Inspired by Joe’s MacMillan Armorial and Stephen Plowman’s Heraldry Online, I have started a Mansfield Armorial. It is a work in progress and no where near complete, but since it’s already public I thought I’d go ahead and share it here. I am adding arms as I draw them and as I gather sources other than Burke’s General Armory (though eventually I will probably add all from Burke’s even if I can’t find other sources for them).
I’m availing myself of a free Google site and using one of their canned templates because this isn’t important enough to pay for a domain name and hosting. All the same, criticism and suggestions welcome.
Kenneth,
Is there a connection to the Howard family, particularly for the Mansfield armigers in Norfolk?
https://sites.google.com/site/mansfieldarms/_/rsrc/1367948932703/home/Mansfield07.png
David
Very interesting, Kenneth. You’ll probably find some Mansfield arms in Edmondson’s Complete Body of Heraldry (1780), Berry’s Encyclopaedia Heraldica (1828 ), and Robson’s British Herald (1830), all of which are available on Google Books or Archive.org. There’s an Irish Mansfield listed in Fox-Davies’ Armorial Families (1899), also at Archive.org.
Kenneth Mansfield;98827 wrote:
Inspired by Joe’s MacMillan Armorial and Stephen Plowman’s Heraldry Online, I have started a Mansfield Armorial.
Where’s your coat!?
David Pope;98832 wrote:
Is there a connection to the Howard family, particularly for the Mansfield armigers in Norfolk?
Heraldically that would make sense, though I have no other evidence as of yet. I don’t intend to look much further than readily available Internet resources ... unless I were to discover a genealogical connection to any of those Mansfields who bore the similar arms.
Arthur Radburn;98834 wrote:
You’ll probably find some Mansfield arms in Edmondson’s Complete Body of Heraldry (1780), Berry’s Encyclopaedia Heraldica (1828 ), and Robson’s British Herald (1830), all of which are available on Google Books or Archive.org. There’s an Irish Mansfield listed in Fox-Davies’ Armorial Families (1899), also at Archive.org.
Thanks for these tips, Arthur.
arriano;98835 wrote:
Where’s your coat!?
1. I felt it would be self-centered (as if the whole project isn’t) to put my arms up before putting up the arms that have been in existence for centuries.
2. I want to put up as many variations as possible before putting mine up since they are so different from the several that have come to be thought of as the Mansfield coats of arms.
From Fox-Davies’s Armorial Families:
GEORGE MANSFIELD, Esq., J. P. and D.L. co. Kildare (High Sheriff 1874). Born 1845, being the eldest son of the late George P. L. Mansfield of Morristown Lattin, by Mary Frances Constance, dau. of George Bourke Kelly of Acton House, Middlesex. Clubs — Camera, Kildare Street (Dublin). Armorial bearings— Quarterly, I. argent, three bars sable, that in chief charged with a wyvern of the first (for Mansfield) ; 2. gules, a saltire or (for Eustace) ; 3. per fesse argent and gules, in chief, on a mount vert, a wolf passant in front of an oak-tree proper (for Woulfe) ; 4. argent, a chief indented sable (for Power). Mantling sable and argent ; and for his Crest, upon a wreath of the colours, a dexter arm embowed in armour
proper, garnished or, the hand holding a sword also proper, pommel and hilt gold. Motto — " Turris fortitudinis."
Joseph McMillan;98843 wrote:
From Fox-Davies’s Armorial Families:
GEORGE MANSFIELD, Esq., J. P. and D.L. co. Kildare (High Sheriff 1874).
...
Thanks, Joe!
Sir George MacKenzie (Ed), A Display of Heraldry by John Guillim, Pursuivant of Arms 6th Edition (1724), p 77 gives a slightly different blazon for the Manfeld of Skirpenbeck arms, in which the crosses are plain instead of fitchy :
" Gules, a Bend cottised Argent between six cross crosslets Or was confirmed by William Flower, Norroy, Sept 20, 1563 (5th of Eliz) to Lancelot Manfeld of Skirpenbeck in the County of York, Esq; who married Anne, sister of William, Lord Eure, and had issue five children. "
This book is available on Google Books - there’s a drawing of the arms with the blazon.
