British heraldry / by Cyril Davenport.

  • Cyril James Humphries Davenport
Date:
[1921]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: British heraldry / by Cyril Davenport. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    beginning heralds were non-combatants, and they had many privileges and were most highly esteemed and honoured; like modern ambassadors their persons were almost sacred. Shields have always been the most obvious articles of warfare to carry ornamental devices. Not only does the surface of a shield of any shape invite decoration, but the bars, bands, and studs with which it was often built up themselves suggest some symmetrical arrangement and distinctive colouring. When geometrical ornamentation, which was probably the earliest, gradually became obsolete or nearly so, then animal forms were largely used, and when true heraldry came into being, it showed the influ¬ ence of both of these types of symbolism, animate and inanimate. Many curious instances of wrarriors carrying large shields wdth geometrical pattern upon them, often nearly resembling modern heraldic types, are found on ancient chessmen, carved in bone or ivory (Plate I, 6). On the so-called Bayeux tapestry, a : curious piece of historical needlework and the only contemporary record of the dress worn here at the time of the Norman Con¬ quest, are several instances of devices borne on shields. These devices appear for the most part to have been painted, but the numerous studs or points shown were probably constructional. The French warriors carry shields bearing the device of a wyvern, not always the same in detail, but in general idea only; it appears to me that this device wras clearly a mark of the French army (Plate I, 8). The majority of the shields only show7 their inner sides. In twro instances, however, a similar wyvern appears as a standard in a curious form, it looks like a skin blown out. One of