US: Seals or Shields and Crests?

 
JJB1
 
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JJB1
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04 March 2015 20:24
 

I’m pretty sure I’m going to get this all wrong, but I’ll bring it up as a discussion point. I have been looking into heraldry recently and have only just become a Society member. Exactly defining American heraldry seems to be a particularly interesting query for anyone. I think it’s interesting in the US because traditional principles of heraldry are still maintained responsibly by artists and many who assume and register their arms. Then we have our official government institutions, which are essentially "hit-or-miss" when it comes to heraldic tradition. But since various levels of government are public institutions, can their heraldic practices be called "incorrect"? Or are they simply examples of "American Heraldry"? Then of course, we have our "wild west" with bucket shops, stylistically-incorrect assumptions, duplicates, logos, etc. That said, when granting or adopting heraldic devices, our state and federal legislatures and government departments and agencies all seem very much prone toward seals instead of traditional heraldic achievements (other than those assigned to certain military units).

It’s a philosophical question, but I wonder if a personal seal is not more representative of US citizens than a personal shield and crest. Traditional heraldry has its roots in knightly combat and in chivalric pageantry among the warlike aristocracies of Europe. Although most Americans are originally of European extract, our nation is not one built on warrior castes. Ours has been a commercial republic, more or less governed by lawyers and businessmen. And what else is a seal but the exemplification of a world of signatures, contracts and official correspondence?—symbolic of the American “aristocracy”. As heraldic authorities themselves, state and federal legislatures, the US Army Institute of Heraldry and many agencies have more or less already set a precedent in the US.

 

So if the US government gave itself the responsibility of making personalized heraldic grants to US citizens, would the personal seal not be a more apt heraldic achievement for Americans? I ask this question objectively since I certainly prefer the beauty and discipline of traditional heraldry to seals; which seem to have no governing standards of correctness.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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04 March 2015 21:37
 

The now-generally-accepted definition of heraldry includes a requirement that the emblem center around a shield.  But it’s a mistake to draw a hard distinction between seals and coats of arms.

A seal may be heraldic (e.g., the U.S. great seal and any other consisting of an emblazonment of the U.S. arms; the seals of most of the New England and Middle Atlantic states plus several others; the seals of the Departments of the Air Force, Treasury, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor) or it might be in a non-heraldic symbolic idiom.  Most (not all) personal seals historically have been of heraldic design; most public and corporate seals have been non-heraldic.  (As a matter of fact, the element of the seals of the British crown colonies in North America that were specific to the colony were, without exception, non-heraldic.  Crown colonies’ seals all had the royal arms on one side and an allegorical image on the other.  The allegorical image was generally one or more human figures bowing or kneeling and presenting tribute to an effigy of the reigning monarch.  In fact, until the last ten years or so the great seal of the UK had only minor heraldic elements on it; the dominant motif on both sides was a portrait of the monarch—on one side sitting on a throne, on the other mounted on a horse.  (People who interpret the seals of Virginia and North Carolina as conscious rejections of heraldry have obviously never examined such non-heraldic seals.)

 

There are, of course, gray areas in the area of public symbolism—emblems that state legislatures have defined as coats of arms that don’t include a shield, or that are defined as a round shield coinciding with the central area of a circular shield; designs on shields that are landscapes of such complexity that there is virtually nothing of the heraldic except the escutcheon-shaped outline.

 

The philosophical basis you put forward is one that a lot of people initially seize on, but it really doesn’t hold up.  Even during the Middle Ages, coats of arms were being used by thousands of families who never had any connection with the whole knights in shining armor thing—bishops, abbots, municipal officials, royal bureaucrats, wealthy merchants and artisans—and of course the overwhelming majority of arms used across Europe today were created long after anyone was carrying a heraldic shield on a battlefield, or even in a tournament.  Coats of arms were used just as widely in republican states like the Netherlands, Florence, and Venice as in monarchies.

 

I invite you to look through the non-forum sections of the AHS website, where you will see hundreds of examples of coats of arms used by thousands of Americans from almost all walks of life, many ethnic backgrounds (admittedly mostly European), some inherited, some granted, some adopted unilaterally, and a fair number stolen from other people with the same name.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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04 March 2015 21:41
 

One other thing:  a seal is correctly a device used to make an impression on paper, wax, wafer, or some other similar substance.  The use of a colored representation of the design on a seal as an all-purpose mode of identification (like modern state seals) really doesn’t make much sense.  Neither would the idea of a government granting people "seals" as ornamental items that would never be used for the purpose for which a seal is intended.

