats of Colonial irregulars with c.o.c.ks' feathers, the hat of the poacher and gamekeeper with a pheasant's feather, led unquestionably to the "decoration" of the helmets of the armoured knights of old. The matter was just a combination of decoration and vanity. At first (Fig. 569) they frequently painted their helmets, and as with the gradual evolution and crystallisation of armory a certain form of decoration (the device upon his shield) became identified with a certain person, that particular device was used for the decoration of the helmet and painted thereupon.

Then it was found that a fan-shaped erection upon the helmet improved its appearance, and, without adding greatly to its weight, advantaged it as a head protection by attracting the blow of an opponent's sword, and lessening or nullifying its force ere the blow reached the actual crown-plates of the helmet. Possibly in this we see the true origin (as in the case of the scalloped edges of the mantling) of the serrated border which appears upon these fan-shaped erections. But this last suggestion is no more than a conjecture of my own, and may not be correct, for human nature has always had a weakness for decoration, and ever has been agreeable to pay the extra {328} penny in the "tuppence" for the coloured or decorated variety. The many instances which can be found of these fan-shaped ornaments upon helmets in a perfectly undecorated form leads me to unhesitatingly a.s.sert that they originated _not_ as crests, nor as a vehicle for the display of crests, but as an integral and protective part of the _helmet_ itself. The origin of the crest is due to the decoration of the fan. The derivation of the word "crest," from the Latin _crista_, a c.o.c.k's comb, should put the supposition beyond any doubt.

Disregarding crests of later grant or a.s.sumption, one can a.s.sert with confidence that a large proportion of those--particularly in German armory, where they are so frequent--which we now find blazoned or depicted as wings or plumes, carrying a device, are nothing more than developments of or derivatives from these fan-shaped ornaments.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 610.--From the seal (1301) of Richard FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 611.--From the seal (1301) of Humphrey de Bohm, Earl of Hereford.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 612.--From the seal (1305) of Edward of Carnarvon, Prince of Wales.]

These fans being (from other reasons) in existence, of course, and very naturally, were painted and decorated, and equally of course such decoration took the form of the particular decoration a.s.sociated with the owner, namely, the device upon the shield. It seems to me, and for long has so seemed, essentially strange that no specialist authority, writing upon armory, has noticed that these "fans" (as I will call them) are really a part, though possibly only a decorative part, of the helmet itself. There has always in these matters been far too great a tendency on the part of writers to accept conclusions of earlier authorities ready made, and to simply treat these fans as selected and chosen crests. Figs. 610-612 are instances of helmets having these fans. All are {329} taken from seals, and it is quite possible that the actual fans upon the seal helmets had some device painted upon them which it was impossible by reason of the size to represent upon the seal. As has been already stated, the great seal of Richard I. does show a lion painted on the fan.

There are many examples of the heraldic development of these fans,--for their use obtained even in this country long after the real heraldic crest had an a.s.sured footing--and a typical example occurs in Fig. 613, but probably the best-known instance, one which has been often ill.u.s.trated, is that from the effigy of Sir Geoffrey de Luttrell (_c._ 1340), which shows a fan of this character upon which the entire Luttrell arms are depicted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 613.--Arms of the family of Schaler (Basle): Gules, a bend of lozenges argent. (From the Zurich Roll of Arms.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 614.--Modern reverse of the Common Seal of the City of London (1539).]

A much later instance in this country will be found in the seal (dated 1539) of the City of London, which shows upon the helmet one of these fan-shaped ornaments, charged with the cross of the City arms (Fig. 614).

The arms of the City of London are recorded in the College of Arms (Vincent) without a crest (and by the way without supporters) and this seal affords a curious but a very striking and authentic instance of the extreme accuracy of the records of the College of Arms. There being no crest for the City of London at the time of the preparation of this seal, recourse was had to the ancient practice of depicting the whole or a part (in this case a part) of the device of the shield upon a fan surmounting the helmet.

In course of time this fan, in the case of London, as in so many other cases, has through ignorance been {330} converted or developed into a wing, but the "rays" of the fan in this instance are preserved in the "rays" of the dragon's wing (charged with a cross) which the crest is now supposed to be.

Whilst dealing with the arms of London, one of the favourite "flaring"

examples of ancient but unrecorded arms often mentioned as an instance in which the Records of the College of Arms are at fault, perhaps I may be pardoned for adding that the shield _is_ recorded. The crest and supporters are not. The seeming omission as to the crest is explained above. The real supporters of the City of London, to which a claim by user _could_ (even now) be established (they are two lions, not dragons), had, with the single exception of their use upon the Mayor's seal, which use is continued to the present day, been practically discarded. Consequently the lions as supporters remained unclaimed, and therefore are not recorded.

