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guished by thofe whofe duty it was to note down his attendance, to mufter the whole body, to regulate its line of march, and to mark out the encampment for each party. In the preceding times, each leader had been habituated to charge his fhield and other pieces of armour either with the reprefentation of fome animal, a part of fome military weapon or engine, or with fome fymbolical device: and this induced the great landed barons and others who brought any confiderable number of fighting men into the field, to fufpend or exhibit on the top of a lance or pike, elevated so as to be visible at a distance, fome enfign, or piece of filk, or other stuff, whereon was reprefented a figure fimilar to that which he himself bore, either on his fhield, or on his helmet: and thofe enfigns or military figures being known to their refpective followers, were by them looked for and reforted unto upon every emergency; fo that a continuance by each chief, of the ufe of the fame military figure which he had been accustomed to carry, grew in a manner abfolutely requifite, left by any alteration, or the total change of it, his vaffals, tenants, and others whofe duty it was to adhere thereto, might, efpecially in time of action, be deceived, thrown into dif order, or drawn into danger. For the like reafons, the fons retained the fame military enfigns as their father had affumed; their pofterity adopted the example, and at length thofe enfigns being by general confent confidered as folely appertinent to the particular family of him who had originally ufed them, they became bereditary armories of fuch family, and were esteemed as the certain and approved teffera of ancestrial honour and diftinction. The reputation thus ftampt on armorial bearings introduced fuch a regard for their preservation, and fo great a propenfity to their refinement and improvement, that fundry princes, and more particularly the emperor Charlemagne, did not fcruple to apply themselves with affiduity to the regulation of the ufe and blazon of armories, which were then confeffedly known to be not only the honourable teftimonies of landed property and dignity, but the acknowledged badges and memorials of perfonal valour and extraordinary fervices performed in the wars.

"Two very fingular and grand occafions are known to have contributed to the furtherance, increafe, and improvement of armories; but they, as hath already been proved, were far from giving rife to them; to wit, tournaments and the croitades.

"Our ancestors of thofe times, brave, hardy and intrepid, inured themselves to war amidst the calms of peace. Their genius and education were military, and fo were their exercises and amusements. Trained up from their infancy to the use of the fword and fpear, and inspired with the love of fame by the frequent recitals made to them of the valorous actions of their forefathers, they, in peaceable times took the greatest delight in fuch performances as might the better fit and habituate them to war, and to that end combated together in defport. Thefe martial exercifes, thus performed, in procefs of time obtained the names of tournaments, juftings, tiltings, baftiludes, and tourneys.' Z z

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The influence of the Croisades on armories, is thus pointed

out.

"The Croifades, fo called from the little croffes which those who undertook the expedition to the Holy Land, against the infidels, received from the hands of the bishops and priests, and feweḍ on their garments, likewife gave occafion not only to the bearing feveral new figures till then unknown, in arms, as bezants, martlets, efcallops, alerions, croffes, &c. but improved the mode, and greatly augmented the number and variety of armories; each of the adventurers in that religious warfare, of whom many had not any other the leaft prétence for the affumption of arms, endeavouring to die ftinguish himself from all other croifaders by a difference in the device and tinctures which he placed on his fhield and furcoat, and difplayed on his banner. The glory which from thefe expeditions refulted to thofe who had bravely rifked their lives and fortunes in defence of the Chriftian religion, brought thofe arms, which had been worn on the occafion, into esteem; fo that their affumers, when returned from the holy wars, not only continued, during their lives, the ufe of fuch arms as they had affumed; but their iffue did the fame, making them the hereditary gentilial marks of their fami ly, and priding themselves in exhibiting and perpetuating fuch cer tain proofs of the piety, virtue, and valour of their parents.

On the introduction of family arms into England, Mr, Edmondfon has the following obfervations.

