Joseph McMillan;84755 wrote:

Whatever they’re properly called, I tend to agree with Fred on this one.

Although it occurs to me that someone will then decide to display his and his wife’s arms side by side, with a single tenant placed on the outside of each shield.  And once you’ve done that, what could be wrong with impaling the arms, with the pertinent tenant on the corresponding side of the shield.  And then the kids quarter the two coats and keep the tenants, which are now, in the space of one generation, supporters.

 

And then the great-great-grandkids see the painting and conclude that they are the descendants of a long line of viscounts, probably originating from a country that doesn’t have viscounts.

Glad to find some common ground.

You’re optimistic about serious heraldry becoming a widespread practice in the U.S., aren’t you? Or are you really just concerned with the great-great-grandkids of the tiny number of people engaged in it now? Unless we’re a crowd prone to inbreeding, the tenant-morphing-into supporters scenario isn’t likely, I don’t think. That said, I figure great-great-grandkids given to confabulation like that would engage in it on the basis of a shield and crest alone—one found in a bucket shop to begin with, for that matter.

Dohrman Byers;84773 wrote:

Question: In Joe’s country-by-country survey in post 235, no mention is made of Switzerland. Anyone know anything about the use of supporters in Swiss heraldry?

Charles Drake had this post in the tenant v. supporters thread from a few years ago. It includes Switzerland.

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 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

Fred White;84783 wrote:

I wonder how these figures stack up against, for instance, the UK at that time and the United States today.

I don’t have ready access to Anthony Wagner’s book on the visitations, which would probably provide some evidence.  Francois Velde has some data at http://www.heraldica.org/topics/britain/england2.htm#visitations and pages linked from it.  It looks as if the typical English county had somewhere between 100 and 300 families on whom the heralds stamped their approval at the last visitations and another 100 or so that were using arms and forced to disclaim.  There were 39 counties not counting Monmouthshire (which tended to be treated as part of Wales), so that would put the number of total families using arms at about what, 10,000?  Add in the 1100 or so grants of arms in the 90 years between the English Revolution and the American Revolution and you get about 11,000, give or take a couple of thousand.  (That doesn’t count those who told the heralds to take a hike and kept using their arms regardless.)

The population of England circa 1780 is estimated at 6.5 million.  That’s 1.7 coats of arms per thousand inhabitants.  (Which doesn’t mean that only 0.17% of the population was armigerous—there might be dozens of people entitled to each of the coats of arms after a few generations of descent from the man at the top of the pedigree in the visitation records.)

As for entitlement to supporters, when the younger Pitt formed his first government in 1783 there were 195 English peers, not counting bishops, in the House of Lords.  All the knights of the Garter at this time were either peers, royal princes, or foreigners, so they don’t add to the number of authorized users of supporters.  Don’t know about knights of the Bath, etc.

195 out of 11,000 is about 1.8%.

This doesn’t count people who were using supporters without entitlement, of course.

Kenneth Mansfield;84787 wrote:

Charles Drake had this post in the tenant v. supporters thread from a few years ago. It includes Switzerland.

But note that subsequent discussion showed numerous errors in the Pinches list.

Joseph McMillan;84789 wrote:

The population of England circa 1780 is estimated at 6.5 million.  That’s 1.7 coats of arms per thousand inhabitants. . . . As for entitlement to supporters . . .

Interesting to compare. So roughly 1.4 coats of arms per thousand inhabitants in the U.S. vs. 1.7 in England ca. 1776. I’d say those figures are fairly close. With supporters, there is a stark difference—roughly .29% of the total in the U.S. vs. 1.8% in the UK. About what I would expect, given the understandable reluctance of the supporters-bearing class in England to relocate to the colonies.

As far as Switzerland goes, I would be interested to know if Pinches is even in the ballpark with his claim that supporters are commonly used there.

Jay Bohn;84759 wrote:

[emphasis added]

Maybe I’m not getting what you mean by mere decoration. I have in mind something like the wreath that is emblazoned around the Society’s arms here, but is not, strictly speaking part of the arms because not mentioned in the blazon. If apparent supporters are mere decoration, they cause confusion because they appear to be part of the arms. Almost sounds like something a lawyer would think up: mere decoration, so does not "violate" the "prohibition" on supporters, but always depicted, so I get de facto supporters.

