In perusing d’Hozier volume by volume, rereading Francois Velde’s writing on French heraldry, and glancing at the odd armorial in Googlebooks, I’ve gotten the impression that French blazons never describe anything except the shield. Is anything else a French coat of arms might include deemed inessential, or have I gotten a mistaken impression?

Another d’Hozier question—obviously linked to my thread about potential blazon changes to my own arms:

I have now gone through every volume of d’Hozier and looked at every coat of arms associated with the names le Blanc and Blanc, and with quite a few associated with cognates like Blanchard and Blanchet. Over and over again, one sees some variation on "azure, a white swan." What’s more, one sees that very blazon repeated for le Blancs in multiple regions. I think I understand the dynamics of the compilation of the Grand Armorial, but is it conceivable that there’s something other than laziness on the pursuivants’/heralds’ part going on here?

Fred White;85136 wrote:

In perusing d’Hozier volume by volume, rereading Francois Velde’s writing on French heraldry, and glancing at the odd armorial in Googlebooks, I’ve gotten the impression that French blazons never describe anything except the shield. Is anything else a French coat of arms might include deemed inessential, or have I gotten a mistaken impression?

If you look at Rietstap, you’ll see some arms blazoned with a cimier, or crest, and sometimes the blazon will say that the arms are timbree with a coronet or the like.  The blazons written long after the fact to go with the d’Hozier Armorial describe only the shield because the Armorial General de France depicts only the shield.

Is the shield not the only essential thing?  That’s what is truly distinctive of the bearer.

Joseph McMillan;85142 wrote:

Is the shield not the only essential thing?  That’s what is truly distinctive of the bearer.

Well, it’s clearly the sine qua non of a coat of arms across all traditions, but it seems that in the Anglosphere the crest is regarded as a sufficiently fixed part of the arms that it would be noted in an armorial analogous to d’Hozier. But maybe it wasn’t always so.

Fred White;85143 wrote:

it seems that in the Anglosphere the crest is regarded as a sufficiently fixed part of the arms that it would be noted in an armorial analogous to d’Hozier. But maybe it wasn’t always so.

And, so to speak, still isn’t so. Whilst the crest - in the form of the strap & buckle crest badge - seems a pretty essential part of Scottish heraldry, the two Ordinaries of arms produced by the Lyon Court describe only the shield without any of the exterior additments such as crest, motto or supporters.

Colonel Gayre produced Lyon Register volume 1 as a roll of blazons that include these items, but for later volumes there is no such published source other than the pay-per-view copy of the register on the Scotland’s People website.

For those who enjoy the unintentional humour caused by the casual attitude to spelling in the 17th and 18th centuries, Gayre can also be a treat as it reproduces the spelling of the Register. I have always liked the Brisbane crest of a mound covered in *aunts*. Quite a challenge for the heraldic artist :-D

James

Fred,

I believe that I am correct in saying that the use of a crest in French heraldry has never courted the same popularity as in some other countries on Continental Europe and even then there is a fair amount of ambiguity in relation to the crest.  Only within the British Isles there has been a wholesale use of the crest as part of the heraldic achievement; although it must said that there are few ancient families who never adopted or were granted/confirmed a crest.  Here it should be noted that today a prospective grantee may petition for arms alone when dealing with Lyon Court and forgo petitioning for a crest.  Most noble families in France either use the shield only with their coronet of rank resting on the shield (which appears the most common usage) or the shield and a helmet set with their coronet with not a crest in sight.  Non nobles in France were prohibited using a helmet and crest and therefore they were only in possession of a shield.

The above is undoubtedly the reason why d’Hozier is not awash with crests.

With every good wish

John

liongam;85147 wrote:

Most noble families in France either use the shield only with their coronet of rank resting on the shield (which appears the most common usage) or the shield and a helmet set with their coronet with not a crest in sight.  Non nobles in France were prohibited using a helmet and crest and therefore they were only in possession of a shield.

