As an American, perhaps it is appropriate to refrain from using a supporter or supporters not because (i) I am not legally allowed them (since there is no entity to say whether or not I am legally allowed), or (ii) I do not want to be seen as claiming status I do not have (it being somewhat nebulous under many traditions, what status would entitle someone to supporters), but rather to refrain from doing so in order to err on the side of caution as a show of courtesy to those who, under their national laws or customs, are entitled to do so.

Sorry for the complex sentence structure (I *am* a lawyer ).

Fred White;60107 wrote:

The former judgment is tendentious and speculative, while the latter is highly subjective. Subject to misinterpretation by whom?

People who have studied enough heraldry to know that there is generally a connection between supporters and status. I should have thought that was obvious.

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I laud your rejection of silly posturing and fraudulent claims, but I think you’re conflating separate issues.

No, I’m not. I believe that 99% of the Americans who would use supporters with their arms are either fools (i.e., those who don’t know any better) or scoundrels (those who know what supporters typically mean and want to create exactly the impression that supporters convey). The 1% who know the history, know the connotations, and choose for defensible reasons to use them anyway will not offset the deleterious effect on American heraldry of the 99%.

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I think you’re affecting to hold an omniscient perspective.

Oh really? I’m not the one who asserted the obviousness of the proposition that commoners’ use of arms in the Middle Ages was an attempt to claim noble status. Anything is possible; we have no way of knowing what people 700 years ago were thinking unless they left records telling us. But it is reasonable to conclude, given the physical evidence cited above and the writing of contemporary jurists, that arms in 1350 or so were simply not considered the exclusive preserve of the noble/knightly classes. If that’s the case, then your analogy between non-nobles’ use of supporters now and non-nobles’ use of arms then falls apart.

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it’s entirely possible for a modern American to use supporters with the expectation that they be seen as nothing more than a decorative flourish,

Only if he is heraldically naive or disingenous.

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or at worst, a reasonable analogy between himself and members of traditional elites.

If there is any compelling analogy between free and equal 21st century American citizens on the one hand and the (formerly) privileged titled noble estates of Europe on the other, I fail to grasp it. Americans categorically rejected titles of nobility at the very birth of our polity. If you hope to persuade me that supporters have any place in American personal heraldry, you will have to show me that I’m wrong in my assessment that use of supporters correlates with, and is generally understood as being associated with, membership in a class of society that doesn’t exist in the United States. You won’t be able to persuade me that anyone in American society is the functional equivalent of a Swedish greve, or even a Scottish baron.

David E. Cohen;60109 wrote:

. . . it being somewhat nebulous under many traditions, what status would entitle someone to supporters . . .

Indeed it is.

Joseph McMillan;60112 wrote:

People who have studied enough heraldry to know that there is generally a connection between supporters and status. I should have thought that was obvious.

Well, think again. All that’s obvious is that people who posit the existence of a consistent restriction on the use of supporters to the titled nobility would think so. You don’t have to study heraldry in tremendous depth to see that what qualified/qualifies a person for supporters in many traditions is a good deal murkier than that. In fact, this is what your own illustrations reveal.

Joseph McMillan;60112 wrote:

I believe . . . the 1% who know the history, know the connotations, and choose for defensible reasons to use them anyway will not offset the deleterious effect on American heraldry of the 99%.

A belief that you’re perfectly entitled to, but you haven’t demonstrated that it’s fundamentally a more rational or otherwise justified a belief than the position that at least some segment of American society should feel free to assume supporters without incurring the contempt of the AHS.

Joseph McMillan;60112 wrote:

I’m not the one who asserted the obviousness of the proposition that commoners’ use of arms in the Middle Ages was an attempt to claim noble status.

What post of mine are you trying to paraphrase? The general drift of what I’ve been saying is more nuanced—that it was an attempt to claim higher status or identify with the values of a prestige group.

Joseph McMillan;60112 wrote:

But it is reasonable to conclude, given the physical evidence cited above and the writing of contemporary jurists, that arms in 1350 or so were simply not considered the exclusive preserve of the noble/knightly classes. If that’s the case, then your analogy between non-nobles’ use of supporters now and non-nobles’ use of arms then falls apart.

