My aversion to the label is that its use would tend to indicate that other sons use the appropriate marks of cadency as well, which I abhor. For that reason, I think it best to forgo the label unless its use is stipulated in a grant —or in tradition outwith this country—(i.e. arms granted from the CoA or matriculated with Lyon). I suppose I could see its use with an only son.

Dohrman Byers;81918 wrote:

2) Use his father’s shield undifferenced but with a distinctive crest.

3) Use his father’s arms, the shield diffrenced with a label during his father’s lifetime, the crest either the same as his father’s undifferenced or also differenced with a label.

 

4) Use his father’s shield differenced with a label during his father’s lifetime and a distinctive crest.

I personally dislike using a different crest alone for difference, since if the shield is shown without the crest, there is no difference. If one doesn’t need to difference the shield, why difference at all?

I see no problem with the label. After all, it has been used by the eldest son for centuries. If one doesn’t want a label, then perhaps some other difference, such as a tincture change.

hi Doc. i disagree as i’ve said before on this issue of differencing. from an art perspective with the compounding differences it becomes very ugly. and i agree with others that it serves no practical use anymore. but, i will admit that in this case it seems to be a matter of taste. so, de gustibus and all that.

Charles E. Drake;81923 wrote:

I see no problem with the label. After all, it has been used by the eldest son for centuries.

Agreed. My complaint here again is that if the label is used for the eldest son, logically the other marks ought to be used for any subsequent sons. Unless of course the other sons do not bear arms at all while the father is alive, which is of course an option.

Charles E. Drake;81923 wrote:

If one doesn’t want a label, then perhaps some other difference, such as a tincture change.

But the label is a temporary difference. That is how it specifically differs from the other marks of cadency. A tincture change would actually be a change to the arms, historically indicating IIRC a relationship other than direct descent. That to me makes no sense for an eldest son.

Kenneth Mansfield;81932 wrote:

Agreed. My complaint here again is that if the label is used for the eldest son, logically the other marks ought to be used for any subsequent sons. Unless of course the other sons do not bear arms at all while the father is alive, which is of course an option.

Right.  We know one of them has chosen a totally different coat of arms.

Quote:

But the label is a temporary difference. That is how it specifically differs from the other marks of cadency. A tincture change would actually be a change to the arms, historically indicating IIRC a relationship other than direct descent. That to me makes no sense for an eldest son.

Agreed.  I suppose I was thinking here of an alternative to the other marks of cadency for the younger sons. We’ve seen some examples of a whole palette of color changes for younger children—direct descent, though not the primogeniture heir.

For my own arms I tried to keep my label very temporary. My father is now deceased, but while he was alive I avoided commissioning any expensive emblazonments showing a label.  Frugality, I guess.

Having a label at all was really unnecessary since there was no need to distinguish us on the field of battle. The context made it clear whose arms they were.

Charles, you make a good point in my mind.

Labels really only have value when you need to identify the bearer of the arms from his father or son.

The case of a medieval battlefield is one… possibly (and this is a stretch) another instance might be stationary for correspondance or similar things.

Wall plaques and other similar works of art wouldn’t really need the label.

Possibly if items owned were marked then the label may or may not be appropriate, but then a personal badge would be more apt anyhow, right?

I just reread the entire thread.  I didn’t see any reference to differencing from country of origin tradition.  And I’m not the scholar to suggest what that may be - but it would be interesting if some comment was made given the armiger’s interest in maintaining the colors of his heritage.

We have chosen to use the temporary label because it was so easily recognizeable as an heir - And the current armigers don’t intend to die any time soon <grin>  In establishing what I hope to be a family tradition which will extend well beyond my passing, I found a need to personalize for all the children to peak their interest in such a way to not lose the thought of tradition…  knowing that some may die out and some may carry on.  My hope being that the cadet branches will remain able to easily identify their distant cousins by the ravens.

So, the Crest is used for personalization and the females not heraldic heirs have made some charge changes in base (and those are founded in their fathers crest).  Hoping to be around for the beginning of the next generation, it will be interesting to see if interest is retained and if my thoughts on differencing to maintain interest will be borne out.

I would ask the same of this armiger.  Is he a grandfather yet?  does he have more than the two sons?  How does he see this as establishing a tradition?  and decide differencing in consideration of a few generations from now.  Given what’s been shared so far, I’d recommend the following order of differencing decisions:

1.  No difference for heir except the removal of the device on mantle (given different styles of mantle are normally left to the artist, maybe a depiction for him with such).

2.  Difference by temporary label.  which could be carried to his heirs - any artwork would pass to the appropriate generation upon the death of the armiger.  Which could become an heir tradition. - I had hoped to have this done on my brothers side, but…

3. Difference by crest.  So, my nephew can pass his artwork to his son, but will have to have new artwork for himself.  If his son choses not to difference his crest - that generation can establish the tradition outlined in 2 above. (The cadet branches can also difference the shield by tincture, change in charge, etc - if there are any cadet branches using the arms - it is unfortunate the Sgt. does not want to.  He could simply use the shield as is with a tincture change of Sable for Vert which would make a striking design also. or he could make a change like two crossed quills instead of the saltire).