In the Far East, where seals are used constantly for all the purposes for which we use signatures, focusing on the seal as a personal symbol makes sense.  Not here, though.

 
JJB1
 
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05 March 2015 11:40
 

Joseph McMillan;103631 wrote:

One other thing:  a seal is correctly a device used to make an impression on paper, wax, wafer, or some other similar substance.  The use of a colored representation of the design on a seal as an all-purpose mode of identification (like modern state seals) really doesn’t make much sense.  Neither would the idea of a government granting people "seals" as ornamental items that would never be used for the purpose for which a seal is intended.

In the Far East, where seals are used constantly for all the purposes for which we use signatures, focusing on the seal as a personal symbol makes sense.  Not here, though.


That’s very interesting information. And thanks for making such good, qualified points. I definitely don’t want a big round seal hanging on my wall. And, based on all that you have said, it sort of makes me glad that we can assume our own arms in the US (and in most European states now I suppose). I’m not sure I would trust a government institution these days to get heraldry right—unless it were to give a charter to a non-profit company or conglomeration. But I’m sure that point has been repeatedly discussed on other threads.

 

In my opinion, we in the US, epitomized by the well-meaning government (and lack of a historical nobility), have our uniqueness in this way: the UK and Europe are societies with very old traditions and standards which are now mostly forgotten or deliberately flouted by their own citizens and progressive governments. On the other hand, the US is a society with no traditions and standards; where we are all sort of reaching out and searching to define correctness and tradition with mixed results. Just reading about some of the presidential personal arms gives glimpses along those lines. Of course, Europe had more than a thousand years to sort these things out and we’re only a few hundred years’ old.

 
Michael F. McCartney
 
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05 March 2015 13:20
 

I wouldn’t say no traditions or standards - far from it! - rather somewhat (but not entirely) different and more flexible/ less rigid in many ways; and quite inflexible in other ways, especially in a rejection of some aspects of "old world" notions that are incompatible with a small-r republican ethos.  Aside from those incompatibilities, we’re generally fairly open to whatever traditions strike our fancy, which differs from place to place, family to family, and person to person.

This is true both in society generally, and more narrowly in our heraldry.  Joe & others have discussed & demonstrated long-standing heraldic practice here, both pre- and post-independence, generally following European (mostly English) practices but only to the extent appropriate to colonial circumstances and emerging republican sentiments.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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05 March 2015 16:17
 

I know I’m swimming upstream on this, but the whole narrative of the US as a country with a short history has always struck me as nonsense.  Societies and peoples don’t suddenly spring out of nowhere, or have their past erased so they can start over with a blank slate, merely because they secure political independence (1776) or travel to a new continent.  Colonists bring their language, religion, customs, and laws with them.  Magna Carta, the common law, Chaucer, Shakespeare, the King James Bible, and the Book of Common Prayer were part of the heritage of the English settlers, just as they were of Englishmen in England, and as they are for us today.  The age of chivalry was just as much a part of the history of the people who settled St. Augustine and Santa Fe, Quebec and New Orleans, Jamestown and Plymouth, as it was for their cousins who stayed home in Spain, France, or England.  The use of coats of arms and the customs related to them were equally as much a part of the colonists’ life in the New World as in the Old.  In short, the heraldic history of the people of European origin who now live in the United States is every bit as long as the heraldic history of the people still living the countries their ancestors came from.

Of course, customs change over time, and in societies that have become separated by 3,000 miles of ocean, they tend to diverge, just as language does.  New ideologies and new political arrangements are affected by diverging customs and affect them in turn.  Economic reality plays a part as well.  Widespread land ownership in the colonies (economics) and the more inclusive electoral franchise (politics) both shaped the way the colonists came to see their and each other’s social status, which in turn had an impact on whether or not a particular person considered it appropriate to use a coat of arms.

