Heraldry in the Crafts--Why Not Specialize?

I have a small website where I try to sell custom-made lapel buttons. In addition to these made-to-order buttons I also offer several specialty lines of off-the-shelf items and at this time of year I'm usually concerned with one of those lines in particular: Irish heraldic buttons. St. Patrick's Day approaches.

I'm in no sense an expert on heraldry. Still, although there are many button sites like mine I'm not aware of any other with a line of products like that one and I don't know why that should be true. It struck me the other day that heraldry might offer a wide range of opportunities for specialization--and to craftspersons in almost any field from pottery to needlepoint to weaving, rugmaking, and even quilting.

It's true that we no longer live in the age of chivalry and that not all Americans are caught up in the study of their ancestry and ethnic heritage, but surprisingly many of us are. For example, Overture reports that in November of 2004 the exact phrase "Irish heraldry" was searched for on the web 140 times. Note that this doesn't include possible searches for related terms like Gaelic, Celtic, shields, crests, coats of arms, etc. And it says nothing at all about searches for heraldic information from any other part of the world or for heraldry in general. As a matter of fact, during the month of November the word "heraldry" was used in 11,869 searches, so it seems that a market may well exist.

On the other hand, heraldry may be considered a rather nerdy topic in the modern world. I've noticed that many people today fall below the snuff-line when it comes to their basic knowledge of heraldry. There's no reason why they should know anything about it if their objective is merely to copy an occasional coat of arms onto some products that they've made, like, for instance, some dinner plates or a sampler. Yet a few paragraphs of information about coats of arms may be interesting to any who can see the possibilities in the use of heraldic themes as a quasi-specialty in their work.

A discussion of heraldry must begin, first and foremost, with the idea of the shield. The shield, I would guess, is probably the oldest piece of weaponry other than the club. The earliest shields were made of tough skins stretched over wooden frames. Their shape was probably roundish, and the round shield served very well at least through the days of the Roman Legions.

As body armor grew more cumbersome, it became more and more difficult in the heat of hand-to-hand combat to determine who was who. An early step towards solving this problem came when warriors began painting identifying symbols on their shields. By the time of the Middle Ages these symbols were becoming strictly codified and proprietary. The persons charged with keeping track of them were high government officials called heralds and a technical language, something that looks to us today like a strange mixture of English and French, was growing up around them to describe them.

In all probability this language was really not strange at all, but very similar to the ordinary speech of the times, that is, the period after the Norman conquest of England. Yet people who discuss heraldry seriously still use these terms today, and that is no doubt one more reason why the study is no longer cool. It should of course not be obligatory to use "or" for gold or "vert" for green when writing in modern English, but that's how they insist on doing it.

To satisfy a herald, a full "coat of arms" had to include many things besides the basic shield. By the time that the practice of heraldry had spread throughout Europe a coat of arms included at least the shield, the motto, the helm, the wreath, the crest, the mantling, and possibly several other things as well.

Surprisingly, the shape of the shield didn't seem to matter much. Books on heraldry often show ten or fifteen different common shapes. And not every heraldic shield was even intended to resemble an actual shield from the field of battle. The right to a coat of arms, for example, was often granted to females, and the shield in such cases was typically drawn as a lozenge or diamond-shaped object. Many shields such as the so-called "jousting" shields are sometimes drawn as crazy, free-form, asymmetric shapes.

Very often a shield's area was divided, maybe to signify the merging of two powerful families. In such cases, all the charges (pictures, or "bearings") shown on both original shields would usually be retained, each group confined to its own partition of the merged shield. There were, naturally, technical terms for any number of different ways to divide the area of a shield: per pale, per fess, per chevron, per saltire, etc. There were even different stylized lines used to separate the segments. A simple straight line might do the trick, but it could also be "engrailed," "embattled," "indented," "wavy," "dovetailed," etc.

As for the charges, they merit a separate treatment. They include not only lions and eagles in various poses, but a wide variety of birds, mammals, fish, and mythological beings. Parts of the human body. The sun, the stars, and many forms of vegetation. Structures and ships, books and bells. And each of them has its own specialized meaning. For instance, a dragon stood for vigilance, a snake for wisdom, a boar for a fierce fighter, a swallow for someone who had been dispossessed of land. A cross might indicate that the bearer or one of his ancestors had fought in the crusades, and the arms of a sailor would often show a ship.

As is obvious from those few examples, the meaning of some charges still make at least some sense to us, while in other cases their meaning is baffling. Different kinds of crowns can indicate different ranks of nobility; that's logical enough. But a finger ring, for instance, might symbolize a fifth son, and a tower might stand for wealth.

