Quote:
Arms of the town of Füssen, Bavaria:
Heheh, that’s pretty funny, a town called feet with a triskelion as its arms. Gotta love those clever bits of heraldry that make you wonder if the people that designed them were just that banal or if they chuckled at it themselves.
Cristian A. C.;64793 wrote:
Heheh, that’s pretty funny, a town called feet with a triskelion as its arms. Gotta love those clever bits of heraldry that make you wonder if the people that designed them were just that banal or if they chuckled at it themselves.
I don’t see canting heraldry as being either banal or an attempt to be funny- it’s an attempt to be obvious. If you want people to know that these are the arms of a town called Feet, why wouldn’t you put feet on it? It beats the heck out of creating arms with a city wall and water (since so many cities think that having a river or port makes them unique among cities).
Cantings are very common, even in the more regulated English heraldry. I am sure the hearlds there would be offended to have their work called banal. Perhaps it is the Fussen name you find banal.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b7/Oxford_COA.gif
Oxford shows an ox crossing a ford.
http://es.geocities.com/endovelico2001/dibus/escudos/leon.gif
Leon
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/96/Castile_Arms.svg/100px-Castile_Arms.svg.png
Castile
http://www.geocities.com/skildsoom/BowesLyon.gif
Bowes Lyon
Cristian A. C.;64793 wrote:
Heheh, that’s pretty funny, a town called feet with a triskelion as its arms. Gotta love those clever bits of heraldry that make you wonder if the people that designed them were just that banal or if they chuckled at it themselves.
Dang! Canting arms? You mean the descendants of Achilles didn’t settle in the Bavarian Alps? And here I thought that was why Empress Elizabeth of Austria-Hungary (a princess of the Bavarian ruling House of Wittelsbach) called her palace in Corfu the Achilleon. Furthermore, I note from Wikipedia that Füssen is the closest train station to the Wittelsbach palaces of Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau.
And, the clincher as far as I’m concerned, it turns out that Füssen’s sister city is Helen, Georgia. See? Who was the Trojan War fought over? Helen.
Mere coincidence? I think not! Canting arms indeed! Clearly the town took its name from the arms and not the other way around.
http://tourismus-fuessen.de/fileadmin/images/content/fuessen_sprachen/pdf/Sales_Guide_engl.pdf
Quote
"""
In historical times the district was settled by a Celtic tribe
and from 15 BC was romanised through the
campaigns of Augustus’s stepsons Tiberius and
Drusus.
1175 the German name Fozen emerged.
.....
Be that as it may, on both occasions the Roman
terms occur in connection with the military: on the one hand,
they refer to a "praepositus Fotensium" (= commander of the
Füssen troops), and on the other, to a military camp "Foetibus"
(Foetes). The monks of St Mang called the site of their
monastery "ad fauces" (= at the gorge), and in
1175 the German name Fozen emerged.
The oldest known seal imprint was dated to 1311!
136 years is a very short time to go from the (at the "Gorge" to the "Feet")
especially in Latin!
I have a hard time believing that Fozen means "Feet!
Nobody knows if it isn’t older!
Looks like Joseph could write a The da Vinchi Codesque novel…
Here is one for Joseph,
There is only one problem,
Fozen and F(oe)t are not equal (not the same)!:!:
And it was written 1997
I wish they could make up their mind:!:
Quote
The name Füssen was first recorded as "fotensium" by the Romans, and it means "site at the gorge." The German name "Fozen" appeared in 1175. Füssen’s coat of arms shows three feet. When the settlement was granted town status, the name was "Fvezzen" which was interpreted as "feet." So the coat of arms has three feet on it (1317).
It doesn’t show three feet
it depicts three LEGS!
Hhmmm :?:
The summary is—-THEY DON’T KNOW!
Here is one who calls the whole "feet" thing in so many words "Bull…."
A saga without scientific foundation!
This is a common occurrence that you are trying to ignore. Eke name was the original form of nickname. The N’s are often lost or added to words in English because of the a/an rule. So in time, eke name became neke name. When the word eke was forgotten, it was corrupted and became nick.
Similar sounds often do this, and such is common across different languages or as languages evolve.
So your Foetes in Latin could become corrupted as the Germans forgot their Latin teaching, and became corrupted to sound like Fussen in the several hundred years they had between the end of Roma and the date of your seal.
Frank Martinoff;64803 wrote:
It doesn’t show three feet
it depicts three LEGS!
