Heraldry in the Codex

[DesertRose]

What gorgeous work, @Frère de Saint-Gabriel!  I'm going to second Evie's love of the Anviller device in particular.

Historically, a heraldic device was intended to make it easy to find specific people, so you tend to see much simpler ones farther back in history.  Later on, it got to be more of a bragging rights thing and you get into some extremely complex designs that are all but illegible unless you're quite close, which isn't much use on a battlefield or a banner above a keep, LOL.

I also would like to join Evie in inviting you to join us in IRC chat (there are links on the main page of the forum) or Discord (also linked, and there is a bridge between the IRC and Discord chats).  KK tends to come visit with us most Sundays around 7 pm US Eastern time.

[Frère de Saint-Gabriel]

Evie, what time is the chat?

I remember reading in KK's Wikipedia page that her husband served as a herald in the Office of the Chief Herald of Ireland when they lived there.

If I'm not able to join, feel free to direct KK or her husband to the CoAs.

And thanks—I rather like the Advil arms myself!

[Evie]

Most Sundays,the chat is at 7:00 PM US Eastern time (whatever that is in your time zone), and you can either join using the link in the chat section of our forum (for the IRC version of chat), or if you use Discord, you can join our Discord server and participate that way. In addition to the Sunday chats that KK participates in, you can nearly always find someone on Discord at any given time in one of our chat channels. (You can also log in using the IRC link, but the advantage of Discord is that you can see conversation that has been going on before you arrived and leave any comments or questions that others will see if they log in at a later time. In IRC, you only see the chat that is ongoing at the time you are logged in.)

On the first Sunday of most months, unless KK has a schedule conflict, we normally have a Zoom chat instead of the regular text chat. The Zoom chats are earlier (I think 3:00 PM Eastern) so our friends in the UK can participate. The Zoom link is normally sent out by forum private message a day or two ahead of time, so you can check your inbox for it.

[Frère de Saint-Gabriel]

DesertRose, you've picked up on something that I'm trying to convey: the more minor the state, the more complex the CoA, because they're trying to establish bragging rights in place of political and economic power. Compare, for example, the arms of the Hort of Orsal with those of Logréine or any of the other small Forcinn states. That weirdly delightful "frog rampant or" of Alver is an exception, however!

I'm having to restrain myself from creating even more complex arms!

The difficulty of distinguishing them in the field or on the parapets is among the reasons that I created the alternate forms for Logréine and Thuria. However, it's likely that their battle banners are probably going to be simpler than their coats of arms.

But I'm also trying to convey something of the culture and the history of the various realms in their arms, though that's something we see more in later centuries in the coats of arms of municipal and regional polities than in those of the high medieval period.

For example, see the arms that I've created for the Principality and Earldom of Kheldour, below. (There probably need to be some differences between the arms of the earlier, later extinct, principality and the earldom of the 12th century, though).

The longship recalls the arrival of the Kheldourynoi from the West, recorded in the Byzantyun annals of the early Christian era. (I've added a bit of legend to this in my "head canon," making them the vanquishers of a kingdom of northern Giants who dwelt in the land that came to be called Kheldour, on analogy with the mythology that grew up around Brutus and the Trojans who invaded Britain in the heroic age and defeated the giants in what would later become Scotland. Nothing in the arms about this, though.)

The weaving shuttle recalls the importance of the fine textiles and carpets that have been made in Kheldour for centuries. The thistles? Well, just because Kheldour clearly has a Scottish feel, though perhaps more the Brythonic than the Pictish or Gaelic part of Scotland, given that the names of the princes of the House of MacTyre (Gaelic) are Brythonic/Cymric/Welsh—though come to think of it, that admixture of cultures makes old Kheldour even more like Scotland!

And the thistles just look neat.

[Frère de Saint-Gabriel]

As I look at this coat of arms, I think it possible that the upper third of the shield (the chief) probably represents the arms of the old principality of Kheldour, while the lower part of the shield might be the addition made when the earldom was created by Uthyr Haldane in 966.

Good grief. Now I'm even making up history for these CoAs!

But I suspect I'm in very sympathetic company here.

[Frère de Saint-Gabriel]

Thanks, Evie. I'll try to be online if I've packed up enough of my library for the workers to get in here and build more bookshelves.