4.  I don’t like differencing by tincture except in cadet branches.

5.  I agree with Kenneth on marks of cadency EXCEPT the temporary label. They are a method of cluttering arms unless you replace a charge with a traditional cadency mark, but not call the charge a cadency mark - which becomes confusing.

Sorry so verbose again….

My preference (as if that matters!) would be #1, followed by #2—because I believe cadency is generally unnecessary and serves no purpose here.

Use of the label on the shield clearly implies, to future generations, that they should use cadency—otherwise only the eldest son would have a difference, while the father, other siblings & cousins would all bear the plain arms.

Michael F. McCartney;81947 wrote:

Use of the label on the shield clearly implies, to future generations, that they should use cadency—otherwise only the eldest son would have a difference, while the father, other siblings & cousins would all bear the plain arms.

Mike, I agree with you that the label would clearly imply the neccessity for use of cadency to families who are ignorant of continental european heraldry and only have exposure to English cadency.  England of course, is not the only country to evidence use of the label (France seems to have occasional use of the label alone without other standardized cadency for cadets)?

JBGarrison;81937 wrote:

Labels really only have value when you need to identify the bearer of the arms from his father or son.

The case of a medieval battlefield is one… possibly (and this is a stretch) another instance might be stationary for correspondance or similar things.

Unless the father and son have identical signatures, the need for differencing on stationery would seem minimal.

The one area where it might make sense would be on seals. The most recent authoritative legal justification for differencing in English heraldry (Coke upon Littleton, 1628 ) rationalizes the practice in terms of land inheritance norms:

Quote:

Gentry and Armes is of the nature of Gavelkind; for they descend to all the sonnes, every sonne being a gentleman alike. Which gentry and armes do not descend to all the brethren alone, but to all their posterity. But yet jure primogeniturae, [by the law of primogeniture] the eldest alone shall beare as a badge of his birthright, his father’s armes without any differences for that as Littleton saith, sectione 5 he is more worthy of his blood but all the younger brethren shall give several differences."

In an era of limited literacy, each landowner needed to have a distinctive seal, without which real estate transactions and other important legal acts were not valid. But the requirement for such actual sealing of documents was abandoned in most of the United States in the first few decades after independence (four reasons: higher literacy, too few seal engravers, too many landowners, and too much real estate trading). Nowadays if you tried to put a wax seal on a title deed, the registrar of deeds at the county courthouse who has to record the paperwork would slap you silly for jamming the feeder on her scanner.

Plus, of course, we don’t have primogeniture in this country, either, having given that up about the same time we gave up the requirement for physical seals on deeds.

JBGarrison;81953 wrote:

Mike, I agree with you that the label would clearly imply the neccessity for use of cadency to families who are ignorant of continental european heraldry and only have exposure to English cadency. England of course, is not the only country to evidence use of the label (France seems to have occasional use of the label alone without other standardized cadency for cadets)?

But only in the stratospheric reaches of the aristocracy, as far as I know.

Those French who used labels for eldest son may not have used the same cadency systems as the Brits for younger sons, cousins etc.—vive la diference & all that—but I would be surprised if they regularly labeled the oldest kid but left the younger brothers with the plain arms of their father.  (And even if some of them did, that strikes me as too silly a practice to emulate).

The French practice most worthy of emulation would IMO be that of the less stratospheric strata who AFAIK seldom if ever used cadency at all, except perhaps for more distant and distinct branches, & even then AFAIK not sub-cadenced (is that a word?) within the branch.

Michael F. McCartney;81957 wrote:

I would be surprised if they regularly labeled the oldest kid but left the younger brothers with the plain arms of their father.  (And even if some of them did, that strikes me as too silly a practice to emulate).

Mike, my apologies for being unclear about this point; I readily submit that I would never suggest using a label for the eldest male while also having no differencing of any kind for his brothers as that would indeed be silly. :rofl:

It would probably help to produce armorials from the continent which actually included members of the same family and/or pedigree charts showing multiple sons’ arms to clarify what possible options existed.  Anyone ever seen continental pedigree charts showing arms or armorials showing siblings?

Thanks, all. This discussion is very helpful. I haven’t had a chance to find out just how Jr. sees the arms and his use of them. With your help, now I’ll be able to explain the different options to him a liitle better. I’ll keep you posted.

Please forgive my ignorance for this but I’m trying to learn it all as I go along.  I thought that once an arms was created it was passed down from generation to generation.  Is it that easy for someone to just say "sorry, I don’t like it.  I’m gonna make my own instead." and design something brand new?  I guess since American doesn’t really have the same rules as European countries then it’s possible?  Does that mean that a new line of shield is passed down from that point?  Or could a grandson say "nope, I don’t like yours dad.  I want to go back and use grandpa’s shield instead"?