*

"From what has been before obferved, there is the greatest reafon to conclude, that hereditary family arms are of German production and feudal origin; but the time in which they were first ufed in England is not equally certain. An enquiry into that fact, touching which there has been a greater diverfity of opinions than about the origin of the inftitution itself, is highly interesting, and well worthy of our refearches. Our Saxon monarchs have been confidered as the introducers of gentilial arms into this ifland, whilst on the other hand, fome writers have maintained, that arms were ufed by the Britons at the very time that the Christian faith was first propagated here, and that Lucius, a pro-regulus in Britain in the 48th year of the Chriftian æra, took for his arms ar. a crofs gules. Canute and his Danes have, in their turns, been honoured with the reputation of having first taught our ancestors the ufe of arms. The learned and judicious antiquary Mr. Arthur Agarde conjectures that arms came to us first from the Normans, being brought in by Edward the Confeffor, and afterwards more plentifully practifed here by William the Conqueror and the nobles who came over with him. Mr. Waterhouse, upon what grounds is uncertain, fuppofes that gentilial armories were known here before that time; and that the first users of them were those few of the

*Sir James Ley, who was afterwards Earl of Marlborough in his treatife on the antiquity of arms in England---Antiquary Dif courfes, vol. I. p. 112. Mr. Tate, ibid. 168.

British

British and Saxon nobility, who kept their honours, fortunes, and feats on the change of government made by Duke William, and who, not having appeared in oppofition to him or his fons, held their stations in the country, although the Normans enjoyed both the places and preterments in court and camp; and as they grew more habituated to his government, and he abated of his rigour, and by peaceable ruling became more calm, they ventured to fhew themselves more openly, and with greater freedom avowed their rights, by bearing those marks of honourable diftinction.* The great Mr. Camden, who is followed by Peter Pitheu and others, thinks them of more recent date with us, and fays that

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shortly after the conqueft the estimation of arms began in the expeditions to the Holy Land, and afterwards by little and little became hereditary, when it was accounted an efpecial honour to pofterity to retain those arms which had been displayed in the Holy Land in that holy fervice against the profefied enemies of christianity; and that we received, at that time, the hereditary ufe of them; but that the fame was not fully established until the reign of King Henry the third; for that, in the inftances of the laft Earls ⚫ of Chester, the two Quincies earls of Winchester, and the two • Lacies earls of Lincoln, the arms of the father ftill varied from those of the fon.'+ Sir Henry Spelman is of opinion, that they are ftill of more modern growth in this kingdom; for, fpeaking of the antiquity generally owed to the ufage of arms in England, he obferves, that this nation being for fome hundreds of years harraffed with wars, in the form of foreign affaults and civil commotions, there is little reafon to be over confident in matters of pedigree and arms much beyond four hundred years;' and expreffes his doubts whether they are even entitled to that antiquity, by adding, Nefcio an ea prorfus antiquitate."

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Mr. Edmondion proceeds to fhew the proper methods of blazoning and marfhalling armorial bearings, and to describe the arms, quarterings, crefts, fupporters, and mottos of all fovereign princes and ftates; the atchievements of the peers, peereffes, and baronets of England, Scotland, and Ireland. He then gives an hiftorical catalogue of all the different orders of knighthood, from the earliest to the prefent time; the arms of the counties, cities, archiepifcopal and epifcopal fees, colleges, &c, &c.

On thefe fubjects we must refer the reader to the work; but on the important connection between the fcience of heraldry and the proper conduct of funerals, the reader may be glad to perufe the following paffage.

*Defence of arms and armories, p. 60.

+ Camden's remains. Camden on the antiquity of arms in Ens gland,---in collection of antiquary discourses, vol. I. P. 170. In gloffario, ad verbum ARMA,

