Coat of Arms Tell a Story

by Samantha Wilcoxson

The medieval coat of arms was a source of pride for its owner, not only identifying them with its unique design but telling a story of their achievements and ancestry. The differentiations added with each generation and family member who used a coat of arms increased its complexity and put their individual touch upon the family story. The example of Margaret Pole’s coat of arms is an excellent study in the intricacies of heraldry.

Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury
Coat of Arms

As you can see, Margaret had good reason to be proud of her heritage and her own position as Countess of Salisbury. Each color, line, and image within this breathtaking coat of arms has a particular meaning. By looking at each element we can learn much about the lady herself.

Let’s start by looking at the top left quarter of Margaret’s shield. This undoubtedly is familiar as the quartered Plantagenet lions and French fleur-de-lis had been used since the reign of Edward III, the monarch whose many descendants would cause the Wars of the Roses that created so much upheaval for Margaret and countless others. He was the first to take England’s three lions and combine them with the banner of the French throne.  Each of the monarchs since Edward III’s time had included this in their coat of arms, and Margaret’s children kept this intact in their own shields.

George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence
Coat of Arms

The field of red, or gules as it is referred to in heraldry, indicates the status of a warrior or one who is eager to serve, while France’s azure (blue) represents loyalty and strength. Lions were common features on royal shields, these are in a position of passant guardant with three feet on the ground and head facing the observer. A differentiation on Margaret’s family’s version of the royal arms is the white label, or tournament collar, charged with canton gules (the red marks) which designates it as the shield of the Duke of Clarence, Margaret’s father.

Moving clockwise, we begin to see the many elements that Margaret’s shield takes from her Neville ancestors, who were earls of Warwick, Montagu, Westmoreland, and Salisbury. The gules field is repeated in the square included from the Nevilles of Middleham. From the late 13^th century, this shield was in place for this noble family when it was first used by Ralph Neville, 1^st Baron de Raby. 

The label charged with canton azure was added by Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury, to differentiate between family branches. Salisbury passed on this element to his son, the infamous Earl of Warwick, later known as the kingmaker. It is found on the coat of arms of Margaret Pole because her mother was Warwick’s daughter. She also was restored her great-grandfather’s title to the earldom of Salisbury by Henry VIII.

Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick
Coat of Arms

Many other elements of Margaret’s shield also come from that of her grandfather, which combines several items from his family’s various earldoms. The Howorth crosslets and field of chequed gold and azure with the chevron of ermine are evidence of his inheritance from his father-in-law. Richard de Beauchamp passed along the Warwick earldom to Richard Neville through the former’s daughter and latter’s wife, Anne Beauchamp. This portion of the shield finds its roots in de Clare family arms, ancestors of the Beauchamps. They were added by Warwick to the eagle and series of three red fusils that were featured on Warwick’s father’s shield, combining key features of the many noble names and titles he could lay claim to.

The final eighth of Margaret’s coat of arms is taken directly from her grandfather’s lower right quarter. The red chevronels on gold quartered with gold fret on red indicate Despenser family heritage, also through Warwick’s wife, Anne Beauchamp.

Henry Pole, Lord Montagu
Coat of Arms

A brief analysis of Margaret Pole’s coat of arms makes clear how quickly family connections and titles cause the evolution of a shield. Each person who passed on a particular element to be marshalled into Margaret’s shield had very particular reasons for choosing the colors and images that may simply seem eye-catching and romantic to us.

The Warwick chequed azure and gold would have been chosen due to a deep respect for virtue and loyalty. The white chevron over top of this field charged with ermine indicated a vow to protect and status as a noble family. In the same manner, each of the Montagu fusils were a proud statement of honesty, constancy, and noble birth. When Margaret gazed upon her coat of arms, she would have a resounding sense of the past and all that her family had accomplished before her time. The upper left quarter of her shield especially would have been a constant reminder of her family’s former royal status.

Cardinal Reginald Pole
Coat of Arms

Margaret’s sons carried on their family’s heritage with pride, though theirs did not repeat the complexity of Margaret’s shield.  They took the dukedom of Clarence arms of their mother’s shield quartered with the gold and sable saltire of their father, Sir Richard Pole. The lower half included the Neville saltire and the Warwick crosslets. Henry and Reginald’s coats of arms were identical but crested with indications of their status as an earl and a cardinal.

