Review of Reynolds’ Heraldry and You

 
Wilfred Leblanc
 
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Wilfred Leblanc
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30 January 2012 00:23
 

Reynolds, Jack Adolphe. Heraldry and You: Modern Heraldic Usage in America. New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1961.

Sadly out of print, and perhaps largely forgotten, this is a fine introduction to the use of personal heraldry in the specifically American context. The website of the Order of Founders and Patriots of America describes it as “perhaps the best contemporary American work on heraldry.” It seems to have garnered a review in the October 1965 issue of the Augustan Society’s The Augustan Society Information Bulletin, and to have been advertised by two booksellers in The New Yorker at the time of publication, but otherwise to have attracted little attention.

 

Reynolds, identified on the dust jacket as a medievalist, and President of what must have been the fairly short-lived “American Heraldic Society,” seems chiefly interested in articulating the appropriate attitude for contemporary Americans to take towards heraldry. He takes the view, normative for American heraldists, that any American citizen is within his rights to use a coat of arms. While acknowledging the space inevitably occupied by the English system in the American heraldic imagination, Reynolds underscores the relative rarity of heraldic regulation across our various antecedent traditions, while pointing out both consistencies and discrepancies among them. He situates personal heraldry, for the American citizen, as a sign of kinship first and foremost, but he does hew to the idea that a coat of arms implies at least a vague pretension on the user’s status to being a “gentleman” (or “lady,” as the case may be). His definition of that status, however, is very liberal. Laying modest emphasis on the principle of noblesse oblige as its defining characteristic (while not leading the reader to presume entitlement to deferential treatment from others if he thinks himself genteel), Reynolds invites anyone who believes in duty, honor, and tradition to identify as an armiger, even if such an individual’s family background and resumĂ© resemble those of gentlemen from days of yore but little. At one juncture, he writes, “If the use of arms has any real importance or meaning in your community in terms of status and of the standards by which you live and within which you are rearing your children, then you have not only a right but, perhaps, an obligation to use them” (p. 61). Elsewhere, he emphasizes that, appearances notwithstanding, the definition of gentility is amorphous and the bar rather low in the few places where heraldry is regulated.

 

Perhaps the most helpful and entertaining aspect of Heraldry and You is Reynolds’ exploration of the question of how to approach arms “inherited” from outside the direct male line. Recognizing that many Americans are in the position of prizing some armorial heirloom attached to a surname other than the one they bear, Reynolds recurs to a composite of his invention, a “Mrs. Plunkett” who wonders whether or not the “Cuthbert” arms in a painting she has inherited from her maternal grandfather are hers to transmit to her children. Reynolds’ fictive mentoring of Mrs. Plunkett towards the solution of differencing the Cuthbert arms (by combining aspects of them with those of a coat of arms from a distaff line of her husband’s family) exemplifies sound advice for the prospective American armiger who has at least some armorial material to draw upon in his genealogy. It also provides a satisfying frame for Reynolds’ introduction to the rudiments of heraldry in general, which is illustrated at regular intervals by full-color emblazonments of arms in use by American families at the time of writing.

 

Reynolds makes a number of observations about the use of heraldry by American institutions, but his consistent focus is on its use by individuals. Apart from affirming the validity of free assumption as a way of acquiring arms in an unregulated heraldic environment, he articulates views on matters like the use of additaments typically associated with titled nobility in a way remarkably consonant with the American Heraldry Society’s Guidelines for Heradic Practice in the United States. He says, for instance, that supporters and coronets of rank have no place in the arms of American citizens. His attitude towards helms is somewhat more flexible, but he concludes, “No American cares to carry a helmet in his achievement that anywhere else would proclaim his position as a sovereign or as of a specific rank in an established peerage” (p. 80).

 

In what seems a curious anticipation of a debate still carried on among American heraldists, Reynolds expounds on the inclusion of lineage society insignia in full achievements. Though he does not exactly endorse the practice, neither does he condemn it, and he implies that it is a practice he has repeatedly observed. His ultimate point is merely that such insignia are not heritable parts of the arms. Consistent with the sober-minded—if light-hearted—tone of the book as a whole, Reynolds does not so much as acknowledge the existence of self-styled orders of chivalry, noting only the proper fashion in which to display the real thing in the comparatively rare cases when an American might be entitled to do so.

 

The feminist may be a bit chagrined by Heraldry and You at one or two moments. Allowing for cases where a particular family might have established a contrary tradition, Reynolds clearly prefers that female armigers eschew crests and stick to displaying their arms on lozenges. Still, he is less censorious of inheritance through women than he might be, saying simply, “quite a few people in America do make extensive use of arms from the maternal lines, but best usage does not condone it” (p. 46). He also expresses a flexible attitude towards quartering, asserting that American usage does not require that the mother be a heraldic heiress in the strict sense before children can inherit quartered arms.

 

Reynolds supplies detailed guidance on how to use a coat of arms, and he is wonderfully unimaginative here. One gets the sense that he feels the legitimacy of American heraldry is buttressed by strict adherence not only to principles of good design in coming up with new blazons, but to traditional principles of tasteful application as well. He does not presume a uniformly wealthy readership, and therefore suggests ways of economizing, writing, for instance, “The same dies that mark your stationery and your bookplates (the latter with your name masked out) will provide gold stampings for your leather goods” (p. 96).

