"1694, May 14. The coat of arms of the College was granted by the College of Arms in London. The arms were described as: "Vert a Colledge, or Edifice mason’d Argent in Chief a Sun rising Or the Hemisphere proper," i.e., a college building in silver, on a green field; a golden sun at half orb against a blue sky."
Here is the emblazonment:
http://www.wm.edu/news/images/seal.jpg
I am not sure they match. Looks like the college should be Or, or is this a typo?
An article entitled "The Armorial Ensigns of the College of William and Mary in Virginia," William and Mary Quarterly Historical Magazine, 2nd Ser., Vol. 10, No. 2 (April 1930), pp. 161-163, published the full texts of both the Earl Marshal’s warrant and the actual grant signed by Henry St. George and Thomas St. George (Clarenceux and Garter Kings of Arms respectively) dated 14 May 1694. The blazon quoted by Mike is almost but not quite the same as that in the article:
"Vert a Colledge, or Edifices Mason’d Argent in Chief a Sun rising Or the Hemisphere proper, as in the margent hereof is more plainly depicted."
Most of the emblazonments I’ve seen of these arms show the college buildings Or, but I think the "or" after the comma is intended as a conjunction, not a tincture, and "Edifices Mason’d" is simply supposed to be an explanation of what is meant by "Colledge." Sloppy blazoning, I think, complicated by the fact that writing style has obviously changed in 300 years—it could reasonably be read as "a College Or, [the] edifices masoned Argent." Apparently the College has a copy of what was shown in the "margent," since the article has a footnote (partially illegible in the copy of the WMQ on JSTOR) reading "[During?] a recent visit to England, Dr. J. A. C. Chandler, president of the College of William and Mary, discovered that the coat of arms and the seal as used at present by the College did not correspond to the original grant. The documents presented herewith describe the coat of arms as originally granted. A reproduction in color accompanies the documents."
I’ve seen pre-1930 pictures of the W&M seal (in black and white) and it was just fine—it showed a classical style building with the sun rising over it, well within the range of heraldic artistic license, albeit not on a shield. I wonder if Dr. Chandler’s discovery of the "error" wasn’t a case of the untutored thinking the emblazonment always has to match what’s on the grant.
In any case, it would be nice to see either the emblazonment in the "margent" or the reproduction provided to the college circa 1930.
http://swem.wm.edu/departments/special-collections/images/shield.gif
This seems to use the Or in both edifice and sun. But if one looks at the border, it is clearly altered.
Michael Swanson wrote:
http://swem.wm.edu/departments/special-collections/images/shield.gif
This seems to use the Or in both edifice and sun. But if one looks at the border, it is clearly altered.
The Swem library confirms the buildings are argent, and that they do not have an accurate picture anywhere on their website.
Also, the grant was renewed in the 70’s, and the "s" in "ediface" was dropped then in the second grant. There is another article discussing this.
Michael Swanson wrote:
The Swem library confirms the buildings are argent, and that they do not have an accurate picture anywhere on their website.
Also, the grant was renewed in the 70’s, and the "s" in "ediface" was dropped then in the second grant. There is another article discussing this.
The images below from the library site were changed to reflect the argent building after my inquiry.
http://www.vagazette.com/news/opinion/letter/va-opinion1_121507dec15,0,4466978.story
See also: http://www.wm.edu/news/index.php?id=8512
Quote:
Where’s W&M shield?
December 15, 2007
I know that designing or revising a logo is a difficult process. I’ve done it several times in my career. I also have great respect for the challenges of working within a committee structure on a task that is so subjective.
...
I’m most puzzled by the college bragging that the firm it paid had worked on the designs for logos at Harvard and Brown. I’ve visited both unversity websites and reviewed the graphic standards that governs the use of their logos. In both cases they incorporate a shield or coat of arms that captures the tradition of the institution.
What has become of the W&M shield, the one that appears on W&M license plates, ties, buildings, etc.? Incorporating this in the new logo would have reinforced our traditions, but it’s nowhere to be seen.
Despite what others have said in these pages, $7,000 is not much to pay for such a high-visibility project that will capture an institution’s identity. Perhaps the problem is that the college didn’t pay enough to do a quality job.
Or perhaps it’s just the most recent example of a W&M committee that was formed to address an issue that wasn’t broken and only made it worse.
Patrick Golden ’76
Jubilee
James City
Joseph McMillan;34400 wrote:
Most of the emblazonments I’ve seen of these arms show the college buildings Or, but I think the "or" after the comma is intended as a conjunction, not a tincture, and "Edifices Mason’d" is simply supposed to be an explanation of what is meant by "Colledge." Sloppy blazoning, I think, complicated by the fact that writing style has obviously changed in 300 years—it could reasonably be read as "a College Or, [the] edifices masoned Argent."
I think two things clearly show that the "Colledge" couldn’t be Or: the placement of the comma before the tincture but no comma after, and that if "Edifices" wasn’t meant as an explanation of "Colledge" it would simply say "a Colledge Or Masoned Argent" as if the Edifices are coextensive with the Colledge the Edifices couldn’t really be masoned Argent but the Colledge entirely Or, with either the masoning Or too, or the Colledge unmasoned. Does anyone know, though, why they seem to call the sky a "Hemisphere," or am I intepreting this correctly?
It is anachronistic to apply the logic of how we would place the commas in modern writing to a blazon written in the 17th century, when the rules for punctuation, to the extent they were settled at all, were far different than those followed today. For example, well into the 18th century it was common to separate the subject and predicate of a sentence with a comma, something that is taboo under modern rules of grammar.
That’s assuming the original letters patent had any punctuation at all—it’s entirely possible that the commas were added by a printer transcribing the blazon at some point in the last 300+ years.
"Hemisphere" was, at the time, a frequently used if somewhat poetic way of referring to the sky.
