Medieval Heraldry by Terence Wise

Author:Terence Wise
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Medieval Heraldry
ISBN: 9781780966267
Publisher: Osprey Publishing
Published: 2012-02-23T16:00:00+00:00

A miniature of Sir Geoffrey Luterell taken from the Luterell Psalter, written around 1340, illustrating the placing of charges on the right side of the trapper. Compare trapper, ailette, horse crest, helmet crest and pennon with the shield and saddle arçons, where the martlets all face the dexter and the bend is not sinister.

Tudor badges on the gates of Henry VII’s chapel in Westminster Abbey, including the crowned portcullis of the Beauforts; entwined white and red roses of the Houses of York and Lancaster; crowned marguerites for Henry’s mother (Lady Margaret Beaufort); and the falcon and fetterlock of the House of York; all interspersed with the fleurs-de-lys of France and lions of England.

Royal badges became numerous under the Tudors but rarely occur after that period (1485–1603). Henry Tudor’s badges included the red rose of Lancaster and the Beaufort portcullis, Fig 62. The Beauforts were excluded from the royal succession but, after his victory at Bosworth Field, Henry had the ban lifted by an Act of Parliament and the portcullis crowned became one of his badges as Henry VII. He also united the red and white roses into the Tudor rose when he married Elizabeth of York. The Tudor rose is found in two distinct forms; a rose divided vertically or, more commonly, a double rose with the outer petals red and the inner ones white, or vice versa.

No official records of the badges used by the king’s subjects were kept until late in the reign of Henry VIII, by which time their use was rapidly declining, and therefore it is notpossible to compile a complete list. Our only sources for the earlier badges are therefore standards and guidons, or monumental work in places such as Westminster Abbey. The bear and ragged staff of the Earls of Warwick, and the swan of the Earls and Dukes of Buckingham, will be familiar to many readers, but it is hoped the illustrations of badges accompanying this section will provide examples which are new to some. Figs 62–73 are taken from a broadsheet published in 1449, Figs 74–79 from a manuscript of the reign of Edward IV (1461–83).

Badges occurred in European countries, although their use never became so widespread or so important as in England, and therefore a small selection of the more famous badges of France and Italy has been included; Figs 80–85.

Because they were not bound by the rules of heraldry, badges were not truly hereditary, although there are a number of well-known cases of the same badge being used by generation after generation. In these cases it is believed that marks of cadency were used to distinguish between the badges of father and sons. For example, Humphrey Talbot, son of John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury (whose badge is shown in Fig 69) had as a badge a talbot or hound with a mullet on its shoulder. Differencing by tincture, as with the roses of Edward I and his brother Edmund, may have been another method of denoting cadency. Sons also occasionally adopted a slightly different form of their father’s badge.

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