Sources:

Boutell's Heraldry by CW Scott-Giles & JP Brooke-Little

A Complete Guide to Heraldry by AC Fox-Davies

http://www.europeanheraldry.org/

http://www.familytreesandcrests.com/

All images are in the public domain.

Samantha Wilcoxson is the author of the Plantagenet Embers series, which features the stories of the Plantagenet remnant in Tudor times. The first novel in the series, Plantagenet Princess, Tudor Queen, tells the story of Elizabeth of York, who became the mother of the Tudor dynasty. This book was named an Editor's Choice by the Historical Novel Society and is a Kindle biographical fiction bestseller. Faithful Traitor, also a Kindle bestseller, is the second installment in the series and features the story of Margaret Pole. The final book of the trilogy, Queen of Martyrs: The Story of Mary I will be released in Spring 2017.

Plantagenet Princess, Tudor Queen and Faithful Traitor are available worldwide on Amazon.

Connect with Samantha on her blog or on Twitter.

The Birth of Heraldry in the Middle Ages

By Rosanne E. Lortz

It is not much of an exaggeration to say that average readers see the entire span of the Middle Ages as a homogeneous mass of history. They assume that everything from the fall of Rome up until the Battle of Bosworth is filled with highborn damsels in flowing dresses and armored knights with lions rampant on their shields.

"The Accolade" by Edmund Blair-Leighton

The King Arthur legend has not helped matters. Arthur supposedly lived in the sixth century—that beginning of the Middle Ages which is sometimes referred to as the Dark Ages—however, many of the legends and tales concerning him and his Round Table were invented during the High Middle Ages, six hundred years later.

Naturally, these tales took on the clothing and characteristics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, rather than the realities of the sixth, further muddling up our ideas of what part of the Middle Ages looks like what. The complex system of knightly tournaments and symbolic heraldry in the Arthur legends makes us assume that such was the case through the whole of the Middle Ages.

My first novel, I Serve: A Novel of the Black Prince, is set during the fourteenth century, in the chivalric world that many associate with the whole of the Middle Ages. But when I began researching my second novel, Road from the West, a tale of the First Crusade set at the end of the eleventh century, I found myself having to expunge many of my “stock” medieval notions in order to be more authentic to the time period.

Two hundred and fifty years can effect radical changes. The differences between the eleventh century knight and the fourteenth century knight might not be quite as dramatic as the differences between the Lexington militiaman and the modern day Navy Seal, but they are there nonetheless.

One example of the difference is in the use of heraldry. In the fourteenth century world of the Black Prince, every character had an emblem on his shield, specific colors in his banner, and a motto he had adopted—many of these devices having been passed down from father to son. In the eleventh century, these defining characteristics of knighthood had not yet developed.

Historian Elizabeth Hallam writes:

Heraldry—the systematic use of hereditary devices—attained its maturity under the later Plantagenet kings. Symbols like the Roman eagle, the dragon of Wessex and the Viking raven had been known for centuries, but these belonged to peoples, not particular people.

At the time of the Norman Conquest, a mere thirty years before my setting of the First Crusade, we begin to see knights taking up specific symbols for themselves, but, according to Hallam, these “seem to have been personal rather than inherited.” 

Francois Velde writes:

The Bayeux tapestry provides a terminus a quo: no heraldry there. Combatants have designs on their shields, but the same design is seen on different individuals' shields (even on opposite sides of the battle) and the same individual uses different designs at different times.

In other words, the symbols adopted by eleventh century knights seem rather random, and certainly not something passed from father to son. It is not until the twelfth century when we see the Plantagenets taking the golden lions for their coat-of-arms and passing them down from father to son.

The nondescript knights of the Bayeux Tapestry

So why the change? Why do my knights of the First Crusade have no family crest to deal with, whereas my knights of the Hundred Years’ War are awash in stripes, blocks, chevrons, lions, dragons, and other heraldic beasts?

Velde says the change was

 …due to the evolution of military equipment from the late 11th to the mid-12th c, with fighters unrecognizable under their helmets (there is a nice illustration from the 11th century Bayeux tapestry showing William lifting his helmet so as to be recognized by his troops in battle). This led fighters to paint emblems on their shields. The question is then to establish a proper chronology of this emergence and of the transformation of these emblems into armory, i.e., constant use of one design by the same person and application of strict rules in the design itself.

