It should also be noted that the College of Arms doesn’t claim jurisdiction over the arms of foreignors of English descent living in countries that aren’t part of the Commonwealth. That’s why any arms they grant to Americans are honorary. Just as any Knighthoods granted by the Crown to Americans are also honorary. This is due to their acknowledgment that if you aren’t an English subject they have no jurisdiction over you.
ok. then i incorrectly understand LL’s position. i know that Norry/Ulster and CHI have granted arms to Irishmen living/citizens both north and south of the border. i also know that CHI claims, or at least used to before his validity was questioned, dominion over Irish exiles—MacLysaght said as much and the grants of arms to foreign nationals of Irish ancestry is clear in the grants from him on down to at least before the limbo status of CHI which seems to be worked out now. for some reason i thought LL had the same position. my bad. thanks for clearing that up.
p.s. a part of the CHI justification was the irish constitution not recognizing the division of northern ireland and the republic. but, unless i’m mistaken the irish amended that around the time of the Good Friday Agreement. not sure if CHI and Norry/Ulster stopped doing that then or not, but there is talk that O Morchoe, an irish republic citizen, did have his arms done up by English college of arms when he was elevated in one of his British Orders.
Andrew Stewart Jamieson;88751 wrote:
America kicked out all that Old World nonsense in favour of the enlightenment. You are creating your own heraldic traditions. Down the British, Up the Rebels!
Many of us who were born here in America, as were generations of our forefathers before us, are still Britons in terms of ethnicity. The Island of Great Britain (Prydain Mawr) takes its name from the people who were it’s earliest indigenous inhabitants - the Britons (Prytani). In fact, many people who consider themselves English, Welsh, Scots and Cornish are in actuality descendants of the ancient Britons, whose tribes were the earliest known denizens of the island before the Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Scoto-Hibernian and Norman invasions which would follow centuries later.
Despite these subsequent invasions, the majority of the population of Britain remains the descendants of the native Celtic Britons, a people who the Germanic Anglo-Saxons referred to as Welas meaning "strangers", from which the modern words Welsh and Wales are derived. The Britons of Ystrad Clud, Rheged, and Goddodin, which were located in the Scottish Lowlands were ethnically and culturally the same people who are known as the Welsh today, though in Scotland they became the ancestors of the Lowland Scots.
The Picts themselves were simply non-Romanised Britons, as the Romans didn’t conquer the entire island of Britain, they ended up building a coast to coast fortification (Hadrian’s Wall) to separate Romanised Britain from the non-Romanised Britons living in the northern third of the island of Britain. Because the Britons living north of Hadrian’s Wall were not under Roman control, they retained their own indigenous native Celtic culture and language, whereas the Britons living south of Hadrian’s wall were more influenced by Roman ways and manners.
The names Briton and Britain themselves come from the Celtic words Prytani and Prydain, which the Britons used to refer to themselves and their island. These words are derived from the Celtic root word Pryd, meaning "to mark" or "draw" and refer to the native Briton practice of painting or tattooing their skin with designs using a dye or ink obtained from the woad plant which produces a blue color; a trait described by Herod of Antioch in the 3rd century A.D., who wrote: "The Britons incise on their bodies coloured pictures of animals, of which they are very proud." So the Britons (or Prytani, as they called themselves in their own language) were the "painted" or "tattooed people".
This is something Julius Caesar himself remarked about in his journals when he invaded Britain in 54 B.C.:
Quote:
"The mainland of Britain is inhabited by a people who claim to be indigenous to the island, on the coast live the immigrant Belgae, who crossed over for war and pillage, but settled to cultivate the land…Those living inland do not sow grain but live on milk and meat and wear clothes of animal hides. All Britons paint their skin with woad which makes them blue and more terrifying to confront in battle."
The immigrant Belgae, mentioned by Caesar as having settled on the coast of Britain, were a group of Gallic tribes which included the Cimbri, who had formerly inhabited the Himmerland in the Jutland peninsula of Denmark, prior to the occupation of that region by the Germanic Danes The Greek historian Plutarch mentions the Cimbri in his Life of Gaius Marius (written in 75 A.D.), describing the Cimbri as "Galloscythians" who had migrated westward and were known to the Greeks as "Cimmerians", describing their homeland in the darkest and remotest location "extending into the interior [of Europe] as far as the Hercynian forest….and from this region, the people, anciently called Cimmerii, and afterwards by an easy change, Cimbri." Somewhat earlier, in about 60 B.C., Diodorus Siculus wrote:
Quote:
"the valour of these people [the Britons] and their….ways have been famed abroad. Some men say that it was they who in ancient times overran all of Asia [Minor] and were called "Cimmerians" - time having corrupted the word into the name "Cimbrians" [Brythonic: "Cymru"] as they are now called."
