Cinematic Heraldry

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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01 November 2009 20:10
 

xanderliptak;73055 wrote:

... and not yet by commoners.


It’s not particularly germane to the film, but see http://heraldica.org/topics/right.htm under the subheading "De Facto" for the considerable body of evidence to the contrary.

 

As to the film, it’s also possible that there was heraldry, but that all of it was left on the cutting room floor.

 
Alexander Liptak
 
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Alexander Liptak
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01 November 2009 20:53
 

Yes, while some commoners had arms by the time period, it was mostly the higher classes that possessed them still.  It says that arms for burghers started around 1250, and then commoners soon followed, but that this was particularly popular to Normandy, England, Switzerland and Flanders.  The article makes no mention of an Italian time frame.  With da Sassoferrato writing his treatise in 1355, I would think it is safe to assume the question of commoners using arms only began to be an issue around that time period, some 30 years after the film takes place.  If anything, it is more probable that a man would be thinking of assuming arms rather than already owning them in the film.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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01 November 2009 23:29
 

Burghers are commoners.

You’re quite correct that the two sources do not refer to Italy.  However, since the priors of Florence issued a decree in 1296 regulating the bearing of arms by the members of the city’s guilds (who would have been classed as burghers, or, in Italian, cittadini), the use of heraldry by non-nobles had obviously reached the towns of northern Italy well before the time at which the film is set.  Indeed, the decree seems to accept armorial usage even by the class of tradesmen provided that they didn’t usurp the bearings of the wealthier merchants and magistrates:


Quote:

Let no one venture to establish a private club, society, or company with unauthorised arms. Let no one bear painted arms, except according to the Statutes of his Guild, or the Order of the Commune. Every Master of a Trade with his sons, brothers, and nephews, are permitted to wear, and to use, the painted arms and signs of his Craft. Let no one presume to bear painted arms not in use by his house. On payment of the prescribed fee of two hundred lire any man may assume the arms of King Charles, in addition to those of his house. No popolano,— tradesman,—may use the arms of a magnifico,—merchant or magistrate,—or have such in his house unless he is a famulus, or a member of his household. Nevertheless painters may colour arms, and tailors may sew them on garments, as also may armourers and shield-workers engrave them in metal and leather. All such badges are permitted to be exposed for sale by the Rigattieri,—Retail dealers,—in their shops.


Cited in Edgecumbe Staley, The Guilds of Florence (1906)

 

Staley also notes that the guilds themselves had corporate arms by this time—the bankers’ guild as early as 1266, for example—as did at least one order of monks known as the Umiliati, who carved their arms on their church in Florence when it was built in 1256.

 

So there would have been plenty of opportunities to use heraldry in The Name of the Rose had the director chosen to do so.

 
Alexander Liptak
 
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02 November 2009 09:34
 

I suppose you are referring to the three estates?  By that, knights are commoners as well.  So I guess you would have offered the same clarification if I had mentioned "knights this date" and then "commoners that date," that you would have told me knights are commoners.  Just as kings and emperors are the same as barons because they are all nobles.  Outside of the three estates notion, burghers held rights the "other" commoners did not have; so I guess I was subdividing and forgot to specify "burgher commoners" and "commoner commoners."

I never saw the movie, it very well could have involved numerous tradesman and burghers assigning their noticeably unheraldic seals under a curious shield-shaped crevice in a Florentine church, all instances where heraldry could have been included.  All I am suggesting is that there may have been plenty of reason to avoid heraldry as well, but I am not suggesting there was not heraldry in that time period.  Just because it existed does not mean everything is inundated with it, or that in the parameters of the story it would even appear.

 
emrys
 
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emrys
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02 November 2009 10:34
 

They employed Michael Pastoureau as the heraldic consultant for the name of the rose.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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02 November 2009 23:50
 

xanderliptak;73066 wrote:

I suppose you are referring to the three estates?


No, for that would be entirely anachronistic for the era in question.

 

Look, this isn’t the thread to explore the niceties of medieval Italian social structure. The point is that if the director had chosen to include heraldry, he could have found plenty of it, noble and otherwise. Given that Pastoureau was the heraldic adviser, and that Pastoureau has been one of the key contributors to debunking the old idea that medieval heraldry was limited to the feudal landowning and knightly classes, it’s hard to believe that he would have advised that the inclusion of heraldry would have been historically inappropriate.