Hallam agrees with this assessment. “Protected by an enveloping helm instead of the old open-faced Norman helmet, knights were unrecognizable in battle or tournament except by the devices emblazoned on shield, surcoat (or ‘coat-of-arms’) and horse trappings.” 

The greater protection afforded by the new helmets also afforded a virtual anonymity. To be recognizable, a knight must adopt a consistent symbol which others would associate with his name.

Velde (summarizing the work of heraldry expert Pastoureau), says that we can distinguish two phases in the birth of heraldry: “the transformation of decorative motifs painted on shields into permanent and individual emblems (1100-1140) and the transformation of the latter into hereditary emblems subjected to precise rules (1140-80).”

So, that red flag that my eleventh century Duke Bohemond flies from the towers of Antioch? A mere whim. No connection to his family heritage. Probably only hung there because he liked the color red.

Those three golden lions on my fourteenth century Black Prince’s shield? The established coat-of-arms of the Plantagenets, seen in an early form on Geoffrey of Anjou’s shield, seen again as a pair of lions on Henry II’s shield, and formalized to three lions in 1198.

Just one of the many differences that two-and-a-half centuries make in the complex period known as the Middle Ages….

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Rosanne E. Lortz is the author of two books: I Serve: A Novel of the Black Prince, a historical adventure/romance set during the Hundred Years' War, and Road from the West, the beginning of a trilogy which takes place during the First Crusade.

You can learn more about Rosanne's books at her Author Website where she also blogs about writing, mothering, and things historical.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hallam, Elizabeth, ed. Chronicles of the Age of Chivalry. London: Greenwich Editions, 2002.

Velde, Francois. "Origins of Armory." Heraldica. http://www.heraldica.org/topics/origins.htm

The Red Lion and The King's Head - changing times

by Deborah Swift

Two of the most popular pub names in England have to be The Red Lion and The King's Head. The names of both these pubs have links to the 17th Century which is why I find them so interesting. The King's Head in Galway has a particularly well-documented history, click on the picture to go to their site and discover more.

My latest book is set in the reign of James I and some say that the emblem of the Red Lion comes from his personal crest which features the lion in its design.

Insignia of James VI Scotland

In order to curry favour with the new king, who had just become King of England as well as Scotland, many inns changed their name voluntarily. But just in case you were tempted to stick to the old name, there was even a proclamation which said the new king's emblem had to be displayed prominently to remind the English that they were now governed by a Scot. I can imagine that this prompted many a taverner to hurriedly change the name of his inn.

However, there is evidence that the name was popular even before the 17th Century as the red lion featured in John of Gaunt's coat of arms in the Middle Ages. 

John of Gaunt's Arms showing the Red Lion and Castle of Castile

This red lion became a badge of support for Bolingbroke in the battle  for allegiance between Richard II, whose crest included  the white hart as his heraldic symbol, and Henry Bolingbroke, whose emblem (via John of Gaunt) was the red lion. When Bolingbroke finally became Henry IV the red lion grew yet again in popularity as the name for an inn, as opposed to The White Hart which at one time was so popular that it came to mean an inn in the same way that we use Hoover to mean a vacuum cleaner.

Richard II's emblem of the White Hart in the Wilton Dyptich

As for The King's Head, this name was also re-popularised in the 17th century after the restoration of the king, Charles II, when the country returned to the rule of a King as a sign that the previous unrest and Parliamentary rule was over. However, it too was a well-used name even earlier as it was a name that encouraged the gentry to frequent the tavern, unlike something like 'The Black Bull' which was common in farming fraternities. It seems likely there has always been the idea of honouring royalty or the wealthy and encouraging their patronage. On carriage routes particularly  the village inns were often named after the King, Queen, or even a Duke, in the hope presumably, that they would stop by.

There are more than six hundred Red Lion pubs in England, and almost as many King's Heads. Those of you who are writers looking to name your tavern, you could do worse than choose one of these! Cheers!

Other popular Pub names - see the most popular pub names in England
Want to know more about their names and meanings? The Old Dog and Duck by Albert Jack is a book that will tell you.

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Deborah Swift is the author of A Divided Inheritance, The Lady's Slipper and The Gilded Lily. 

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