The supporters now used (two dragons) are _raw new_ adornments, of which no example can be found before the seventeenth century. Those naturally, being "a.s.sumed" without authority at so recent a date, are not recorded, which is yet another testimony to the impartial accuracy of the Heralds' College Records.

The use of the fan-crest has long been obsolete in British armory, in which it can hardly ever be said to have had a very great footing, unless such use was prevalent in the thirteenth century; but it still survives in Germany at the present day, where, in spite of the fact that many of these fans have now degenerated into reduplications of the arms upon wings or plumes of feathers, other crests to a considerable number are still displayed upon "fans."

Many of the current practices in British armory are the culmination of long-continued ignorance. Some, mayhap, can be allowed to pa.s.s without comment, but others deserve at any rate their share of criticism and remark. Amongst such may be included the objectionable practice, in the grants of so many modern crests, of making the crest itself a _shield_ carrying a repet.i.tion of the arms or some other device, or of introducing in the crest an escutcheon. To the resuscitation of these "fan" repet.i.tions of the shield device there is not, and cannot be, any objection. One would even, in these days of the multiplication of differentiated crests, recommend this as a relief from the abominable rows of a.s.sorted objects nowadays placed (for the purposes of differentiation) in front of so many modern crests. One would gladly see a reversion to the German development (from this source) of wings charged with the arms or a part of the armorial device; but one of the things a new grantee should pray to be delivered from is an escutcheon of any sort, shape, or form in the crest a.s.signed to him. {331}

To return, however, to the "fans" upon the early helmets. Many of the examples which have come down to us show the fan of a rather diminutive height, but (in the form of an arc of a much enlarged circle) projected far forward beyond the front of the helmet, and carried far back, apparently as a safeguard from blows which would otherwise descend upon the neck. (A survival of the fan, by the way, may perhaps be found in the dragoon helmets of the time of the Peninsular War, in the firemen's helmets of to-day, and in the helmets now worn by different regiments in the Italian army.) The very shape of these fans should prove they were originally a protective part of the helmet. The long low shape, however, did not, as a general circ.u.mstance, lend itself to its decoration by a duplication thereupon of the whole of the arms. Consequently these fans will nearly always be found simply adorned with one figure from the shield. It should not be forgotten that we are now dealing with a period in armory when the charges upon the shield itself were very much, as far as number and position are concerned, of an indeterminate character. If they were indeterminate for the shield, it evidences that there cannot have been any idea of a necessity to repeat the whole of the device upon the fan. As there was seldom room or opportunity for the display of the whole device, we invariably find that these fan decorations were a duplication of a distinctive part, but not necessarily the whole of the device; and this device was disposed in the most suitable position which the shape of the fan would accommodate. Herein is the explanation of the fact that whilst the arms of Percy, Talbot, and Mowbray were all, in varying tinctures, a lion rampant, the crest in each case was a lion pa.s.sant or statant. In short, the fan did not lend itself to the representation of a lion rampant, and consequently there is no early instance of such a crest. Perhaps the insecurity of a large and heavy crest balanced upon one leg may be an added reason.

The next step in the evolution of the crest, there can be little doubt, was the cutting of the fan into the outline of the crest, and though I know of no instance of such a crest on any effigy, there can be no reasonable doubt on the point, if a little thought is given to the matter. Until a very much later period, we never find in any heraldic representation that the helmet or crest are represented in an affronte position. Why? Simply because crests at that period were merely profile representations.

In later days, when tournament crests were made of leather, the weight even of these was very considerable, but for tournament purposes that weight could be endured. Half-a-dozen courses down the _barriere_ would be a vastly different matter to a whole day under arms in actual battle. Now a crest cut out from a thin plate of metal set {332} on edge would weigh but little. But perhaps the strongest proof of all is to be found in the construction of so many German crests, which are adorned down the back with a fan.

Now it is hardly likely, if the demi-lion in relief had been the earliest form, that the fan would have been subsequently added to it. The fan is nothing more than the remains of the original fan-shaped ornament left when the crest, or most likely only the front outline of it, had been cut out in profile from the fan. We have no instance until a very much later period of a crest which could not be depicted in profile, and in the representations of crests upon seals we have no means of forming a certain judgment that these representations are not of profile crests, for the very nature of the craft of seal-engraving would lead the engraver to add a certain amount of relief, even if this did not actually exist. It is out of the question to suppose, by reason of their weight, that crests were made in metal. But if made of leather, as were the tournament crests, what protection did the crest add to the helmet? The fact that wreaths and coronets did not come into use at the earliest advent of crests is confirmatory evidence of the fact that modelled crests did not exist, inasmuch as the fan prolonged in front and prolonged behind was narrowed at its point of contact with the helmet into such a diminished length that it was comparatively easy to slip the mantling by means of a slit over the fan, or even drape it round it.