 

Even across the ocean, however, the influences of the mother countries continued to be felt, for better or worse, which means that the heraldic history of Europe up into the 17th century was also a part of the heraldic history of the American colonies.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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05 March 2015 16:18
 

By the way, let’s be careful of getting into statements about whether contemporary European governments, or for that matter the U.S. government, are or are not being faithful to their own national values and traditions.  We’re here for heraldry, not politics.

 
David Pope
 
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05 March 2015 18:38
 

Joseph McMillan;103637 wrote:

I know I’m swimming upstream on this, but the whole narrative of the US as a country with a short history has always struck me as nonsense.  Societies and peoples don’t suddenly spring out of nowhere, or have their past erased so they can start over with a blank slate, merely because they secure political independence (1776) or travel to a new continent.  Colonists bring their language, religion, customs, and laws with them.  Magna Carta, the common law, Chaucer, Shakespeare, the King James Bible, and the Book of Common Prayer were part of the heritage of the English settlers, just as they were of Englishmen in England, and as they are for us today.  The age of chivalry was just as much a part of the history of the people who settled St. Augustine and Santa Fe, Quebec and New Orleans, Jamestown and Plymouth, as it was for their cousins who stayed home in Spain, France, or England.  The use of coats of arms and the customs related to them were equally as much a part of the colonists’ life in the New World as in the Old.  In short, the heraldic history of the people of European origin who now live in the United States is every bit as long as the heraldic history of the people still living the countries their ancestors came from.

Of course, customs change over time, and in societies that have become separated by 3,000 miles of ocean, they tend to diverge, just as language does.  New ideologies and new political arrangements are affected by diverging customs and affect them in turn.  Economic reality plays a part as well.  Widespread land ownership in the colonies (economics) and the more inclusive electoral franchise (politics) both shaped the way the colonists came to see their and each other’s social status, which in turn had an impact on whether or not a particular person considered it appropriate to use a coat of arms.

 

Even across the ocean, however, the influences of the mother countries continued to be felt, for better or worse, which means that the heraldic history of Europe up into the 17th century was also a part of the heraldic history of the American colonies.


Spot on, Joseph.  Few would argue against the continuity of tradition in Commonwealth countries, yet many seem to place the US in a separate category.  Perhaps it’s that whole armed rebellion thing.

 
mghofer
 
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mghofer
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06 March 2015 03:15
 

JJB;103633 wrote:

In my opinion, we in the US, epitomized by the well-meaning government (and lack of a historical nobility), have our uniqueness in this way: the UK and Europe are societies with very old traditions and standards which are now mostly forgotten or deliberately flouted by their own citizens and progressive governments. On the other hand, the US is a society with no traditions and standards; where we are all sort of reaching out and searching to define correctness and tradition with mixed results. Just reading about some of the presidential personal arms gives glimpses along those lines. Of course, Europe had more than a thousand years to sort these things out and we’re only a few hundred years’ old.


I have to also disagree on the lack of tradition. The Founding Fathers were steeped in the classics and often quote English philosophers as well as the ancient Romans and Greeks. The US comes from a deep rooted European intellectual tradition.

 

As for the lack of a historical nobility, I would refer you to the Constitution. titles of nobility are expressly forbidden. I believe it is in Section I during the long list of granted and proscribed powers.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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06 March 2015 09:35
 

In any case, the presence or absence of a historical nobility has no necessary connection to whether there’s a history of heraldic usage or not.  Something like 80% of the arms in the Armorial Général de France, compiled at Louis XIV’s direction in the 1690s, belong to commoners.

The theory that arms were, or should be, confined to the nobility only appears during the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, in the late 1400s.  The horse was long out of the barn by the time the paper heralds tried to slam that door!

 
Michael F. McCartney
 
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06 March 2015 21:06
 

David Pope;103639 wrote:

Spot on, Joseph.  Few would argue against the continuity of tradition in Commonwealth countries, yet many seem to place the US in a separate category.  Perhaps it’s that whole armed rebellion thing.


As to the use of heraldry, yes; but there is a definite difference as to the purpose or function of arms.

 

All (old world and new) share the function of arms as identification of persons, families, institutions or other groupings, in a visually attractive way.  The Commonwealth folk, to the degree they follow English officialdom, share with the English heralds a belief or assertion that arms are also a mark of some level of distinguished status or honor bestowed or recognized by the crown.