 

If you’re not arguing that a putative shortage of non-noble heraldry limited the opportunities for heraldic display in the movie, then I suppose we’re not in disagreement, but in that case I’m a little vague about how to interpret your assertion that "in 1327…coats of arms were being used mainly by noble families, and not yet by commoners."

 
Alexander Liptak
 
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03 November 2009 02:38
 

Joseph McMillan;73088 wrote:

...I’m a little vague about how to interpret your assertion that "in 1327…coats of arms were being used mainly by noble families, and not yet by commoners."


* 1130-60: feudal lords

* 1160-1200: knights banneret

* 1180-1220: all knights

* 1220-60: squires

* 1250: burghers, peasants

 

That is a time line from your own source.

 

Let us see, 200 years of nobles, feudal lords, knights, squires and so on adopting arms, and only 70 for burghers and peasants.  Given how things develop, the familiar custom of arms amongst nobles and their well trained heralds should mean that nobles would be adopting at a faster rate than the peasants first learning of heraldic custom and yet unsure of their rights to arms.

 

Given many writings about the rights for a common man to adopt arms were written between 1290 and 1400, that also says the question of a commoner owning arms was still unsettled and needed to be discussed and argued further.  That would mean many commoners would have been uncertain at the option of assuming arms, especially if their lord was one that argued against commoner arms.

 

I, again, am not saying there was no heraldry for commoners, just that it was still new to them, and more likely that it was something more likely found in noble houses.  You cite your source showing the first arms for a commoner seem to be from around 1250, but that is merely a date of an early example and not a date that represents mass assumption by commoners.  But we are not arguing if commoners had arms.  I am simply deferring to human nature as to how assumption of arms amongst commoners likely occurred.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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03 November 2009 07:11
 

All the evidence that I’ve seen suggests that heraldry spread quite rapidly both geographically and in terms of social class.  I refer once again to the fact that the leaders of the guilds in Florence felt the need to regulate its use as evidence that it was already fairly widespread among non-noble urban families, not only among the rising merchant magnates but among the popolani as well.

I’d note that the list of dates is a condensation of the much more detailed information from Galbreath and Pastoureau, such as the examination of thousands of seals of bourgeois, on a large portion of which heraldic devices appear.

 

The other point is that there was also a great deal of civic and corporate heraldry.  The present arms of Florence date to 1251 but existed in reversed colors before that.  The Florentine guilds introduced armorial gonfalons and the office of gonfalonier in 1266; the arms on the gonfalons obviously date to that year or earlier.  Guild arms were painted and carved on the residences of the heads of the guilds and their meeting halls and churches by 1300.  What is true of Florence was certainly true to a greater or lesser degree of other northern Italian towns as well.

 
Alexander Liptak
 
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03 November 2009 13:26
 

Your "quite quickly" in Florence was dated to 1296, which is still two centuries since the general date of the start of heraldry.  If twenty decades to get to guilds is quick, then from guilds to the masses in another 30 is Mercury.  Yes, I understand that the time frame is abbreviated in it’s details, but it would not pervert the results of the study; that is when they list a date of 1250, the extended information is not going to show it really to be dated to 1100.

Also, given that Florence was always a bit of a liberal nation and a republic that rebelled not only against their margrave but often found itself at war with the Pope himself, I would think individual rights like that to armorial bearings would be well received.  After all, there was no lord to ever deny the people that right.

 

Pointing out the use of civic arms does not give evidence of massive use amongst commoners.  Because cities had arms, you can not say commoners had adopted arms themselves en mass, that is non sequitur.

 

It is easy to guess how nobles adopted arms quickly from one another, as they met at tournaments and state gatherings and the like, and a marquis would covet the attractive new shield of a count that was decorated with lions and gold and ermine and demand one for himself.

 

The basic commoners, however, usually traveled by foot, so even local tournaments were often too far to or take too many days’ travel to see.  And even those that did would still be unable to afford the cost of a smith to make a shield or a painter to decorate it.  They could not even rely on written material for sources, as books were hand written and costly, and most commoners could not read anyways.  So, the process for commoners adopting arms would likely have been a slow one.  Definitely not something that would have been quickly assimilated by the masses in a 30 year period.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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03 November 2009 15:09
 

xanderliptak;73105 wrote:

Pointing out the use of civic arms does not give evidence of massive use amongst commoners. Because cities had arms, you can not say commoners had adopted arms themselves en mass, that is non sequitur.


If I had said that, it would indeed have been a non sequitur, but of course I never suggested any such thing.