Many of the old ill.u.s.trations of tournaments and battles which have come down to us show no crests on the helmets, but merely plumes of feathers or some fan-shaped erection. Consequently it is a fairly safe conclusion that for the actual purposes of warfare modelled crests never had any real existence, or, if they had any such existence, that it was most limited.

Modelled crests were tournament crests. The crests that were used in battle must have been merely cut out in profile from the fan. Then came the era, in Plantagenet times, of the tournament. We talk glibly about tournaments, but few indeed really know much about them. Trial by combat and the real tournament _a l'outrance_ seldom occurred, and though trial by combat remained upon the statute-book until the 59 Geo. III., it was seldom invoked. Tournaments were chiefly in the nature of athletic displays, taking the place of our games and sports, and inasmuch as they contributed to the training of the soldier, were held in the high repute that polo, for example, now enjoys amongst the upper and military cla.s.ses. Added to this, the tournament was the essential climax of ceremony and ceremonial, and in all its details was ordered by such strict regulations, rules, and supervision that its importance and its position in the public and official estimate was far in advance of its present-day equivalents. {333}

The joust was fought with tilting-spears, the "tourney" with swords. The rules and regulations for jousts and tournaments drawn up by the High Constable of England in the reign of Edward IV. show clearly that in neither was contemplated any risk of life.

In the tourney the swords were blunted and without points, but the princ.i.p.al item was always the joust, which was fought with tilting-spears and shields. Many representations of the tourney show the partic.i.p.ants without shields. The general ignorance as to the manner in which the tilt was run is very widespread. A strong barrier was erected straight down the centre of the lists, and the knights were placed one on either side, so that by no possible chance could the two horses come into contact. Those who will read Mallory's "Morte d'Arthur" carefully--bearing in mind that Mallory described legendary events of an earlier period clothed in the manners and customs of his own day (time of Edward IV.), and made no attempt to reproduce the manners and customs and real atmosphere of the Arthurian times, which could have had no relation to the manners and proceedings which Sir Thomas Mallory employs in telling his legends--will notice that, when it came to jousting, some half-dozen courses would be all that were run between contending knights. In fact the tournament rules above referred to say, for the tourney, that two blows at pa.s.sage and ten at the joining ought to suffice. The time which this would occupy would not exceed the period for which any man could easily sustain the weight of a modelled crest.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 615.--Crest of Roger de Quincey, Earl of Winchester (d.

1264). (From his seal.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 616.--Crest of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster. (From his seal, 1301.)]

Another point needs to be borne in mind. The result of a joust depended upon the points scored, the highest number being gained for the absolute unhorsing of an opponent. This, however, happened comparatively seldom, and points or "spears" were scored for the lances broken upon an opponent's helmet, shield, or body, and the points so scored were subject to deduction if the opponent's horse were touched, and under other circ.u.mstances. The head of the tilting-spear which was used was a kind of rosette, and heraldic representations are really incorrect in adding a point when the weapon is described as a tilting-spear. Whilst a fine point meeting a wooden shield or metal armour would stick in the one or glance off the other, and neither result in the breaking of the lance nor in the unhorsing of the opponent, a broad rosette would convey a heavy shock. But to effect the desired object the tilting-spear would need to meet resistance, and little would be gained by knocking off an opponent's ornamental crest.

Certainly no prize appears to have been allotted for the performance of this feat (which always attracts the imagination of the novelist), whilst there was for striking the "sight" of the helmet. Consequently there was nothing to be gained from the protection to {334} the helmet which the fan of earlier date afforded, and the tendency of ceremonial led to the use in tournaments of helmets and elaborate crests which were not those used in battle. The result is that we find these tournament or ceremonial crests were of large and prominent size, and were carved in wood, or built up of leather. But I firmly believe that these crests were used only for ceremonial and tournament purposes, and were never actually worn in battle.