"The

"The principal families, in thofe parts of Europe wherein the feudal fyftem was established, had no fooner felt their own importance, and the respect due to the particular rank which each of them had refpectively attained in confequence either of their territorial poffeffions, or heroic acts, than, as hath been observed in the former part of this work, they pitched upon and affumed certain hereditary marks or figns of honourable and noble defcent, by which they might be distinguished among themselves, and differenced from the plebeians or lower clafs of people. Thefe marks they embroidered or painted on the furcoats, which, in time of battle, in order to be diftinguished from all others, they wore over their armour, and alfo on the pennons and banners difplayed by them in the field as the particular armorial enfigns under which their followers, and the quota of foldiers, that by the tenure of their lands they were bound to furnish towards compofing the body of the national forces, were to march and encamp, and whereunto, for their greater certainty and fecurity, those foldiers were to refort on every emergency. The fu perintendency, regulation and correction of thefe teffera of nobility and gentility, devolving on the constable and marshal, in confequence of the mustering, marthalling, encampments, difpofition and conduct of the army, with the feveral matters incident to each, being vested in them, it became an effential part of the duty of their feveral under-officers, the kings of arms, heralds, pursuivants, &c. to acquire a competent knowledge of armorial bearings and enfigns, together with their relatives, and whatsoever elfe is properly comprehended in the fcience of armories. The neceffity of an attainment of fuch knowledge was ftill further and fully enforced by the business which was allotted to the department of thefe officers at the times of celebrating tournaments, juftings, haftiludes, and tiltings; on all which occafions it was especially incumbent on them ftrictly to examine the coats-armour, badges, enfigns, &c. exhibited by each of the perfons who offered themfelves as combatants in per forming thofe martial exercises; as it likewife was to be particularly exact, that those tokens of honour were fuch, as conformably to the established rules of armory, the perfons exhibiting them were refpectively intitled to bear, and fuch as belonged to them as gentlemen of armories of four defçents at the leaft, and of noble or ho, nourable parentage on the father and mother's fide; because no man who could not fo juflify his rank by armorial entigns could be admitted to enter the lifts, and there engage in the performance of feats of arms, but, on the contrary, fhould he prefume fo to do, was, for his prefumption, to be punished and rendered contemptible by riding the barriers.

"The before mentioned paffion for carrying, in funeral procef fions, a variety of efcutcheons, banners, pennons, and fuch other trophies as added grandeur and state to thofe folemnities, joined to an ardent defire that the corpfe fhould be attended to the grave by a numerous aflembly of friends, relations, and mourners of differ ent ranks, foon influenced the vanity and ambition of the generality of the people to fo great a degree, as on those occafions to lead 4

them

them into the commiffion of egregious improprieties, and the most glaring abfurdities: faults which were not more prevalent in any part of Europe than in England, where an attention to the celebrating of funeral obfequies with fplendor and parade, however repugnant the fame might be to the laws of armory, were become remarkable in perfons of all ranks; infomuch that it happened, not unfrequently, that the funerals of mean perfons, motoriously known to have no manner of right or pretence to coat-armour, were carried to their graves with the ftate, trophies of honour, and arms, originally defigned, and peculiarly adapted, for diftinguishing the nobility and gentry from the commonalty; whilft others again, who had no better pretenfions to arms than the former, under the notion of their dying, feized of eftates, had hatchments publicly affixed to the fronts of their houfes. Nay further, the funerals of gentlemen were folemnized with the state due to a knight; knights were interred with the honours fuited to the rank of noblemen; and that order which was to have been obferved among the nobility, was difregarded or misconducted.

In order therefore to put a flop to the many incongruities and diforders, as well as to the difputes between family and family, which almost continually arofe from fo erroneous a conduct, and with a view not only to prevent them for the future, but to restore that order, decorum, propriety, and regularity which ought to be punctually obferved in funeral folemnities, the nobility and gentry frequently employed, on those occafions, kings and heralds of arms, not only to plan and order the ceremonial, but to direct what and how many efcutcheons, armorial enfigns, and trophies of honour, fhould be carried to the grave with the defunct. From fimilar motives likewife they most commonly defired them to give their perfonal attendance on the day of interment, and to marshal the proceffion; the knowledge and ordering of matters of precedency, and whatever related to the bearing and regulating of coats of arms, atchievements, enfigus, and trophies of honour, as alfo the rights of individuals thereunto, being part of the profeffional duty of

thofe officers.

"The largeffes and gratuities given to the kings and heralds of arms for thofe fervices were ufually liberal: fo that we cannot be furprized that thofe officers, fhould wish to get afcertained and established in themfelves, an exclufive right to a lucrative branch of bufinefs, which was fuppofed to be precarious, and to flow folely from the favour and courtesy of their employers. Several perfons, calling themfelves undertakers, for fome space of time, had made it their business to order and conduct funerals, in conjunction with the painter-ftainers, who, without confulting with the college of arms, took upon them to paint fuch coats of arms, enligns of honour, and heraldic devices, as they thought were proper to be borne in fuch of those folemnities as were confided to their care and management, and pertinent to the family rank and character of the defunct. The officers of arms took umbrage at thefe proceedings of the painters and funeral undertakers, which they deemed to be

an

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