 

The issue at hand is the absence of heraldry from the movie The Name of the Rose.  That’s how we got on the subject of whether non-nobles in Italy were bearing arms in 1327.  Even if non-nobles had not been using heraldic arms by this time, we know that they were in use by (a) nobles and knights, and (b) cities, and (d) guilds, and (e) at least one religious order.  Again, this means that if the film director had wanted to include heraldry in his movie, it would have been realistic to do so, and that it is therefore unlikely that Michel Pastoureau would have advised him not to.

 
Alexander Liptak
 
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03 November 2009 23:41
 

I thought this was an argument as to why heraldry was in massive use.


Joseph McMillan;73094 wrote:

The other point is that there was also a great deal of civic and corporate heraldry.


My apologies, I took that sentence as an argument to it.

 

Your argument is that because it existed, it must appear in the film to be an authentic time period piece.  So, by that logic, they would need to show all the kings of Europe, the Pope, the sultan, the khan and so forth, because those existed, too, and they just needed to find the opportunity to include such to prove the film is from that time.

 

As you said, arms were held by "(a) nobles and knights, and (b) cities, and (d) guilds, and (e) at least one religious order", which means the film would first have to include nobles, knights, armorial cities, armorial guilds and that one religious order first.  ?Is it illogical to think Mr. Pastoureau warned, that while heraldry existed, it was not a certainty that the film would naturally find use for it?

 
emrys
 
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emrys
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04 November 2009 03:44
 

Well the film included one abbey, an abbot, two religious orders, a cardinal, a bishop, one grand inquisitor, a son of a noble family who became a monk, some soldiers, and several peasants wink. The dvd that I have of the Name of the Rose has several documentaries on it and I will have look if I can spot some heraldry in them.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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04 November 2009 13:26
 

xanderliptak;73122 wrote:

Your argument is that because it existed, it must appear in the film to be an authentic time period piece.


NO, DAMMIT! Please quit putting words in my mouth. I know this isn’t a very civil response, but it’s impossible to have a civil discussion if you’re going to keep twisting my words.

 

I said what I meant: "if the film director had wanted to include heraldry in his movie, it would have been realistic to do so." That’s about as straightforward and easy to understand as I can make it.

 

If I were to make a movie set in North Carolina in the year 2009, it would be realistic to include a reference to NASCAR racing. This is not the same as saying that a movie set in North Carolina in 2009 can only be realistic if it includes references to NASCAR.

 

Let’s remember how this discussion started. The absence of heraldry from the movie was remarked, which started speculation as to why it was missing. It was suggested, perhaps in jest, that the film’s heraldry consultant had advised the director against including heraldry. You connected this hypothetical advice with the "fact" that commoners weren’t yet using heraldry in 1327.

 

There are undoubtedly a variety of reasons why Jean-Jacques Annaud might reasonably have chosen not to include heraldry in The Name of the Rose. It was his film; for all I know he may have decided that heraldry was simply too colorful for the gloomy tone of the picture. But maybe, just maybe, it really did go something like this:

 

SCENE I

Setting: a cafe on the Rive Gauche, July 1985.

Discover two men in casual clothes, drinking beer at an outside table and having an animated conversation.

 

Jean-Jacques Annaud: I’m making a film set in an abbey in Italy in 1327. Would you be my heraldry consultant?

Michel Pastoureau: Bien sûr.

 

Fade to black.

 

SCENE II

Setting: the courtyard of an abbey in the Italian Alps, April 1986; a foggy, drizzly morning. Cameras, microphone booms, members of a film cast and crew engaged in busy activity. Zoom in on the director and his heraldry consultant.

 

Annaud: Okay, so what heraldry should I put in the film?

Pastoureau: You shouldn’t put heraldry in the film. That will be 50,000 francs.

 

Cut to black. Roll credits.

 
emrys
 
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emrys
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04 November 2009 16:35
 

The director said in the documentary that he assembled a team of medieval experts for the film. Also he talked about the books in the library said that there were three classes of books, close up, medium, and far away. The close up books were museum quality copies, medium resonable copies and the last poor copies.

This is one of the books of the 2nd class.

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/4927/notrcoaa.jpg

 

Notice the shield , helmet and crest in this one.

And it appears barely noticable in the film

 

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/8387/notrcoab.jpg

 

so some heraldry after all in the film

 
John Mck
 
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04 November 2009 18:13
 

I’m sure some of us recognize that as the Codex Manesse. In grad school I was lucky enough to get my hands on a masterful German faksimile copy. for an afternoon Is anyone aware of a modern, affordable reproduction of the plates?