The Cimbri, or Cymric tribes as they were known in Britain, were descendants of the ancient Cimmerians who originally inhabited what is now the Crimea on the northern shores of the Black Sea bordering Scythia, until they were scattered after generations of intramural struggles for rulership with competing Scythian tribes; not unlike the events described in the Lebor Gabala Erenn.
While the Britons living in the southern two-thirds of Britain became more "civilized" under Roman military rule and adopted Roman ways and manners, the Britons living in the northern third of the island beyond Roman control retained their own native Celtic customs and practices, which included tattooing their skin with woad. Thus by the end of the third century AD, the Romans began to refer to the Britons living in the northern third of the island as the "Picti" or Picts (from the Latin word Pictus, meaning "painted").
The term Pict first appears in a in a verse praising the emperor Constantius Chlorus written by the Roman orator Eumenius in 297 AD; while in 416 A.D. the Roman poet Claudian wrote:"This legion, set to guard the furthest Britons, curbs the savage Scot and studies the designs marked with iron on the face of the dying Pict".
The original Scots were not native to the country now called Scotland (which did not exist until the High Middle Ages), but were a tribe of Gaels who inhabited the north of Ireland. These Gaels or Scotti, as they were known to the Romans, eventually established an outpost colony called Dalriada in what is now Argyllshire around the year 500 A.D. About 350 years later, Kenneth MacAlpine, a descendant of both the royal lines of the Irish Scots of Dalriada and of the Picts (who were descendants of the native Britons that inhabited the non-Romanized northern third of Britain) united both tribes to form the Kingdom of Alba, which would eventually become known as "Scotland" several centuries later. At one time Ireland was referred to (in Latin) as Scotia after the Gaels or Scotti. When the Scotti emigrated to the northern third of Britain, that part of Britain came to be known as Scotia Minor while Ireland was known as Scotia Major.
These Irish Scots, together with the Picts and some Viking admixture, became the ancestors of the Highlanders. The Lowland Scots were descended mainly from the native Celtic Britons and Picts together with a bit of admixture from the Angles who came to Britain from Germany during the Dark Ages and settled in Bernicia (Northumbria).
The Gaels who first came to Ireland from the European continent by way of Spain were of Scythian origin. Scythia was a vast region that in ancient times encompassed much of Eastern Europe including present day Ukraine and the Caucasus. The Scythians were known by many names: Scyths, Sacae, Skuthes, Skuda, Scoloti, etc. (meaning "archers") and from them the Gaelic tribe known as the Scotti or Scots is descended. It was in that part of Scythia, located along the current Polish-Ukranian border, that the ancient province of Galicia is found. Galicia was the original homeland of the Gallic people, who were the earliest ancestors of the Gauls of Europe, and the Gaels of Ireland and Scotland. This history is recalled in the words of the Scottish Declaration of Arbroath, addressed to the Pope in 1320:
Quote:
“Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today. The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and, even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as the historians of old time bear witness, they have held it free of all bondage ever since."
The Scythian origin of the Scots is also recorded in the text known as Chronica de Origine Antiquorum Pictorum (The Pictish Chronicle), which is based on an earlier work, dating to the 7th century, entitled Etymologiae by Isidore of Seville, who wrote:
Quote:
“The race of the Picts has a name derived from the appearance of their bodies. These are played upon by a needle working with small pricks and by the squeezed-out sap of a native plant, so that they bear the resultant marks according to the personal rank of the individual, their painted limbs being tattooed to show their high birth. The Scots, now incorrectly referred to as Irishmen, are really Scotti, because they originated from the land of the Scythians…..It is a well known fact that the Britons arrived in Britain during the third Age of Man (the time between Abraham and David), while the Scotti, that is the Scots, migrated into Scotia or Ireland during the fourth Age of Man (the time between David and Daniel). The Scythian people are born with white hair due to the everlasting snow; and the colour of their hair gives name to the people, and thus they are called Albani: From this people both Scots and Picts descend. Their eyes are so brightly coloured that they are able to see better by night than by day. The Albani people were also neighbours with the Amazones. The Scythian territory was once so large that it reached from India in the east, through the marshland of Meotidas (the Sea of Azov), till the borders of Germania.”
Thus it can be argued that the various ethnic groups of the Old World are not restricted to the countries in which they at one time settled; but are found here in the New World as well; as in today’s world ethnicity is no longer discernable by one’s place of residence or geographic location, but is determined by ancestry.
