Legal rights: was Order of Americans of Armigerous Ancestry

 
Chris W.
 
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Chris W.
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25 February 2008 16:15
 

Dohrman Byers;54700 wrote:

very few among the lower clergy exercise their right to assume arms.


Ain’t that the truth? I’ve approached two priests to ask if they would like arms depicted; one had no idea he had that traditional right; the other, chuckled and jokingly told me to ask again when he was made Bishop.

 

Chris

 
George Lucki
 
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25 February 2008 16:35
 

Dohrman Byers;54699 wrote:

I’ve noticed that, in this long and interesting discussion, there’s been no mention of ecclesiastical heraldry. The creation and use of coats of arms is virtually binding custom among Roman Catholic bishops and dioceses in the United States. A bishop’s coat of arms may not be well done, but he always has one. The Catholic system is based entirely on free assumption, heredity playing no part. The Holy See promulgates regulations regarding the display of arms by churchmen, but it does not actively regulate this practice, neither granting or registering arms assumed nor even bothering to enforce its own regulations concerning their display. Here, however, is a system of venerable antiquity, approved and supported by the highest authority, but caring not a whit for the opinions of would-be heraldic regulators of any sort.


The modern custom certainly is.

When I look back at least in Polish custom until this past century bishops were usually drawn from armigerous families and simply used their family arms. Members of Cathedral chapters often were required to submit noble proofs. Simple priests rarely needed (unless they owned property or received income from property) or used arms unless they were already armigerous or held an office that required a seal. Parishes needed seals but often had the effigy of the patron saint on them. I don’t know to what extent practices may have been similar elsewhere in times of venerable antiquity.

 
eploy
 
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eploy
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25 February 2008 19:30
 

Joseph McMillan;54692 wrote:

....Anyway, the federal government as originally designed was only concerned with a limited range of responsibilities.  Personal issues like personal heraldry would have been way beyond what the FFs would have thought as appropriate for federal involvement.

......It would have been quite out of character for the FFs to recreate what they probably saw as an obsolescent institution when there was the easy alternative of simply leaving private heraldry to the private sphere of life.


I would have like to have seen something far, far more modest than a federal or state heraldic institutions regulating or awarding private heraldry to virtuous citizens.  I simply would have like to seen modest law(s) recognizing arms as property:  arms as arms and not arms as trademarks, copyrights, etc.  I think such modest laws would have symbolicly furthered the FF’s ideals:  that it is the people who are sovereign and that they need not defer to some bureaucrat or king when assuming legally-recognized arms which are the equal to any granted by a King of Arms or Lord Lyon.

 

Of course I realize that all of this is a tempest in a teapot and that the the FFs had much more important things on their mind when starting our nation.  As Joseph noted, heraldry barely entered their minds (George Washington aside).  Still a person should be able to dream a little and fantasize about what could have been.

 
eploy
 
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25 February 2008 23:32
 

Presumably you all saw the article on the American College of Heraldry website entitled American Beat:  The Rite to Bear Arms.  If not, please see:  http://www.americancollegeofheraldry.org/ and click on the relevant text on the far right corner a few lines under the heading "Newsweek Article".

The article starts:  "Is there anything more pretentious than a coat of arms"?

 

It’s strange that Americans would view arms as so pretentious.  Similar disdain does not appear to exist (or perhaps less so) for things like:

 

1.  Hereditary societies;

 

2.  Foreign monarchs & their family - Notice how American fawn over Diana, Charles, Queen Elizabeth II, etc.  Also notice how a large number of Virginians including politicians went to putty when the royal family visited Virginia?  I also recall that the speaker of their house even bowed to HM.  Come on people, she’s a nice lady and the head of several foreign countries, but she’s not our queen and we Americans are no longer her subjects thanks to the founding fathers.

 

3.  Increasingly, American presidential candidates and many other politicians seem to be hailing from political dynasties or at least what could be called elite patrician families.  Two Bushes in the white house with a third Bush as a state governor, one Clinton president and a Clinton candidate, a still strong Kennedy dynasty, etc.

 

4.  Federal court benches seem to be dominated by Harvard, Yale and graduates of a handful of other elite law schools even though the American Bar Association lists another 170+ approved schools.

 

etc…..

 

Now I appreciate that families and schools that have rendered public service sometimes for centuries often instill in their children and students that same sense of duty.  I myself am a graduate of an ivy league school and can attest to the sense of privileged and service ingrained in students at least of my department.  I also hope that my children attend similiar colleges.  This is certainly to be commended and encouraged on most accounts, but are we now going overboard?  So why is heraldry subject to so much disdain by the average american who presumably has less problems with the other four items listed above?  It seems to me that we Americans are willing to attack form (one outward display of perceived pretension:  the coats of arms) but not substance (arguably more pretentious practices:  that our society still harbors a "secret" fascination with aristocracy, hereditary or legacy-type privileges, etc).