 

Of interest would be a more extensive bibliography than the one Reynolds provides. None of the seven titles listed is one dealing with American heraldry per se, yet echoes of foundational texts for our national heraldic tradition can be heard throughout Heraldry and You. Reynolds’ reasoning has much in common with that of Barton, Bolton, and Zieber, and he avoids the pretensions and other weaknesses of a Matthews or a Vermont, but he credits none of these writers as an informant, which risks leading to the erroneous conclusion that he is up to something altogether ground-breaking here. Of course, Heraldry and You does not purport to be a scholarly work, and indeed, it performs a sufficiently valuable service for the American who wants to “do heraldry right,” so to speak, that the lacunae in its bibliography are altogether forgivable. To say that it belongs on every serious American heraldist’s bookshelf might be a slight overstatement, but in its succinctness, its modest erudition, and its pragmatic, patriotic sensibility, it remains a very fine starting point for exploring a vibrant subject.

 
Jeffrey Boyd Garrison
 
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Jeffrey Boyd Garrison
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30 January 2012 01:18
 

Informative review; thanks for posting Fred! :o

 
Wilfred Leblanc
 
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Wilfred Leblanc
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30 January 2012 01:30
 

Jeffrey Boyd Garrison;92119 wrote:

Informative review; thanks for posting Fred! :o


Glad to be of service! I suppose it’s high time I did something around here besides argue.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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30 January 2012 08:26
 

Fred White;92117 wrote:

Reynolds, Jack Adolphe. Heraldry and You: Modern Heraldic Usage in America. New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1961.


Thanks very much for this, Fred.  I glanced at this book several years ago at one of the local libraries in this area and thought it looked interesting, but I only had a few minutes and it was a library from which I couldn’t check books out.  I’ll have to get back over there and spend more time with it.


Quote:

He also expresses a flexible attitude towards quartering, asserting that American usage does not require that the mother be a heraldic heiress in the strict sense before children can inherit quartered arms.


That’s very interesting.  In one of my current research projects I found several cases where prominent Maryland families of Irish origin during the colonial and early federal periods quartered arms when the wife was not an heiress.  It turns out that the modern rules of marshalling were still unsettled at the time the American colonies were being settled, with the degree of flexibility between impaling and quartering varying directly with one’s distance from London.


Quote:

Of interest would be a more extensive bibliography than the one Reynolds provides. None of the seven titles listed is one dealing with American heraldry per se, yet echoes of foundational texts for our national heraldic tradition can be heard throughout Heraldry and You. Reynolds’ reasoning has much in common with that of Barton, Bolton, and Zieber, and he avoids the pretensions and other weaknesses of a Matthews or a Vermont, but he credits none of these writers as an informant, which risks leading to the erroneous conclusion that he is up to something altogether ground-breaking here.


In partial mitigation of this lacuna, Barton’s 1815 essay has only come to light since John DuLong located the original manuscript and published it in the ACH’s American Armiger a few years ago.  But, as you say, Bolton and Zieber would have been readily available, as would the early 20th century articles by H.S. Ruggles on the right to bear arms and the NEHGS COH’s 1914 report.

 
Wilfred Leblanc
 
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Wilfred Leblanc
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30 January 2012 10:29
 

Joseph McMillan;92122 wrote:

Thanks very much for this, Fred.


My pleasure. As I think I said elsewhere, if this is an item we would want to list on the Basic Heraldic Bookshelf, the relevant officer of the Society can abbreviate my comments or I can do so myself.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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30 January 2012 10:40
 

An abbreviation would be great, but I’m thinking maybe we should add a book review section to the website beyond the short blurbs on the bookshelf.  This would be an excellent start.

 
Wilfred Leblanc
 
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Wilfred Leblanc
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30 January 2012 11:29
 

Joseph McMillan;92125 wrote:

An abbreviation would be great, but I’m thinking maybe we should add a book review section to the website beyond the short blurbs on the bookshelf.  This would be an excellent start.


I’ll be happy to write more such reviews as the need arises.

 
Hugh Brady
 
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Hugh Brady
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30 January 2012 17:31
 

This is very good and I enjoyed reading it. Perhaps what we can do is run it in the American Herald this summer and have a regular book review feature and then post those to the website. Thanks again for this well-written review.

 
Wilfred Leblanc
 
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Wilfred Leblanc
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30 January 2012 19:35
 

Hugh Brady;92136 wrote:

Perhaps what we can do is run it in the American Herald this summer and have a regular book review feature and then post those to the website. Thanks again for this well-written review.


That sounds like a good idea. Gives me a heads up beforehand, though. I might like to make a couple of small edits. In any case, glad I could provide some info and entertainment.

 
Hugh Brady
 
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30 January 2012 21:35
 

Sure thang.

 
Luis Cid
 
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Luis Cid
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31 January 2012 13:41
 

Fred, thanks for the excellent review.

 
Wilfred Leblanc
 
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Wilfred Leblanc
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01 February 2012 00:52
 

Luis Cid;92147 wrote:

Fred, thanks for the excellent review.


Glad you enjoyed it!