If my argument falls apart, it isn’t because of any evidence you’ve presented. The commentary of jurists gives us the legal side of the phenomenon once it was well underway. My argument depends on how the phenomenon was perceived socially when it began. How do you suppose knights reacted when fishmongers started using coats of arms? Find documentation of knights and nobles warmly accepting the then-novel practice, and I will accept that there was nothing revolutionary about it. You’re obviously a skilled researcher, so you might, but the human tendency to aspire to higher social status is timeless, universal, and manifested constantly in any number of ways, so it isn’t much of a reach to assume that this instinct was the impetus to commoners’ assuming arms.

Joseph McMillan;60112 wrote:

You won’t be able to persuade me that anyone in American society is the functional equivalent of a Swedish greve, or even a Scottish baron.

I’m not sure what you mean by "functional equivalent." What I am saying is that we have a top, a middle, and a bottom. There are various ways to parse it, but we do live in a stratified society—stratified by wealth, achievement, etc. Just because the top in the U.S.—the most powerful country the world has ever seen—doesn’t include a titled nobility doesn’t mean there is no analogy between our elites and current or former European elites. Our neighbors to the north seem to think there is such an analogy (cf. the CHA’s grants of supporters). Is there a "functional equivalency" between our high elected officials and Canada’s, between recipients of the Order of Canada and recipients of the highest civilian or military decorations in the U.S.? If so, and if we have no heraldic regulation in the U.S., why shouldn’t some Americans follow something like the Canadian precedent and just assume supporters?

You took my remark out of context.

I think that, mostly, supporters are indicative of higher nobility, and though I would not employ them out of courtesy, even if that were not a consideration, I would indeed also not employ them for the reason that it would lead people to assume that I was ignorant of the general customs of heraldry, or that I was falsely claiming ancestry I do not have.

David E. Cohen;60123 wrote:

You took my remark out of context.

Then please excuse me.

David E. Cohen;60109 wrote:

. . . perhaps it is appropriate to refrain from using a supporter or supporters not because (i) I am not legally allowed them (since there is no entity to say whether or not I am legally allowed), or (ii) I do not want to be seen as claiming status I do not have (it being somewhat nebulous under many traditions, what status would entitle someone to supporters), but rather to . . .

But it looks an awful lot like you were contrasting two insufficient reasons for not bearing supporters (one of which I was affirming) with a reason you find more palatable.

In any case, I wasn’t claiming you as an ally in this argument, only noting that someone else shares an observation I’ve made.

But again, please excuse me.

Fred White;60122 wrote:

Well, think again. All that’s obvious is that people who posit the existence of a consistent restriction on the use of supporters to the titled nobility would think so.

I have never posited the existence of a consistent restriction.  I posited the existence of a correlation.  I am not particularly interested in legal regulations on this matter.  I am interested in actual usages.

Quote:

What post of mine are you trying to paraphrase?

This one:  "it’s quite arguable (not to say fairly obvious) that the principal reason members of the emergent bourgeoisie began to bear arms was to claim, or state an aspiration to, the status associated with knights."

Quote:

The general drift of what I’ve been saying is more nuanced—that it was an attempt to claim higher status or identify with the values of a prestige group.

I’m sorry.  My unsubtle mind doesn’t detect the nuance between that and the view I ascribed to you.

Quote:

My argument depends on how the phenomenon was perceived socially when it began. How do you suppose knights reacted when fishmongers started using coats of arms? Find documentation of knights and nobles warmly accepting the then-novel practice, and I will accept that there was nothing revolutionary about it.

No, Fred.  You find documentation of knights rejecting it, if you like, but what they thought isn’t the issue.  The issue is what the commoners thought they were doing.  You don’t know, and neither do I, and it doesn’t matter.

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I’m not sure what you mean by "functional equivalent." What I am saying is that we have a top, a middle, and a bottom. There are various ways to parse it, but we do live in a stratified society—stratified by wealth, achievement, etc. Just because the top in the U.S.—the most powerful country the world has ever seen—doesn’t include a titled nobility doesn’t mean there is no analogy between our elites and current or former European elites.