If you’re interested in the noble side of the family, Sir William Mansfield, later the 1st Baron Sandhurst (whose mother came from Baltimore ML), was granted arms by the CoA in 1870. The grant is listed in W. Harry Rylands (Ed), Grantees of Arms (Harleian Society, Vol LXVIII) (1917) p 243. The blazon is available here : http://www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk/online/content/sandhurst1871.htm . It would also be in post-1871 editions of Debrett’s Peerage and Burke’s Peerage.
Arthur Radburn;98849 wrote:
Sir George MacKenzie (Ed), A Display of Heraldry by John Guillim, Pursuivant of Arms 6th Edition (1724), p 77 gives a slightly different blazon for the Manfeld of Skirpenbeck arms, in which the crosses are plain instead of fitchy :
" Gules, a Bend cottised Argent between six cross crosslets Or was confirmed by William Flower, Norroy, Sept 20, 1563 (5th of Eliz) to Lancelot Manfeld of Skirpenbeck in the County of York, Esq; who married Anne, sister of William, Lord Eure, and had issue five children. "
This book is available on Google Books - there’s a drawing of the arms with the blazon.
The blazon in Burke’s also leaves off the term fitchy, but the transcript of the confirmation grant (I have not seen the actual document) that appears in The New England Historical & Genealogical Register includes the word. Without would make more sense, though, as pertains to Mansfield of Beverly (no idea where the 1397 comes from). I’m kind of left wondering whether it is more likely someone left the word out of a transcription or added it.
Arthur Radburn;98849 wrote:
If you’re interested in the noble side of the family, Sir William Mansfield, later the 1st Baron Sandhurst (whose mother came from Baltimore ML), was granted arms by the CoA in 1870. The grant is listed in W. Harry Rylands (Ed), Grantees of Arms (Harleian Society, Vol LXVIII) (1917) p 243. The blazon is available here : http://www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk/online/content/sandhurst1871.htm . It would also be in post-1871 editions of Debrett’s Peerage and Burke’s Peerage.
I have Baron Sandhurst mostly drawn, but not finished.
According to a snippet from Mansfield College, Oxford: Its Origin, History, and Significance, the arms in the image below, in which the cross-crosslets appear to be fitchy, are those of Lancelot Manfeld of Skirpenbeck. I wonder what the rest of that paragraph says.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Oliver_Cromwell_College_Chapel.jpg
Kenneth Mansfield;98852 wrote:
According to a snippet from Mansfield College, Oxford: Its Origin, History, and Significance, the arms in the image below, in which the cross-crosslets appear to be fitchy, are those of Lancelot Manfeld of Skirpenbeck. I wonder what the rest of that paragraph says.
After a few guesses at search terms and a bit of patching together, I have managed to produce this, which is quite informative,
http://www.americanheraldry.org/forums/picture.php?albumid=105&pictureid=1991
The final version of the Mansfield College arms (courtesy of Wikipedia) is, of course,
Thank you very much, James.
Where the college (Mansfield) went wrong was in approaching the College (of Arms) in the first place. Oxford has long and successfully maintained that the heralds have no jurisdiction over the university or its colleges. It would have been more in keeping with the tradition of the university for Mansfield College to keep using the arms of its namesake without asking permission.
Kenneth Mansfield;98858 wrote:
Thank you very much, James.
My pleasure, Kenneth. It was an interesting diversion from the rather mundane task I should have been undertaking
Joseph McMillan;98859 wrote:
Where the college (Mansfield) went wrong was in approaching the College (of Arms) in the first place. Oxford has long and successfully maintained that the heralds have no jurisdiction over the university or its colleges. It would have been more in keeping with the tradition of the university for Mansfield College to keep using the arms of its namesake without asking permission.
Joseph
I quite agree that it is a good idea to make use of ancient privileges to ensure they don’t fall into desuetude but I wonder if, in this case, the end result would have been desirable? Do we not rather frown on institutions using, undifferenced, the arms of their founders, particularly as, in this case, there is a question of the usurption of another family’s arms?
JamesD;98861 wrote:
Joseph
I quite agree that it is a good idea to make use of ancient privileges to ensure they don’t fall into desuetude but I wonder if, in this case, the end result would have been desirable? Do we not rather frown on institutions using, undifferenced, the arms of their founders, particularly as, in this case, there is a question of the usurption of another family’s arms?
We’ve gone down this road before. If a family has been using a coat of arms for several generations, should members of the family stop using it if it is determined that the family wasn’t entitled to it in the first place? In other words, do you ignore one history for the sake of another? I don’t know the answer and I would assume opinions strongly differ depending on who you ask.