Official US Arms Granting Authority

 
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21 January 2012 08:59
 

Fred White;91905 wrote:

France is an interesting case in this connection. I suppose the republic could amount to a strong fons honorum, what with its ability to award membership in the Legion of Honor and its underwriting the Academie Francaise and the other academies of the Institut de France—all high-visibility and very prestigious—but it is a republic, nonetheless


I would definitely agree that France has a strong fons honorum, and a republican one at that that protects personal arms and noble surnames (along with nonnoble surnames as well).

 
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21 January 2012 09:17
 

Joseph McMillan;91906 wrote:

I’m suggesting that it doesn’t have only to do with money, and that in most places the amount of money that it takes for someon of an "old family" to maintain its class standing is infinitesimal compared to the holdings of people who still aren’t permitted past the doorkeeper.


Your comment reminds me of a Daily Mail Online article that profiled 10 extant dukes:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1218628/Ten-dukes-dining-Gathered-lunch-unique-picture-grandees-2bn-340-000-acres-them.html.  While most of the dukes were very wealthy, the Duke of Leinster had only moderate holdings and was working as a landscape gardener!

 


Joseph McMillan;91906 wrote:

But I don’t really want to go on any further with this debate as it has little or nothing to do with heraldry, let alone chivalry, whatever that term means.


I agree there is little need for ‘debate’.  Actually, I think we are in agreement for the most part.

 

Actually ‘chivalry’ was an improper word to use on my part.  I meant to limit it to ‘heraldry’ and in particular the aspects of heraldry dealing with social precedence and protocol and not limiting myself to the much narrrower field of armory, which is what most people think when they think of heraldry.

 
Nick B II
 
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21 January 2012 19:40
 

eploy;91880 wrote:

Trump strikes me as the type who would eschew arms for himself reasoning that he doesn’t need them to prove his upperclass/gentry status.  The fact that he acquiesced to a grant of arms for his golf club was probably at the behest of his marketing and legal teams and not for any innate respect for heraldry or the Scottish heraldic institution.

He got those particular arms because the Lord Lyon insisted. He tried using an assumed psuedo-heraldic CoA as a logo on his massive new golf course, but the LL did not allow that.

So now he’s got an official Lyon-approved CoA.

 

Nick

 
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21 January 2012 19:53
 

Nick B II;91911 wrote:

He got those particular arms because the Lord Lyon insisted. He tried using an assumed psuedo-heraldic CoA as a logo on his massive new golf course, but the LL did not allow that.

So now he’s got an official Lyon-approved CoA.

 

Nick


Yes, I know the story already.  He and his legal team were probably shocked to learn about how seriously the Scots take their heraldry.  Furthermore, LL is also a judge to boot which must strike most American in-house lawyers as very weird!  It was probably a shock because the majority of Americans still buy their arms in the malls of America or on the Internet.

 
Charles E. Drake
 
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21 January 2012 23:54
 

James Dempster wrote:

Very little beats the probably apocryphal quote from a Conservative Party grandee’s wife about someone (now a peer and retired cabinet minister, but then a new MP).

"We won’t be going back there, all his furniture’s bought."

Joseph McMillan;91901 wrote:

There’s an equivalent Boston story.  A newcomer to town is invited to tea and asks the hostess if she can recommend a good milliner.  There is an awkward pause and the Bostonian lady replies, "My dear, in Boston we have our hats."


Both of these examples are a hoot. Here’s another a man once told me.

 

As a young boy he visited a friend’s house, and the friend bragged that their carpets costs tens of thousands of dollars. Upon returning home, he told this to his mother who replied [tongue in cheek], "Oh, that’s wonderful for them, for all we have are these old ones from grandmother."

 
David Fofanoff
 
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26 January 2012 13:04
 

Coming in late to this discussion, so forgive me if I re-hash something already stated.

It seems to me as an American that we are on some levels a confused people in terms of heraldry and social class status etc. For the most part, human psychology (IMHO) bends us to Order and away from Chaos. It is amazing to me that the "American Experiment" has thrived this long - and we can see how this uncomfortable duality is constantly pulling us as a society away from our Founder’s original concepts of "Individual Liberty" and more to "Socialism".

 

Not to get political, but I guess what I’m saying is that without a set of rules that are clear and authoritative for us to go by, we lack direction, and when we lack direction, we lose purpose, and when we lose purpose, we start to doubt our place in the world - and that is uncomfortable.