This is why I said "compelling analogy."  If supporters (or anything else) are generally a mark of noble status, then they signify something fundamentally alien to American society.  Inequality of wealth, talents, achievement, etc., etc., are a universal part of the human condition.  Legally recognized and enforced hereditary privileges for a minority of the population are not.  As far as I know, there is no tradition in any society providing for supporters to signify "more money," "smarter," or "more civic minded."  Indeed, those are themselves bourgeois values that would have curled the upper lips of the nobility of the period we’re discussing.

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Our neighbors to the north seem to think there is such an analogy (cf. the CHA’s grants of supporters). Is there a "functional equivalency" between our high elected officials and Canada’s, between recipients of the Order of Canada and recipients of the highest civilian or military decorations in the U.S.? If so, and if we have no heraldic regulation in the U.S., why shouldn’t some Americans follow something like the Canadian precedent and just assume supporters?

So you’re now proposing the Canadian model as one to follow in the US?  Is it only the high elected officials and recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to whom you would allow supporters?  We do seem to have shifted our ground, don’t we?

Fred White;60125 wrote:

But it looks an awful lot like you were contrasting two insufficient reasons for not bearing supporters (one of which I was affirming) with a reason you find more palatable.

In any case, I wasn’t claiming you as an ally in this argument, only noting that someone else shares an observation I’ve made.

 

But again, please excuse me.

Yes, excused.  On my part, my apologies for not being clearer.  I would say that either courtesy, or not wanting to appear to claim something I might be seen as not being entitled to under general heraldic custom and tradition, would be a sufficient reason not to employ supporters.

David E. Cohen;60130 wrote:

Yes, excused.  On my part, my apologies for not being clearer.  I would say that either courtesy, or not wanting to appear to claim something I might be seen as not being entitled to under general heraldic custom and tradition, would be a sufficient reason not to employ supporters.

I just don’t see why the citizen of another country, should be offended by a U.S. citizen utilising supporters in the U.S. If one went to their country and openly flaunted them against there tradition, sure. But in the U.S., why should we say that any part of U.S. heraldry is reserved ( in effect ) only for foreigners ?

I should think that the lack of marks of rank in the blazon, should be sufficient to remove any suspicion of a claim to nobility.

Deer Sniper;60133 wrote:

But in the U.S., why should we say that any part of U.S. heraldry is reserved ( in effect ) only for foreigners?

Stop it! Stop it right now! If you are going to continue to make sensible statements you will force the rest of us to follow your example!

(I agree with your statement totally)

Deer Sniper;60133 wrote:

But in the U.S., why should we say that any part of U.S. heraldry is reserved ( in effect ) only for foreigners ?

There is a flaw in your logic.  Certain parts of heraldry aren’t reserved for foreigners, in effect or otherwise.  They are reserved for nobility and royalty.  It’s just like certain parts of a grocery store parking lot.  They aren’t reserved for multi-millionaires, but they are reserved for the handicapped.  Yes, there is a difference between multi-millionaires and the handicapped, even though some of each don’t see it! 

I had a look at European Nobility and Heraldry by J. H. Pinches with regard to the use of supporters.  I don’t claim this to be authoritative, but merely food for thought.

Czechoslovakia–rare

France–not regulated, but unusual for commoners

Germany–Burghers were not entitled to them

Hungary–only in foreign arms

Italy–used without limitation

Holland–no restrictions

Belgium–barons and above

Poland–rare, but unrestricted

Portugal–during the kingdom, for nobles only

Russia–unrestricted

Denmark–counts and above

Sweden–unregulated, but usually counts or above

Spain–no regulations

Switzerland–commonly used, including the non-nobility

United Kingdom–generally only peers and high ranking knights, plus a few others such as some baronets, clan chiefs, and ancient feudal barons.

/Charles

Joseph McMillan;60129 wrote:

I have never posited the existence of a consistent restriction.  I posited the existence of a correlation.  I am not particularly interested in legal regulations on this matter.  I am interested in actual usages.