And I'll certainly keep the time in mind.

[Nezz]

I like your Kheldour CoA, it looks like a little face.

[tmcd]

I rather like the Advil arms myself!

I dunno, I think they're kind of a headache.

[Evie]

I rather like the Advil arms myself!

I dunno, I think they're kind of a headache.

What about the Tylenol or Motrin arms?

[tmcd]

The King's Deryni, ch. 42, p. 459 in my edition (the Ace first-edition hardback). Why some or all of it is in a site called "bookreadfree.com", and labeled page 53 there, I don't know. I'm glad that I have the NoScript browser extension installed, in case there's nasty JavaScript.

Anyway, this is a bit of the scene of Nigel's knighting.

At the head of the hall, the duty herald stepped to the front of the dais and rapped with his staff against the oak boards. The banner-bearer moved into position at Alaric's right and shook out the scarlet silk to reveal Nigel's crowned golden demi-lion. Richard and Nigel fell in behind them.

"Sire, His Royal Highness the Prince Richard Haldane Duke of Carthmoor begs leave to approach the throne with business to present before Your Majesties."

P. 463,

She [Meraude] was almost of a height with Nigel, who had changed from his knighting attire to a short tunic of royal-blue velvet worked around the hem with a border of running lions.

So regardless of Nigel's preferences in clothing, his arms apparently had the same red field as the Haldane arms.

Now, it might be that Carthmoor had its own arms of dominion. Prince Richard was its duke at this point. I presume that the peerage remainder didn't allow passing it to women, so on his death, the succession failed and it merged back into the crown, and the duchy was created anew to be given to Nigel. But in England, at least, there weren't ducal arms of dominion that I know of. For example, the arms of England's duke of Norfolk are simply the his ordinary inherited arms. So for Nigel as duke of Carthmoor, in my opinion the best would be just "Gules, a demi-lion erect crowned Or".

While I'm here:

Chapter 46, p. 503, shows them raising swords against the Marluk ... hmm, that's pretty catchy ... anyway.

The device on the banner gave little doubt regarding his [Hogan Gwernach's] pretension. Along with the ducal arms of Tolan --- the ermine field with a red lion's jambe clutching a coronet --- he had quartered royal Gwynedd.

Which is interesting, because I had had the impression that the gold lion were the Haldane arms, not arms of dominion of Gwynedd.

[tmcd]

If I may make style suggestions?

In the SCA, at least, it's suggested that charges be drawn "big, bold, and butch", filling the space available. Well, not so full as to touch the adjacent edges, but more filling (great taste).

Also, in our world's European armory, charges on a bend usually follow the line of the bend, hence slanted bendwise.

[Frère de Saint-Gabriel]

It does, Nezz! I hadn't noticed that until you pointed it out. And thanks—I rather like that CoA as well, because it looks good, and it tells us a lot about Kheldour.

[Frère de Saint-Gabriel]

tmcd, I am currently making changes as you've suggested. Because the program that I'm using doesn't allow me to rotate charges (or I simply haven't yet figured it out or haven't yet figured out a workaround), I am changing all bends to fesses.

Interesting textual work on Nigel's Haldane arms. Given that I've assumed the double tressure flory-counter-flory to be a characteristic of the armorial of the duchies formed out of old Mooryn, I've included the arms whose blazon you described with the tressure to signify not only Nigel's personal arms but also that these are the arms of Carthmoor (at least, as long as Nigel and his heirs of the blood are the dukes). Let me know what you think.

I'll be posting all of the newly amended CoAs that have taken into account your suggestions over the next couple of days.

Thanks again for the corrections and suggestions.

[tmcd]

A demi-lion is the top half of a lion. See, for example, https://mistholme.com/dictionary/demi-beast/ (Ignore the blazons below: they're SCA only.)

[Frère de Saint-Gabriel]

Thanks again for the correction. I did a bit of searching and honestly came up with nothing that told me whether it meant literally only half of the lion (as the word suggests) or referred to the attitude of the foreparts versus the attitude of the hindparts.

In any event, here is the (again corrected) CoA. Third (or fourth or fifth) time's a charm, eh?