 

In America we can say that we are a part of this or that social strata all we want, and since there are no rules governing this, it really holds no water. In the absence of rules, we will make our own - whether it be based on wealth, political power, economic influence, or personal achievments or talents - it is all in the eyes of the viewer and what they perceive to be important that determines your "class".

 

We can say that here in America we don’t need a heraldic authority to govern the use of arms, but the reality is that the more heraldry is used as a mark of distinction and / or status in our country, the more we will need one. People need validation to feel secure, and in the temporal world of heraldry that means having an undisputed authority over it.

 

Anyway, just my 2 cents - time to get off the stump now…

 
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26 January 2012 13:35
 

*blink* .............*blink blink*.......

David, did you just duct tape socialism to the support of a central heraldic granting authority? :whistle:

 
David Fofanoff
 
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26 January 2012 14:55
 

Jeffrey Boyd Garrison;92012 wrote:

*blink* .............*blink blink*.......

David, did you just duct tape socialism to the support of a central heraldic granting authority? :whistle:


Hmmm, maybe - but I really didn’t mean to make that the focus of the rant. :p

 
Wilfred Leblanc
 
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26 January 2012 15:00
 

It’s natural for us to want an authority to validate our conceits, but a number of national heraldic traditions have thrived without any (or any significant) government regulation, so I see no compelling reason why ours can’t as well. And it’s just not the kind of thing many people would support the government using tax dollars to underwrite directly, particularly at this moment.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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26 January 2012 15:05
 

I don’t think that people in the United States as a group need official validation of their status to be secure.  Insecure people may need validation from someone, but that’s a psychological and not a political problem.

And anyone in the U.S. who thinks the right to bear a coat of arms conveys status in our society has missed at least half the point of the revolution.

 
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26 January 2012 15:06
 

Fred White;92019 wrote:

It’s natural for us to want an authority to validate our conceits, but a number of national heraldic traditions have thrived without any (or any significant) government regulation, so I see no compelling reason why ours can’t as well. And it’s just not the kind of thing many people would support the government using tax dollars to underwrite directly, particularly at this moment.


I definitely agree there - although the Institute of Heraldry of the U.S. Army (http://www.tioh.hqda.pentagon.mil/) is a purely government-funded heraldry authority, and I don’t think I hear any complaints about that one.

 

Maybe if some private heraldry association - *cough* - could procure a Congressional Charter, it could give them a leg up as an "American Heraldry Authority". :cool:

 
Wilfred Leblanc
 
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26 January 2012 15:56
 

David Fofanoff;92021 wrote:

Maybe if some private heraldry association - *cough* - could procure a Congressional Charter, it could give them a leg up as an "American Heraldry Authority". :cool:


Not a bad idea.

 
Wilfred Leblanc
 
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26 January 2012 16:05
 

Joseph McMillan;92020 wrote:

I don’t think that people in the United States as a group need official validation of their status to be secure.  Insecure people may need validation from someone, but that’s a psychological and not a political problem.

And anyone in the U.S. who thinks the right to bear a coat of arms conveys status in our society has missed at least half the point of the revolution.


I didn’t say wanting an authority to validate one’s conceits is admirable or virtuous, just natural.

 

Anyone who thinks bearing a coat of arms makes him legally superior to anyone else in our society may have missed at least half the point of the revolution, but the fact remains that heraldry functions as some kind of status marker, however nebulously.

 

Again, I like what J. A. Reynolds has to say about that—that bearing a coat of arms in the American context says that you consider yourself, and expect to be treated like, a gentleman, and moreover, that you promise to behave like a gentleman.

 

Necessarily, this means that you are contrasting your status as a gentleman with some other social status.

 
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26 January 2012 16:54
 

Fred White;92026 wrote:

Again, I like what J. A. Reynolds has to say about that—that bearing a coat of arms in the American context says that you consider yourself, and expect to be treated like, a gentleman, and moreover, that you promise to behave like a gentleman.

Necessarily, this means that you are contrasting your status as a gentleman with some other social status.


Here - Here! That’s why undesireables such as criminals like to remain as annonymous as possible….:yarr:

 
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26 January 2012 17:03
 

Fred White;92026 wrote:

Necessarily, this means that you are contrasting your status as a gentleman with some other social status.


I disagree. Not necessarily. Indeed, I suspect that many if not most of the members of this forum would say that "gentleman" is no longer a social status—i.e., a rank within a hierarchy—at all.