Just to add some more to what John said, my copy of von Volborth says that for the French untitled nobility (i.e., the gentilhommes), they could display above their shields a helm and mantling.  There was no coronet of rank for gentilhommes.  French burgher arms are usually indistinguishable from gentilhomme arms save for the fact that burghers were not supposed to display a helm or mantling above their shield.  Of course, this rule was often ignored.  Crests are very rare in French heraldry.

eploy;85153 wrote:

... the French untitled nobility (i.e., the gentilhommes)...

A possibly pedantic point, but relevant to discussions in other threads on the concept of the gentleman:  gentilhomme does not mean "untitled noble" in French.  It refers to a man who is noble by birth rather than by office or by letters patent.  This is the origin of the maxim that the king can make someone a nobleman but not a gentleman; the king of France could have issued letters patent making his valet a count, but the valet still would not be a gentilhomme.  If the nobility conferred by the letters patent was hereditary, however, any son born later born to the valet would be a gentilhomme.

According to François Velde’s heraldica.org page on "Nobility and Titles in France," http://www.heraldica.org/topics/france/noblesse.htm#untitled, an untitled nobleman who had no higher style (such as chevalier) was described as an écuyer, or esquire.

Joseph McMillan;85154 wrote:

A possibly pedantic point, but relevant to discussions in other threads on the concept of the gentleman:  gentilhomme does not mean "untitled noble" in French.

According to François Velde’s heraldica.org page on "Nobility and Titles in France," http://www.heraldica.org/topics/france/noblesse.htm#untitled, an untitled nobleman who had no higher style (such as chevalier) was described as an écuyer, or esquire.

I am certain that I was using von Volborth’s own description when I made my entry.  Sadly, I do not have his book right in front of me at the moment (I am working from memory).

But I do understand your point:  I was using the terms interchangeably when that is not the case.  Thanks for the correction.

In the Spanish tradition only the eldest offspring of the valet/count would be noble by blood (hidalgo), not his/her younger siblings. In the third generation, all of the valet/count’s grandchildren by his primogenitor would be hidalgos by blood.  Since armoral status is completely disconnected from nobility in Spain and the Spanish speaking world all of the above valet/count’s offspring, not just the eldest inherit his arms, but without the external indicators of his rank of count.

Rgards,

eploy;85155 wrote:

I am certain that I was using von Volborth’s own description when I made my entry.  Sadly, I do not have his book right in front of me at the moment (I am working from memory).

But I do understand your point:  I was using the terms interchangeably when that is not the case.  Thanks for the correction.

You may both be right, Joe about French nobility, and Edward about his own recall.  From von Volborth:

Quote:

The untitled French nobleman (gentilhomme) does not use a coronet.  Theoretically the only difference between his arms and the arms of a bourgeois or routurier is that the latter is not supposed to use a helm.  Crests are rare as they never played the important role in France that they played in Great Britain or Germany.

Crests were just as common in France as in England or Germany in the 14th century, this is obvious from a quick glance through the Gelre or Bellenville armorials. The equestrian figures in the Grand armorial of the Golden Fleece in the 15th century mostly (but not all) have crests also. In the 17th century Menestrier was able to write extensively on crests in his "Origine des ornements exterieurs des armoiries" (1680), indeed crests were still being granted there in at least 1662 when the king enobled someone - the text of a such grant is given in Menestrier from which it is clear this was one of the priviledges of nobility. What seems to have done for them is the fashion from the 17-18th centuries for using coronets of rank alone above shields and the fashion for lower ranks to assume coronets of superior ranks. No doubt the lack of space to draw crests in the certificates issued by the Hoziers also was an influence and in the 18th century grants or concessions of arms by them following the grantees enoblements make no mention of crests. Pastoureau suggests that the decline in crest use started in the 16th century, he gives 15th century examples of roturiers with crests on their shields and he says that even up to the end of the ancien regime some were used, so no general conclusions are absolute.