That these modelled crests in relief are the ones that we find upon effigies is only natural, and what one would expect, inasmuch as a man's effigy displayed his garments and accoutrements in the most ornate and honourable form. The same idea exists at the present day. The subjects of modern effigies and modern portraits are represented in robes, and with insignia which are seldom if ever worn, and which sometimes even have no existence in fact. In the same way the ancient effigies are the representations of the ceremonial dress and not the everyday garb of those for whom they stand. But even allowing all the foregoing, it must be admitted that it is from these ceremonial or tournament helmets and crests that the heraldic crest has obtained its importance, and herein lies the reason of the exaggerated size of early heraldic crests, and also the unsuitability of some few for actual use. Tournaments were flourishing in the Plantagenet, Yorkist, and Lancastrian periods, and ended with the days of the Tudor dynasty; and the Plantagenet period witnessed the rise of the ceremonial and heraldic crest. But in the days when crests had any actual existence they were made to fit the helmet, and the crests in Figs. 615-618 show crests very much more naturally disposed than those of later periods.

{335} Crests appear to have come into wider and more general use in Germany at an earlier period than is the case in this country, for in the early part of the thirteenth century seals are there to be met with having only the device of helmet and crest thereupon, a proof that the "oberwappen"

(helmet and crest) was then considered of equal or greater value than the shield.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 617.--Crest of William de Montagu, Earl of Salisbury (d. 1344). (From his seal.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 618.--Crest of Thomas de Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham, and Earl Marshal. (From a drawing of his seal, 1389: MS Cott., Julius, C.

vii.)]

The actual tournament crests were made of light material, pasteboard, cloth, or a leather sh.e.l.l over a wood or wire framework filled with tow, sponge, or sawdust. Fig. 271, which shows the shield, helmet, and crest of the Black Prince undoubtedly contemporary, dating from 1376, and now remaining in Canterbury Cathedral, is made of leather and is a good example of an actual crest, but even this, there can be little doubt, was never carried in battle or tournament, and is no more than a ceremonial crest made for the funeral pageant.

The heraldic wings which are so frequently met with in crests are not the natural wings of a bird, but are a development from the fan, and in actual crests were made of wooden or basket-work strips, and probably at an earlier date were not intended to represent wings, but were mere pieces of wood painted and existing for the display of a certain device. Their shape and position led to their transition into "wings," and then they were covered with dyed or natural-coloured feathers. It was the art of heraldic emblazonment which ignored the practical details, that first copied the wing from nature.

Actual crests were fastened to the helmets they surmounted by {336} means of ribbons, straps, laces (which developed later into the fillet and torse), or rivets, and in Germany they were ornamented with hanging and tinkling metal leaves, tiny bells, buffalo horns, feathers, and projecting pieces of wood, which formed vehicles for still further decorative appendages.

Then comes the question, what did the crest signify? Many have a.s.serted that no one below the rank of a knight had the right to use a crest; in fact some writers have a.s.serted, and doubtless correctly as regards a certain period, that only those who were of tournament rank might a.s.sume the distinction, and herein lies another confirmation of the supposition that crests had a closer relation to the tournament than to the battlefield.

Doubts as to a man's social position might disqualify him from partic.i.p.ation in a tournament--hence the "helme-schau" previously referred to--but they certainly never relieved him from the obligations of warfare imposed by the tenure under which he held his lands. There is no doubt, however, that whatever the regulation may have been--and there seems little chance of our ever obtaining any real knowledge upon the point--the right to display a crest was an additional privilege and honour, something extra and beyond the right to a shield of arms. For how long any such supposition held good it is difficult to say, for whilst we find in the latter part of the fourteenth century that all the great n.o.bles had a.s.sumed and were using crests, and whilst there is but one amongst the Plantagenet Garter plates without a crest where a helmet has been represented above the shield, we also find that the great bulk of the lesser landed gentry bore arms, but made no pretension to a crest. The lesser gentry were bound to fight in war, but not necessarily in the tournament. Arms were a necessity of warfare, crests were not. This continued to be the case till the end of the sixteenth century, for we find that at one of the Visitations no crests whatever are inserted with the arms and pedigrees of the families set out in the Visitation Book, and one is probably justified in a.s.suming that whilst this state of feeling and this idea existed, the crest was highly thought of, and valued possibly beyond the shield of arms, for with those of that rank of life which aspired to the display of a crest the right to arms would be a matter of course. In the latter part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth and in Stuart days the granting of crests to ancient arms became a widespread practice. Scores upon scores of such grants can be referred to, and I have myself been led to the irresistible conclusion that the opportunity afforded by the grant of a crest was urged by the heralds and officers of arms, in order to give them the opportunity of confirming and recording arms which they knew needed such confirmation to be