Part 20 (1/2)

When the whole arm from the shoulder is used, it is always bent at {170} the elbow, and this is signified by the term ”embowed,” and an arm embowed necessarily includes the whole arm. Fig. 262 shows the usual position of an arm embowed, but it is sometimes placed embowed to the dexter (Fig. 263), upon the point of the elbow, that is, ”embowed fesseways” (Fig. 264), and also, but still more infrequently, resting on the upper arm (Fig. 265).

Either of the latter positions must be specified in the blazon. Two arms ”counter-embowed” occur in many crests (Figs. 266 and 267).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 259.--A hand ”in benediction.”]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 260.--A cubit arm.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 261.--An arm couped at the elbow.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 262.--An arm embowed.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 263.--An arm embowed to the dexter.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 264.--An arm embowed fesseways.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 265.--An arm embowed the upper part in fesse.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 266.--Two arms counter-embowed.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 267.--Two arms counter-embowed and interlaced.]

When the arm is bare it is termed ”proper.” When clothed it is termed either ”vested” or ”habited” (Fig. 268). The cuff is very {171} frequently of a different colour, and the crest is then also termed ”cuffed.” The hand is nearly always bare, but if not represented of flesh colour it will be presumed and termed to be ”gloved” of such and such a tincture. When it is represented in armour it is termed ”in armour” or ”vambraced” (Fig. 269).

Even when in armour the hand is usually bare, but if in a gauntlet this must be specifically so stated (Fig. 270). The armour is always represented as riveted _plate_ armour unless it is specifically stated to be _chain armour_, as in the crest of Bathurst, or _scale armour_. Armour is sometimes decorated with gold, when the usual term employed will be ”garnished or,” though occasionally the word ”purfled” is used.

Gloves are occasionally met with as charges, _e.g._ in the arms of Barttelot. Gauntlets will be found in the arms of Vane.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 268.--A cubit arm habited.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 269.--An arm embowed in armour.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 270.--A cubit arm in armour, the hand in a gauntlet.]

Legs are not so frequently met with as arms. They will be found, however, in the arms of the Isle of Man and the families Gillman, Bower, Legg, and as the crest of Eyre. Boots will be found in the crests of various families of the name of Hussey.

Bones occur in the arms of Scott-Gatty and Baines.

A skull occurs in the crest of Graeme [”Two arms issuing from a cloud erected and lighting up a man's skull encircled with two branches of palm, over the head a marquess's coronet, all proper”].

A woman's breast occurs in the canting arms of Dodge (Plate VI.) [”Barry of six or and sable, on a pale gules, a woman's breast distilling drops of milk proper. Crest: upon a wreath of the colours, a demi sea-dog azure, collared, maned, and finned or”].

An eye occurs in the crest of Blount of Maple-Durham [”On a wreath of the colours, the sun in splendour charged in the centre with an eye all proper”].

The man-lion, the merman, mermaid, melusine, satyr, satyral, harpy, sphinx, centaur, sagitarius, and weirwolf are included in the chapter upon mythical animals. {172}

CHAPTER XI

THE HERALDIC LION

Heraldic art without the lion would not amount to very much, for no figure plays such an important or such an extensive part in armory as the lion, in one or other of its various positions. These present-day positions are the results of modern differentiation, arising from the necessity of a larger number of varying coats of arms; but there can be little doubt that in early times the majority of these positions did not exist, having been gradually evolved, and that originally the heraldic animal was just ”a lion.” The shape of the s.h.i.+eld was largely a governing factor in the manner in which we find it depicted; the old artists, with a keener artistic sense than is evidenced in so many later examples of heraldic design, endeavoured to fill up as large a proportion of the s.p.a.ce available as was possible, and consequently when only one lion was to be depicted upon the s.h.i.+eld they very naturally drew the animal in an upright position, this being the one most convenient and adaptable for their purpose. Probably their knowledge of natural history was very limited, and this upright position would seem to them the most natural, and probably was the only one they knew; at any rate, at first it is almost the only position to be found. A curious commentary upon this may be deduced from the head-covering of Geoffrey of Anjou (Fig. 28), which shows a lion. This lion is identically of the form and shape of the lions rampant upon the s.h.i.+eld, but from the nature of the s.p.a.ce it occupies, is what would now be termed statant; but there is at the same time no such alteration in the relative position of the limbs as would now be required. This would seem to indicate very clearly that there was but the one stereotyped pattern of a lion, which answered all their purposes, and that our fore-runners applied that one pattern to the s.p.a.ces they desired to decorate.

Early heraldry, however, when the various positions came into recognised use, soon sought to impose this definite distinction, that the lion could only be depicted erect in the _rampant_ position, and that an animal represented to be walking must therefore be a _leopard_ from the very position which it occupied. This, however, was a distinction known only to the more pedantic heralds, and found greatest favour {173} amongst the French; but we find in Glover's Roll, which is a copy of a roll originally drawn up about the year 1250, that whilst he gives lions to six of the English earls, he commences with ”le Roy d'Angleterre porte, Gules, trois lupards d'or.” On the other hand, the monkish chronicler John of Harmoustier in Touraine (a contemporary writer) relates that when Henry I.