 

I’m not trying to be controversial or difficult, athough I appear to be doing an excellent job on both accounts.  wink  I’m just not sure why in our culture that one pretention is okay and the other isn’t?  Is that heraldry is so insignificant and minor that we can afford to laugh at it?  On the other hand, the other subjects deal with larger issues such as our very aspirations for ourselves and children, with how we run society, how we are governed, the American dream, etc. that any pretentions attached are overlooked or excused?

 

No doubt a logical explanation exists for all of this, but it escapes me at the moment.  Someone (everyone) please enlighten me.

 
Wilfred Leblanc
 
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Wilfred Leblanc
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25 February 2008 23:53
 

eploy;54717 wrote:

It seems to me that . . . that our society still harbors a "secret" fascination with aristocracy, hereditary or legacy-type privileges, etc).


I don’t think it’s so secret, and I don’t think it’s even a matter of us wanting to have our cake and eat it, too. I just think the relationship we want to have to the cultures our ancestors came from has always been and will always be somewhat ambiguous, but that our comfort level with things aristocratic extends only to the point at which it would be undemocratic to proceed further.

 
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26 February 2008 00:02
 

Fred White;54719 wrote:

I don’t think it’s so secret, and I don’t think it’s even a matter of us wanting to have our cake and eat it, too. I just think the relationship we want to have to the cultures our ancestors came from has always been and will always be somewhat ambiguous, but that our comfort level with things aristocratic extends only to the point at which it would be undemocratic to proceed further.


Very pithy and precise.  I like that.  Yes, I know its no secret, hence my quotes around the word.  wink

 

Best regards,

 

Edward

 
Cristian A. C.
 
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26 February 2008 01:22
 

Quote:

I don’t think it’s so secret, and I don’t think it’s even a matter of us wanting to have our cake and eat it, too. I just think the relationship we want to have to the cultures our ancestors came from has always been and will always be somewhat ambiguous, but that our comfort level with things aristocratic extends only to the point at which it would be undemocratic to proceed further.

I don’t think it even has anything to do with wanting not to be undemocratic. Honestly, this is one of the most fervent bastions of American democracy I’ve seen in the internet. I feel that people here genuinely believe in democracy. The author of the Newsweek article, for example, doesn’t seem to be criticizing that Powell’s efforts to assume arms go against democratic values (as they don’t) but only that he thinks Powell is pretentious by doing so because he associates coat of arms with some old European, non-American tradition.

I would say that the attitude that you’re describing is closer to the general attitude here concerning certain heraldic objects like supporters and such and items indicating nobility of an ancestor being borne on one’s own arms and is a legitimate attitude. The attitude of general America toward coat-of-arms as pretentious objects seems to belong more to pure ignorance and a sad disdain of any sort of tradition as "anachronistic."

 
Wilfred Leblanc
 
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26 February 2008 01:37
 

George Lucki;54698 wrote:

That said, I remain in favour of the broad use and broad assumption of arms. Why? Because in some ways arms reflected the political class of such a stratified society and today’s citizens represent that political class. Really there is no higher political status in a modern democracy than citizen - and the whole of the citizenry are in that sense like the nobility of former times. Like the electors of the HRE, the citizens of the United States elect their emperor-president albeit for a shorter term and more rarely father then son. smile

But of course as I have suggested before - assuming arms is trivial - the key is to have that tradition taken up by further generations and the creation of new family traditions of the use of arms. Unless grandchildren carry on the tradition the arms that people assume will be lost - simply pretty designs.


I’ve neglected to underscore that what George says above is really an eloquent rationale for the free assumption of arms in a modern democracy, in terms of clearly identifying a legitimate sense in which the citizen is the successor to the nobleman of other places in other times.

 

In terms of the triviality of assumption, I would tend to point out that it might not be fair to expect people to feel they’re stuck with bad heraldry just because an ancestor opted for a certain design. If the design is durable, great, but I think people should feel free to chuck grandpa’s arms and assume new ones that resonate with their senses of not only family but self.

 
Wilfred Leblanc
 
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26 February 2008 01:49
 

eploy;54717 wrote:

I’m just not sure why in our culture that one pretention is okay and the other isn’t?


Actually, I think one of the great things about this country is that, fundamentally, in our hearts, we think NO pretension is okay, and it’s basically been that way from the very beginning. Exhibit A: Compare the portraits of Gilbert Stuart with those of his immediate predecessors in Europe.

 

The thing is, though (and sorry if this being a master of the obvious), that the behavior one person feels is perfectly natural and appropriate to his station in life, another finds affected. Which of them is right?

 
Patrick Williams
 
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26 February 2008 06:23
 

Fred White;54723 wrote:

The thing is, though (and sorry if this being a master of the obvious), that the behavior one person feels is perfectly natural and appropriate to his station in life, another finds affected. Which of them is right?


Of course, the answer is: depending on the circumstance, both of them are correct.