Jay,

I think this clause may have been in response to a tension that I had earlier attempted (perhaps unsuccessfully) to describe-

Major Premise:

Bearing a shield and crest in the United States should not signify any particular social status and is simply a decorative means of identification.

Minor Premise:

The addition of supporters to that shield and crest, likewise, do not signify a particular social status and are another purely decorative aspect of the free expression of heraldry.

To my reasoning the minor premise will be recognized as erroneous, leading to a greater review of the major premise.

All that aside, I don’t think this clause is needed in any revision of the guidelines.

David

David Pope;84807 wrote:

Major Premise:

Bearing a shield and crest in the United States should not signify any particular social status and is simply a decorative means of identification.

[emphasis added]

Is that not akin to saying that music is simply a series of pleasing (or not if i’m making it) sounds?

Heraldry may be for identification and it may be more decorative, certainly more graphic, than writing one’s name everywhere, but it has rules, a structure, that more or less has to be followed or the result is not really heraldry.

But I don’t think that phrase is really your point. I take it that you believe that the more proof is adduced tending to equate supporters with claims to social status, the more heraldty itself is so seen. I do not see why that has to be the case.

Jay Bohn;84814 wrote:

Heraldry may be for identification and it may be more decorative, certainly more graphic, than writing one’s name everywhere, but it has rules, a structure, that more or less has to be followed or the resullt is not really heraldry.

Right.  I guess the hard bit is determining what the rules are for American heraldry, given that there is no legal authority that promulgates such rules.

Jay Bohn;84814 wrote:

I take it that you believe that the more proof is adduced tending to equate supporters with claims to social status, the more heraldty itself is so seen.

Yes.  I think that supporters denote social status above those with "mere" shield and crest.  Likewise, I think that the examples of early American heraldry previously cited establish an American heraldic tradition where arms were assumed only by those who fancied themselves "gentlemen" in accordance with the then-existing British social-status meaning of the word.

This has been an interesting debate.

Personally I would like to change direction just a tad.  Are there any Americans that forum members think should be entitled to life-time supporters ?  Or are supporters so out of line with American heraldry?

eploy;84823 wrote:

This has been an interesting debate.

Personally I would like to change direction just a tad.  Are there any Americans that forum members think should be entitled to life-time supporters ?  Or are supporters so out of line with American heraldry?

As a start, I think life-time supporters would be appropriate for state governors, POTUS, VPOTUS, Flag/General Officers/their equivalent in the Foreign Service, perhaps US Senators after sufficient tenure, etc.

Jay Bohn;84814 wrote:

I take it that you believe that the more proof is adduced tending to equate supporters with claims to social status, the more heraldry itself is so seen. I do not see why that has to be the case.

Perhaps it doesn’t have to be the case, but it is unquestionably the case. The international norm is to equate use of heraldry with a claim—ambiguous yet definite—of elevated social status. One is free to agitate for a new direction in American heraldry that completely dismisses that international (and historic American) norm, but then it becomes hypocritical to oppose a flexible attitude towards the use of supporters, doesn’t it?

David Pope;84825 wrote:

As a start, I think life-time supporters would be appropriate for state governors, POTUS, VPOTUS, Flag/General Officers/their equivalent in the Foreign Service, perhaps US Senators after sufficient tenure, etc.

That’s about how I’d conceive of it, too, though if—for instance—an ex-POTUS were to assume arms with supporters, I’d have a hard time seeing why his male-line descendants wouldn’t be justified in inheriting the whole kit.

ok…didn’t want to post more than once but….

i believe the idea of supporters to any person simply because of the public office they held is anathema (sp?) to the basic ideals of the republic we live in. supporters for the politically powerful and not those who made them so? no, sorry, but may God spare us from such elitism. either it’s good for all based on them being an American or not at all especially when faced with the notion that somehow those people are better than the rest of us, which reserving it for such persons screams out imo. besides…who would make that call?...no heraldic agency…so who decides what is sufficient "service"? sorry, but just can’t go for that.

Donnchadh;84828 wrote:

. . . but may God spare us from such elitism.

But Denny, how do you resolve the paradox that heraldry is intrinsically elitist yet at the same time appropriate for citizens of a republic? My sense is that you have to observe that our ideal is equality before the law, and liberty to rise or fall in all other spheres of life, so that you can acknowledge that elitism fits quite comfortably here. Is there some other way of resolving it?