If the legs didn’t have feet on the end of them, you might have a point.
As it stands, I don’t think you do.
Yea, I guess banal is a bit more negative than I was shooting for, but at the same time, a city called Fuessen with a coat of arms that has 3 feet in it (albeit attached to legs) is a fairly comical thing, IMO. Leon and Castilla a bit too obvious to do it for me (although I like the actual arms themselves), but Bowes Lyon and Oxford are definitely clever coats of arms. I guess I just tend to enjoy seeing coat of arms that are based off names.
And as for the name of the town, I really don’t think it matters what the name was intended to mean by the Romans in this context. The name currently means "feet," your evidence suggests it’s been known by that for quite a while, and the the coat of arms clearly has 3 feet on it, attached to legs as they may be. 
I’d be surprised if the arms’ designers didn’t have that notable a fact about the city in mind at all.
xanderliptak;64805 wrote:
This is a common occurrence that you are trying to ignore. Eke name was the original form of nickname. The N’s are often lost or added to words in English because of the a/an rule. So in time, eke name became neke name. When the word eke was forgotten, it was corrupted and became nick.
Similar sounds often do this, and such is common across different languages or as languages evolve.
So your Foetes in Latin could become corrupted as the Germans forgot their Latin teaching, and became corrupted to sound like Fussen in the several hundred years they had between the end of Roma and the date of your seal.
Correct Alex!
Why am I defending Josephs theory!
In the meantime
Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!
Frank Martinoff;64778 wrote:
Hi Patrick,
Any sincere comment is helping and not "dumping"!!!
Yes this could be a possibility!
Your comments are much appreciated,
I posted it here for sincere comments like yours
and was hoping that all of you could/would help
to make sense out of it!
It’s just a "theory"
worth a discussion,
and not a "pet-theory";)
As you can see by the title of this thread,
that I was looking for members who know a little more about
this time frame!
And "yes" I only can speculate!
With my sincerest regards,
Frank
Frank:
Glad to hear that my comments were well-received. All I can add is that "there is nothing new under the sun". While what we call heraldry today probably arose around the year 1200 in Flanders, that’s a pretty big probably. I find it hard to believe that nobody before that used a particular device to identify themselves, and it may have even been heritable (read about the tamgas of Poland, Russia and Turkey sometime). At some point or other, it’s quite likely that someone, somewhere, used a particular device (and maybe even on a shield) to identify themselves as an individual. But ... we strongly believe that the peculiar system we call heraldy today arose directly out of Flanders in the 1200’s and have no evidence that it was used before. At least not in the same way.
Now, Frank, you are not the first person to question the roots of heraldry, or to ascribe it to ancient luminaries (see the 9 Worthies, heck, even God Himself has had arms ascribed - and more than once!) But, as you may have gathered from the replies you’ve received, we’re happy with the Flanders theory and you probably won’t make much headway with competing theories. Here, at least.
Happy days!
Patrick
Hi Patrick,
Your are speaking from my soul!
"I find it hard to believe that nobody before that used a particular device to identify themselves"
Especially since so many examples say otherwise!
Also this is nothing new, but just see it as a reminder!
http://www.bild-hoster.de/images/FrankMartinoff/ssyrian.jpg
http://www.bild-hoster.de/images/FrankMartinoff/rosseslandeswappenbadenwuerttemberg.png
Just like to shake those good old trees and castles a little bit
to see if something falls off or what they are made of!
Would be satisfied if a small percentage of you
will remember this thread!
With my sincerest regards,
Frank
Frank Martinoff;64817 wrote:
"I find it hard to believe that nobody before that used a particular device to identify themselves"
Especially since so many examples say otherwise!
Yes, but not in an organized sense as we see heraldry. This is the big difference - the organization and codification of rules. While it is certain that others previously to 1200 in Flanders used identifying marks for themselves, the rules, which make it a scientific system of heritable identification weren’t there. This is a big, Big, BIG difference. Therefore, it was not (as we define it), I repeat; NOT heraldry.
Further, in order for your initial question (as I understand it) to be valid, you would have to demonstrate that:
a) The triskelion was used by Achilles,
b) Achilles was a real person,
c) The triskelion was continually used by this real Achilles’ heirs as a form of identificiation,
d) Nobody else, in any culture, used the triskelion as a form of identification,
e) The heirs of Achilles migrated to what is now the Isle of Man.
I somehow doubt that could be accomplished.