You posit the existence of a correlation sufficiently strong to support the idea that use of supporters should be restricted to the titled nobility. Does that wording suit you better? I deny the presence of a correlation that is as strong as that, but not the existence of *a* correlation.

My view . . .

Joseph McMillan;60129 wrote:

. . . "it’s quite arguable (not to say fairly obvious) that the principal reason members of the emergent bourgeoisie began to bear arms was to claim, or state an aspiration to, the status associated with knights."

. . . is more nuanced than, and is substantially different from, insisting on "the obviousness of the proposition that commoners’ use of arms in the Middle Ages was an attempt to claim noble status," and I am confident your mind is more than subtle enough to see why.

Joseph McMillan;60129 wrote:

You find documentation of knights rejecting it, if you like, but what they thought isn’t the issue.  The issue is what the commoners thought they were doing.  You don’t know, and neither do I, and it doesn’t matter.

I find it paradoxical that you would contend that what the knights thought is not pertinent, but that what the commoners thought they were doing is, because your whole objection to Americans’ assuming supporters turns on anxiety about offending people whose entitlement to supporters is simply better established.

In any case, you have not convincingly rebutted my contention that what knights thought when burghers and peasants started bearing arms is a better indication of whether or not it was viewed as revolutionary, distasteful, etc., than what jurists thought once burgher and peasant arms were a fait accompli. Moreover, it is incumbent upon you to rebut this if you want to convince anyone paying attention that my argument has fallen apart.

Joseph McMillan;60129 wrote:

. If supporters (or anything else) are generally a mark of noble status then they signify something fundamentally alien to American society.

Titles of nobility are fundamentally alien to American society, but you aren’t employing consistent principles to show why this should preclude Americans’ modifying the symbolism of supporters to suit the American context. You endorse burgher and peasant appropriation of heraldic shields at a time when there was at least a general correlation between their use and knightly and/or noble status (the same kind of correlation you see between use of supporters and nobility). You are willing to overlook the fact that that use of helms and crests is the prerogative of only the nobility in certain salient traditions. These choices have a way of making your objection to Americans’ assuming supporters seem rather arbitrary.

Joseph McMillan;60129 wrote:

. Inequality of wealth, talents, achievement, etc., etc., are a universal part of the human condition.  Legally recognized and enforced hereditary privileges for a minority of the population are not.

As far as I know, there is no tradition in any society providing for supporters to signify "more money," "smarter," or "more civic minded."  Indeed, those are themselves bourgeois values that would have curled the upper lips of the nobility of the period we’re discussing.

The first of a noble line was typically someone who demonstrated great virtue and achieved great successes. That his heirs would later ridicule values they would label "bourgeois"—like ambition—cannot gainsay the fact that such values were required to establish their status in the first place. And if they’re such hypocrites, why would you give a hoot about their view of Americans’ use of supporters? But I digress.

We have, and have had, people of great virtue and great success (and their heirs) in the United States—the same kind of people who in ages past were eligible for ennoblement. Whether they have legally recognized and enforced hereditary privileges fundamentally equivalent to those of nobles in ages past is of dubious importance as a determinant of their fitness to use supporters in the here and now, not least because hardly any living nobles retain such privileges.

Joseph McMillan;60129 wrote:

. So you’re now proposing the Canadian model as one to follow in the US?  Is it only the high elected officials and recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to whom you would allow supporters?  We do seem to have shifted our ground, don’t we?

I’m not proposing anything that definite. I cite Canada as a recent precedent for non-nobles using supporters. And I haven’t shifted my ground at all, because I didn’t—as you insinuate—start by saying we should encourage all those who vaguely fit the description of rich, smart, or civic-minded to assume supporters, and then backpedal by saying we should only encourage their assumption by high elected officials and recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Your move.:wink:

Charles E. Drake;60137 wrote:

I had a look at European Nobility and Heraldry by J. H. Pinches with regard to the use of supporters.  I don’t claim this to be authoritative, but . . .

But, in short, Q.E.D.