 
George Lucki
 
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26 February 2008 11:11
 

Perhaps I’m not getting something here…

If a person is behaving in a way that is ‘natural and appropriate to his station in life’ - in other words being himself, how can that possibly be affected regardless of how someone else might view it? Affected by definition implies some behaviour that has been assumed artificially and falsely.

 

Only the first of them is correct. Democracy is not about creating some equality based on a lowest common demoninator but removing the impediments and creating the opportunity for all to aspire to higher rungs of a society stratified by wealth, education, influence, culture, etc. There is nothing pretentious in honoring and continuing a heritage or in displaying family symbols. Such symbols are available to all to create if they wish and if they wish to use in a way that is respectful of traditions of heraldry. Over time they create something that will be a meaningful symbol of generations of their own family’s service.

 

I’ll return to a point I’ve made earlier. True democracy is not about the elimination of a nation’s historical elites but about opening them up. In a democracy individuals who had been previouly excluded from participation in a political society are included - and so the political rights that might have been reserved by birth or property to a smaller group are available to all citizens. In a European context democracy was not about the extermination of the nobility or its disenfranchisement but rather the extension of their political rights to all - in effect making the citizen the subject of political processes in the same way a noble or even the king alone once was. This a way of distinguishing in my mind the Terror of the French revolution or the terrible excesses of communism from the historic and evolutionary processes that have been underway in England or some European states. The United States of course found a sometimes violent middle ground.

 
Ben Foster
 
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26 February 2008 11:28
 

eploy;54717 wrote:

I’m just not sure why in our culture that one pretention is okay and the other isn’t?


I think you have hit on a fundamental tension in American society. We have strong populist sentiments (with a disdain for the trappings of privilege) coupled with a fascination for elites.

 

The American concept of an "elite" has more to do with personal accomplishment (education, business/professional) than birth, but that is not to say that we do not see the concentration of wealth and power in certain families (as you note in your examples).

 

Still, I think that the perception of heraldry as pretentious has alot to do with the perception in America that status should come from personal accomplishment and not the so-called genetic lottery.

 
Patrick Williams
 
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26 February 2008 11:40
 

George Lucki;54736 wrote:

Perhaps I’m not getting something here…

If a person is behaving in a way that is ‘natural and appropriate to his station in life’ - in other words being himself, how can that possibly be affected regardless of how someone else might view it? Affected by definition implies some behaviour that has been assumed artificially and falsely.

 

Only the first of them is correct. Democracy is not about creating some equality based on a lowest common demoninator but removing the impediments and creating the opportunity for all to aspire to higher rungs of a society stratified by wealth, education, influence, culture, etc. There is nothing pretentious in honoring and continuing a heritage or in displaying family symbols. Such symbols are available to all to create if they wish and if they wish to use in a way that is respectful of traditions of heraldry. Over time they create something that will be a meaningful symbol of generations of their own family’s service.


George, I agree with you in theory. However, we do not exist in a vacuum of individuality, but in familes, communities, etc. Allow me to use myself and my family as examples. I am a serious amateur genealogist and have done extensive work on my ancestors. My mother and her family were thrilled at the scope of my research until I demonstrated that they could all become members of DAR/SAR and announced my intention of joining. To them, all Southwest Missouri farmers of humble origin, DAR/SAR and any other heritage society is "putting on airs". Therefore, while membership in SAR is "natural and appropriate to my station in life", to my mother, her surviving siblings and my cousins on her side of the family, it is a betrayal of shared family values.

 

I am joining SAR in order to celebrate both the history of my family and this nation as well as provide an easily accessed venue for my family research. My family, however, feels that this is "reaching above my station". My personal reality is that SAR membership is valuable and because I meet the qualifications for membership there should be no impediment to my joining. My matrilineal relatives’ reality is different. Any action that any of us makes effects not only ourselves, but those around us, so seen from different perspectives, both can be correct.

 
Charles E. Drake
 
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26 February 2008 11:55
 

George Lucki;54736 wrote:

Democracy is not about creating some equality based on a lowest common demoninator but removing the impediments and creating the opportunity for all to aspire to higher rungs of a society stratified by wealth, education, influence, culture, etc.

—snip—

 

True democracy is not about the elimination of a nation’s historical elites but about opening them up.


Precisely.

 

I call this the ice cream principle.  Two hundred years ago this was reserved for the elite and very wealthy.  Now we can all have ice cream.  wink

 

/Charles

 
Charles E. Drake
 
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26 February 2008 12:05
 

Hopefully for a chuckle.

From the New Yorker, 1936, by Arthur Guiterman:

 

The D.A.R.lings

Chatter like starlings

Telling their ancestors’ names,

While grimly aloof

With looks of reproof,

Sit the Colonial Dames.

And The Cincinnati

All merry and chatty

Dangle their badges and pendants,

But haughty and proud

Disdaining the crowd

Brood the Mayflower Descendants.