Incidentally, there is still a division in Belgium between the francophone areas where crests are rare and the Flemish areas where they are common and the respective heraldic societies have refused to register or registered them accordingly.

Derek Howard

So, basically, is it correct to say that—ultimately—crests were far from de rigueur in France, and that unless one were a nobleman, it would generally have been misleading to use one? That’s my impression, based on what I’ve read and what the forum is saying. It sounds like even to use a helm was to make a particular claim of status.

Fred White;85213 wrote:

So, basically, is it correct to say that—ultimately—crests were far from de rigueur in France, and that unless one were a nobleman, it would generally have been misleading to use one? That’s my impression, based on what I’ve read and what the forum is saying. It sounds like even to use a helm was to make a particular claim of status.

Correct.  By a decree of Philip III in 1283, it was forbidden to roturiers (commoners) to timbrer their arms, i.e., to display them with anything on top of the shield.  (http://cluaran.free.fr/mb/bib/droit_heraldique.html)

Joseph McMillan;85224 wrote:

Correct.  By a decree of Philip III in 1283, it was forbidden to roturiers (commoners) to timbrer their arms, i.e., to display them with anything on top of the shield.  (http://cluaran.free.fr/mb/bib/droit_heraldique.html)

I would be a bit cautious about that statement. I have not seen a copy of that decree. Philippe III reigned in the nobility heavily determining seignorial jurisdiction in favour of royal tribunals, fined nobles not turning up for the army and imposed taxation on inheritance of fiefs - ot the sort of policies giving them priviledges - so it just does not sound right. More to the point, neither this decree nor king Philippe III, le Hardi are mentioned by Mathieu in his "Le système héraldique français", 1946, 201-210, in which he discusses the history of crests in France with details of legislation and tables of stats.

Having shown that there were many medieval roturiers with crests and many nobles without, he dates the legal restriction of crests to the nobility to the 16th century - an arrêt(judgement) of the Paris Parlement (a court not a parliament) in 1556 ordered the removal of crested arms borne by a roturier who falsly claimed the status of nobility.

The Etats généraux (a parliament) at Blois in 1560 demanded the public right to bear a crest be expressly reserved to the nobility and in 1561 the ordonnance of Orléans, article 110 prohibited roturiers from bearing crests upon pain of arbitary penalties. This was reiterated in 1579 and confirmed in 1583.

There were two judgements of the parlement of Dijon in 1607 and 1608 against cases of unlawful placing of crests on tombs. Then in 1634 an edict on the taille (tax) fixed a penalty of 2000 livres for roturiers bearing crests with their arms. Royal declarations against usurpers of titles of nobility reiterated this in 1656, 1661 and 1665 which were applied with rigour. The Cour des aides condemned and fined many roturiers from 1662-65 for placing helmets above their arms.

There were further relevant judgements in the 18th century and a further ordonnance of 1760 repeating the prohibition on roturiers having crests with a penalty of 3000 livres but this seems not to have been applied.

Mathieu gives plenty of stats from examining medieval seals to show that in the 14th century many roturiers had crests, lords meanwhile had as many uncrested arms as crested ones, while in the 15th century, lords had more crested arms than uncrested. (He also discusses at length a misreading of a grant in 1371 to the bourgeois of Paris, allegedly allowing them to use crests, which he shows is an error introduced by a 15th century translation).

Derek Howard

Derek Howard;85235 wrote:

I would be a bit cautious about that statement. I have not seen a copy of that decree. Philippe III reigned in the nobility heavily determining seignorial jurisdiction in favour of royal tribunals, fined nobles not turning up for the army and imposed taxation on inheritance of fiefs - ot the sort of policies giving them priviledges - so it just does not sound right. More to the point, neither this decree nor king Philippe III, le Hardi are mentioned by Mathieu in his "Le système héraldique français", 1946, 201-210, in which he discusses the history of crests in France with details of legislation and tables of stats.

I ought to know better than to believe claims of heraldic regulation going back that far!  Thanks for the correction.