Heraldry is a colorful topic in every sense. One continually runs into larger-than-life characters. Here's one, chosen more or less at random:

Sir Francis Drake was definitely a sailor, and his arms definitely showed a ship. And what a ship! Most ships that I've seen in heraldic designs seem to have one mast but this one has three. There's a dragon or griffin seated in the stern with wings outspread. The ship rests atop a large globe of the world showing us the Atlantic Ocean, and above the ship a hand emerges from a cloud pointing at the ship something that looks very much like a microphone plugged into the bow. (I don't know what it is.)

All of that constitutes merely the crest and, as is to be expected, the crest is resting on a wreath and the wreath is above the helm. Below the helmet we finally reach the shield, an amazingly simple shield, given the complexity of its surroundings: on a black background, a silver wavy fess (horizontal area) represents the sea between two wavy stars representing the pole stars. The whole thing commemorated Drake's circumnavigation of the earth in 1577.

These arms were granted to Francis Drake by Elizabeth I, but he seems to have been a fairly headstrong individual and kept adding bits and pieces to which he had no real right. This tendency got him into a long feud with an unrelated Drake family from whom he swiped elements for his own arms. (In fact, he did that twice. After the other family had successfully defended its claims against him and he had removed the offending bearings from his arms, he later decided to put them back where they didn't belong.)

All of the major online bookstores have, or can locate, many pages full of books on heraldry, from modern works to out-of-print classics and intended for experts or beginners.

Jim Donnelly is based in Fresno, CA. He offers to produce pin-back lapel buttons of any description at all, with any photo or drawing and any wording that will fit and that doesn't include treason. You can sign up for his free newsletter on the home page of his website, http://www.badgecrafters.com

---

Family, Incest, and Law

Family Values in Ancient Times:Many people of the present make... Read More

The Masked Fool

The FoolMy first direct experience of the fool in masking... Read More

Mexican Living: The Unexplained

The inexplicable bothers me. It always has. You know, the... Read More

The New Age Movement

New Age - A Paradigm Shift to Divine Consciousness &... Read More

The History of Body Piercings - Ancient and Fascinating Around the World

Body piercings have seen a resurgence of interest in the... Read More

Tarot Cards Demystified: The Suit of Cups

There are many ways to interpret the symbolism found in... Read More

Mythology and Parables in Modern Communication - Part 1

Today there is a growing need to examine all our... Read More

Some Villain Thoughts About a Container Village

Preview: "Shipping containers" have yet nothing to do with "housing"... Read More

Is America Still Racist?

This is one entry in my Heroes and Villains Volume... Read More

Gold Jewelry -The Rest of The Story

Gold is one of the metals taken from the earth... Read More

A Short Biography on Some of Europes Most Loved and Hated Monarchs - Pt 1 Vlad Tepes (Dracula)

Vlad Tepes or Dracula was born in 1431, in the... Read More

Return to Ouvea, New Caledonia

"Ouvea is everything you'd expect in a South Pacific island.... Read More

Europes New Jews

They inhabit self-imposed ghettoes, subject to derision and worse, the... Read More

Marilyn Monroe and Mary Jo Kopechne

I doubt Marilyn Monroe was anything but a confused star-struck... Read More

Your Souls Purpose Is Found In the Zodiac

Of course, science has explained this to us, and we... Read More

Timbuktu and Brotherhood Too

Juba II in America:Ahmed Osman tells us about the destruction... Read More

Jewelry Making for Fun and Profit

There is an old adage that says work isn't really... Read More

Birthstone Jewelry Beliefs and Celebrity Birthdays

Wearing birthstone jewelry is very popular today. Not only is... Read More

Christopher Columbus

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS: - It seems a mystery to most academics... Read More

Gymnastics History ? A Brief Overview

Gymnastics, as an activity, has been around for more than... Read More

Ogham and Aymara

OGHAM:As any reader of my work knows by now, Ogham... Read More

When We Was Kids In Chicago

Radio was the big communicator, back when I was a... Read More

Debussy and Gamelan According to a 150 Year Old Man

Hello!If you haven't been transported by the mesmerizing sounds of... Read More

Mexican Living: Issues of Life

This morning when I got out of bed, I had... Read More

The Contingencies of Despair: How Existentialists Survive

~ Dread is dizziness unto freedom-freedom that gazes down into... Read More

Leonardo Da Vinci

THE BICYCLE OF LEONARDO DA VINCI: - "? a man... Read More

Understanding Astrological Predictions

Opinions about astrological prediction are generally divided: "Mysterious! Magical!", say... Read More

My Introduction To Northwest Coast Native American Art

I had lived in Vancouver very briefly as a child... Read More

Druidic University

MEGALITHIIC POWER PLANTS:Druidic University:Long before there was a Rome or... Read More

Astrology : A Science or Superstition?

Human beings have always been curious to know their future.... Read More

Arthur Koestler

ARTHUR KOESTLER:Humanitarian, historian and scientist are just a few of... Read More

Bad Mouthing Fellow Authors

The creative mind is a gift to humanity; but unfortunately... Read More

Elvis Presley, Lifting Off

He seems to live forever. A network television movie about... Read More