Tag Archives: charge

heraldic summer quiz 2

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First of all there is no reward for spotting that I labelled the crest for Derbyshire as the crest for Bristol – I have no idea what came over me! Many apologies. Have now amended it online.

So – to the shield – the background of the shield is called the field and it is usually made of a colour (a tincture) or a metal or a design representing a fur.

  • metal – gold (or) and silver (argent)
  • colour – red (gules), blue (azure), green (vert), black (sable), purple (purpure)
  • fur – ermine, ermines, peon and vair – (I’ll come back to them)

Keeping things straight forward for the time being -we’ll come back to the way the shield is divided up- a charge is then added to the field. This is the shape, object, bird or animal that identifies the shield’s owner. A colour is never put on a metal!

There may be one large charge or several smaller repeated ones.

Popular charges include; crosses, stars, rings, balls, crescents and diamonds. – except of course nothing is as straight forward as that – why call a star a star when you can call it something different!

  1. Can you identify the following: bezant, mullet, lozenge and annulet

A certain well known online encyclopaedia provides a list of heraldic charges.

Canterbury’s coat of arms includes a lion passant and three Cornish choughs which are associated with Thomas Becket.

Lions are a popular charge!

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Lions_in_heraldry_by_attitude

2) Which countries do these lions belong to?

And finally can you identify these English or Welsh county coats of arms – I’ve selected ones with repeating charges. The Derbyshire coat of arms should be no problem as he represents the fact that Derbyshire was initially founded by the Danes who came on their dragon boats (presumably not all the way to land locked Derbyshire) and there’s also a nod to the county’s mining. And of course its an opportunity to spot lozenges, lions rampant and martlets. How I managed to miss the crests for Lincolnshire and Suffolk I do not know!

more medieval animals -supporters, sigils, charges and livery badges

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I’m changing tack slightly this evening having skipped through bestiaries and peered into menageries it’s now time to take a look at medieval royal animals in heraldic terms. Supporters usually appear in pairs holding a shield up. Charges are depicted on the shield and a sigil is the symbol that appears on a seal. Livery badges were personal devices. Hope this isn’t too boaring…

Yup – tonight its the turn of the white boar which was used by Richard, Duke of Gloucester who ascended the throne as King Richard III. It’s not entirely certain why Richard used a boar by preference. It is often suggested that it was a play on Ebor or York. Richard’s wife, Anne Neville, used a white boar as well but her livery badge was chained and muzzled and was in fact associated with the earldom of Warwick. It has even been suggested that Richard chose this symbol when he was little more than a child based on the carvings at St Mary and All Saints at Fotheringhay.

A quick search of the Internet reveals plenty of white boar related posts – so I’ll keep this one short. Richard’s boar turns up on his standard, as supporters in the York Minster, as a badge and on livery collars. It even turns up as graffiti (Carlisle Castle).

The Fotheringhay Boar(s)
https://murreyandblue.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/the-fotheringhay-boars/