Caledonia ~ You’ll learn Andy’s sense of humor in time. It took me, American, time to get used to his British humor. Don’t tell him I told you this but they don’t get any nicer than him. He is incredibly proud of his Scots/Viking ancestry. I learned a lot from your post thank you! Now, I’m going to go back and read it again with Andy…to be honest a few bits escaped me.
Very interesting. Also interesting, for those who don’t know, is that paying members of the Society have a section in the Member Area called "Off-Topic" where things like the native inhabitants of Great Britain can be discussed.
I’m just sayin’ is all.
Andrew Stewart Jamieson;88751 wrote:
America kicked out all that Old World nonsense in favour of the enlightenment. You are creating your own heraldic traditions. Down the British, Up the Rebels!
There’s absolutely no difference in the status of assumed vs. granted arms in the US.
Kenneth Mansfield;88757 wrote:
Very interesting. Also interesting, for those who don’t know, is that paying members of the Society have a section in the Member Area called "Off-Topic" where things like the native inhabitants of Great Britain can be discussed.
I’m just sayin’ is all.
I am still considering whether or not to become a paying member of the American Heraldry Society. I certainly support the recognition and use of heraldry in America; but I have yet to determine how well my views and those of the American Heraldry Society would mesh. We shall see.
Suzzane, allow me to also extend my welcome to the forum. I’ve mentioned earlier that there are far to few women here although I’m delighted to notice that recently, the numbers are increasing.
Your Scandinavian roots of course, intrigue me.
Caledonian,
Thanks for the Gallic/Celtic history of Scotland. Please do consider joining our society; it is not necessary to fully agree with absolutely every official position of our society to be a member (we are not a church).
Caledonian;88759 wrote:
I am still considering whether or not to become a paying member of the American Heraldry Society. I certainly support the recognition and use of heraldry in America; but I have yet to determine how well my views and those of the American Heraldry Society would mesh. We shall see.
Me too. It’s been a bumpy ride so far. :marine:
http://www.americanheraldry.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6230&highlight=differencing+of+historic+arms
Kathy McClurg;88758 wrote:
Regardless of the history lesson - I agree with Andy. We purposely left that behind when we decided we’d had enough long distance government.
There’s absolutely no difference in the status of assumed vs. granted arms in the US.
I agree as well; we left behind a great deal of divine right nonsense and its hierarchical social-structure to attempt to build a more egalitarian society; although it seems lately that those who have been allowed to run rampant in the way of corporate greed and unbridled plutocratic excess are indeed bent on establishing a new form of feudalism here in America, with its own clear divisions between the aristocracy and the peasantry.
Luis Cid;88765 wrote:
Caledonian,
Thanks for the Gallic/Celtic history of Scotland. Please do consider joining our society; it is not necessary to fully agree with absolutely every official position of our society to be a member (we are not a church).
You’re welcome, although I didn’t really intend for it to be a history lesson so much as a discussion of how (especially these days) national boundaries mean less and less in terms of what ethnicities are found in any given geographic area, and that ethnicity really doesn’t change when a person or their family moves from one country to another. Throughout history people have always been on the move in terms of conquests, invasions and immigration, which changes the ethnic makeup of nations. A mere 400 years ago, what is now the United States was inhabited entirely by the Native American people who today make up only about 1% of the American population. Today the population of Great Britain contains a growing number of people of Asian, Indian, Middle Eastern and African descent; so as America became home to more and more Britons of English, Scottish and Welsh descent; Britain itself is becoming home to more and more people of Pakistani, Chinese, Indian, Afro-Caribbean, Somali, and other nationalities that will forever change the face of the British Isles. For this reason, I feel that even though I and my ancestors before me were born in America going back to the 1600’s, we remain ethnically what we were before making that journey across the Atlantic to settle the New World; even as the ethnic makeup of the Old World continues to be redefined through new waves of immigrants to the countries we left behind.
Andrew Stewart Jamieson;88729 wrote:
. . . . if someone tells me I should not do something, well I just turn round and do it. . . . I love to watch people waste time and get all riled up by this stuff. Seems to work ;-D It’s the devil in me.
:wink: Wise words; I like. Now that’s chutzpah!
Kathy McClurg;88758 wrote:
There’s absolutely no difference in the status of assumed vs. granted arms in the US.
I would even go one step further. The heraldic authorities that grant the “granted arms” do not have jurisdiction outside of their respective boarders. Therefore, I would say that there is actually no such thing as “granted arms” in the United States. With no heraldic authority of our own, all arms used in the United States are assumed – it makes no difference whatsoever whether they were signed into being centuries ago by a Stuart king, or were assumed last week by a working-class heraldist.
Well said Stephen and Kathy I agree totally with this.