 

Here, while some might wish otherwise, arms are only for identification and beauty, without any notion of status or honor conferred or recognized by the sovereign - because, among other reasons, there is no sovereign here with authority to confer or recognize such status.  (One aspect of "that whole armed rebellion thing" smile) There may be cases where arms may bask in the reflected glory of the person or family which bears them, rather like their house (e.g. George Washington slept here) but not vice-versa.

 

Not throwing rocks at our cousins, just "to each it’s own."  Every nation is entitled to it’s own quaint notions, and to respectfully reject those of others.

 
JJB1
 
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07 March 2015 18:28
 

mghofer;103640 wrote:

I have to also disagree on the lack of tradition. The Founding Fathers were steeped in the classics and often quote English philosophers as well as the ancient Romans and Greeks. The US comes from a deep rooted European intellectual tradition.

As for the lack of a historical nobility, I would refer you to the Constitution. titles of nobility are expressly forbidden. I believe it is in Section I during the long list of granted and proscribed powers.


I should just clarify that Section 9 of Article I only stipulates that the US Government may not grant titles of nobility and that government office-holders may not accept titles of nobility from foreign countries (without the consent of Congress). This implies that private US citizens may accept titles of nobility or be admitted into royal orders even though these titles have no recognition in the US.

 

And certainly bearing heraldic arms has nothing to do with nobility anyway. I doubt it can even be considered a gift from a foreign prince if one has paid for it. I think I read somewhere either in the forums or elsewhere on this site that since personal arms cannot be sold and are not of monetary value then they also can’t be considered an illegal gift.

 
JJB1
 
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07 March 2015 18:41
 

David Pope;103639 wrote:

Spot on, Joseph.  Few would argue against the continuity of tradition in Commonwealth countries, yet many seem to place the US in a separate category.  Perhaps it’s that whole armed rebellion thing.


Well half the United States was once part of Mexico, which was part of the Kingdom of Spain. That might be it. The heraldic tradition (until [correct me if I’m wrong] a few years ago) of the American southwest could have a connection to the Spanish King of Arms (which could grant arms to US citizens in former Spanish colonies) or to the heraldic authorities of the British Isles (which can grant arms based on ancestral nationalities).

 
David Pope
 
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07 March 2015 20:34
 

JJB;103644 wrote:

Well half the United States was once part of Mexico, which was part of the Kingdom of Spain. That might be it. The heraldic tradition (until [correct me if I’m wrong] a few years ago) of the American southwest could have a connection to the Spanish King of Arms (which could grant arms to US citizens in former Spanish colonies) or to the heraldic authorities of the British Isles (which can grant arms based on ancestral nationalities).


Sure.  Certain areas of the current US were once Spanish or French or Dutch territories, so it makes sense that they would be heirs to corresponding heraldic traditions.

 

You’ll have to forgive me.  I’m from North Carolina, so I’m more than a bit Anglo-centric.  We were the only two colonies to have our own herald…  smile

 
Michael F. McCartney
 
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08 March 2015 00:29
 

It is true that several areas in the US were once part of or subject to other nations, and in many cases have retained a fair share of their former cultural, culinary, and social traditions.  However, for the most part their former legal and political systems were superceded by American law and political systems, which derived from English models modified (or pruned) to conform to our circumstances and evolving norms.  Where the historical foreign traditions of newer states were compatible with American norms, they survived; but where & to the extent that they were not compatible, they (like some English traditions in the original colonies) had to give way.

Any nation’s long-standing heraldic practices are only a subset of the broader society.  Thus the heraldic traditions of various former sovereignties, once part of their territories come under American sovereignty, would survive, modified or been pruned as necessary to be compatible with those of the newly sovereign republic.  So e.g. artistic styles and design preferences can and should continue, so long as they do not imply or signify social norms or legal status incompatible with American small-r republican norms.

 

If the governments or heralds of some of the former sovereign powers choose to grant/confirm/register arms for Americans, that’s their business; but those arms when used here have no higher standing than arms independently assumed here.  They may (or may not) exhibit a high standard of heraldic design and artistic merit - e.g. English "honorary" grants are quite beautiful - but so may assumed arms, especially when designed and/or executed by one of the better heraldic artists.