A Complete Guide to Heraldry Part 30

Birds of course play a large and prominent part in heraldry. Those which have been impressed into the service of heraldic emblazonment comprise almost every species known to the zoological world.

Though the earliest rolls of arms give us instances of various other birds, the bird which makes the most prominent appearance is the _Eagle_, and in all early representations this will invariably be found "displayed." A double-headed eagle displayed, from a Byzantine silk of the tenth century, is ill.u.s.trated by Mr. Eve in his "Decorative Heraldry," so that it is evident that neither the eagle displayed nor the double-headed eagle originated with the science of armory, which appropriated them ready-made, together with their symbolism. An eagle displayed as a symbolical device was certainly in use by Charlemagne.

It may perhaps here be advantageous to treat of the artistic development of the eagle displayed. Of this, of course, the earliest prototype is the Roman eagle of the Caesars, and it will be to English eyes, accustomed to our conventional spread-eagle, doubtless rather startling to observe that the German type of the eagle, which follows the Roman disposition of the wings (which so many of our heraldic artists at the present day appear inclined to adopt either in the accepted German or in a slightly modified form as an eagle displayed) is certainly not a true displayed eagle according to our English ideas and requirements, inasmuch as the wings are inverted. It should be observed that in German heraldry it is simply termed an eagle, and not an eagle displayed. Considering, however, its very close resemblance to our eagle displayed, and also its very artistic appearance, there is every excuse for its employment in this country, and I for one should be sorry to observe its slowly increasing favour checked in this country. It is quite possible, however, to transfer the salient and striking points of beauty to the more orthodox position of the wings. The eagle (compared with the lion and the ordinaries) had no such predominance in early British heraldry that it enjoyed in Continental armory, and therefore it may be better to trace the artistic development of the German eagle. {234}

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the eagle appears with the head raised and the beak closed. The _sachsen_ (bones of the wings) are rolled up at the ends like a snail, and the pinions (like the talons) take a vertical downward direction. The tail, composed of a number of stiff feathers, frequently issues from a k.n.o.b or ball. Compare Fig. 440 herewith.

With the end of the fourteenth century the head straightens itself, the beak opens and the tongue becomes visible. The rolling up of the wing-bones gradually disappears, and the claws form an acute angle with the direction of the body; and at this period the claws occasionally receive the "hose"

covering the upper part of the leg. The feathers of the tail spread out sicklewise (Fig. 441).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 440.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 441.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 442.]

The fifteenth century shows the eagle with _sachsen_ forming a half circle, the pinions spread out and radiating therefrom, and the claws more at a right angle (Fig. 442). The sixteenth century draws the eagle in a more ferocious aspect, and depicts it in as ornamental and ornate a manner as possible.

From Konrad Grunenberg's _Wappenbuch_ (Constance, 1483) is reproduced the s.h.i.+eld (Fig. 443) with the boldly sketched _Adlerflugel mit Schwerthand_ (eagle's wing with the sword hand), the supposed arms of the Duke of Calabria.

Quite in the same style is the eagle of Tyrol on a corporate flag of the Society of the Schwazer Bergbute (Fig. 444), which belongs to the last quarter of the fifteenth century. This is reproduced from the impression in the Bavarian National Museum given in Hefner-Alteneck's "Book of Costumes."

A modern German eagle drawn by H. G. Strohl is shown in Fig. 445. The ill.u.s.tration is of the arms of the Prussian province of Brandenburg.

The double eagle has, of course, undergone a somewhat similar development.

The double eagle occurs in the East as well as in the West in very early times. Since about 1335 the double eagle has appeared sporadically as a symbol of the Roman-German Empire, and under the Emperor Sigismund (d.

1447) became the settled armorial device of the Roman Empire. King Sigismund, before his coronation as Emperor, bore the single-headed eagle.

{235}

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 443.--Arms of Duke of Calabria.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 444.--Eagle of Tyrol.]

It may perhaps be as well to point out, with the exception of the two positions "displayed" (Fig. 451) and "close" (Fig. 446), very little if any agreement at all exists amongst authorities either as to the terms to be employed or as to the position intended for the wings when a given term is used in a blazon. Practically every other single position is simply blazoned "rising," this term being employed without any additional distinctive terms of variation in official blazons and emblazonments. Nor can one obtain any certain information from a reference to the real eagle, for the result of careful observation would seem to show that in the first stroke of the wings, when rising from the ground, the wings pa.s.s through every position from the wide outstretched form, which I term "rising with wings elevated and displayed" (Fig. 450), to a position practically "close." As a consequence, therefore, no one form can be said to be more correct than any other, either from the point of view of nature or from the point of view of ancient precedent. This state of affairs is eminently unsatisfactory, because in these days of necessary differentiation no heraldic artist of any appreciable knowledge or ability has claimed the liberty (which certainly has not been officially conceded) to depict an eagle rising with wings elevated and displayed, when it has been granted with the wings in the position addorsed and inverted. Such a liberty when the wings happen to be charged, as they so frequently are in modern English crests, must clearly be an impossibility. {236}

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 445.--Arms of the Prussian Province of Brandenburg.

(From Strohl's _Deutsche Wappenrolle_.)]

Until some agreement has been arrived at, I can only recommend my readers to follow the same plan which I have long adopted in blazoning arms of which the official blazon has not been available to me. That is, to use the term "rising," followed by the necessary description of the position of the wings (Figs. 447-450). This obviates both mistake and uncertainty.

Originally with us, as still in Germany, an eagle was always displayed, and in the days when coats of arms were few in number and simple in character the artist may well have been permitted to draw an eagle as he chose, providing it was an eagle. But arms and their elaboration in the last four hundred years have made this impossible. It is foolish to overlook this, and idle in the face of existing facts to attempt to revert to former ways.

Although now the English eagle displayed has the tip of its wings pointed upwards (Fig. 451), and the contrary needs now to be mentioned in the blazon (Fig. 452), this even with us was not so in the beginning. A reference to Figs. 453 and 454 will show how the eagle was formerly depicted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 446.--Eagle close.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 447.--Eagle rising, wings elevated and addorsed.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 448.--Eagle rising, wings addorsed and inverted.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 449.--Eagle rising, wings displayed and inverted.]

{237}

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 450.--Eagle rising, wings elevated and displayed.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 451.--Eagle displayed.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 452.--Eagle displayed with wings inverted.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 453.--Arms of Ralph de Monthermer, Earl of Gloucester and Hereford: Or, an eagle vert. (From his seal, 1301.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 454.--Arms of Piers de Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall (d.

1312): Vert, six eagles or.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 455.--Double-headed eagle displayed.]

The earliest instance of the eagle as a definitely heraldic charge upon a s.h.i.+eld would appear to be its appearance upon the Great Seal of the Markgrave Leopold of Austria in 1136, where the equestrian figure of the Markgrave carries a s.h.i.+eld so charged. More or less regularly, subsequently to the reign of Frederick Barbarossa, elected King of the Romans in 1152, and crowned as Emperor in 1155, the eagle with one or two heads (there seems originally to have been little unanimity upon the point) seems to have become the recognised heraldic symbol of the Holy Roman Empire; and the seal of Richard, Earl of Cornwall, elected King of the Romans in 1257, shows his arms ["Argent, a lion rampant gules, within a bordure sable, bezante"] displayed upon the breast of an eagle; but no properly authenticated contemporary instance of the use of this eagle by the Earl of Cornwall is found in this country. The origin of the double-headed eagle (Fig. 455) has been the subject of endless controversy, the tale one is usually taught to believe being that it originated in the dimidiation upon one s.h.i.+eld of two separate coats {238} of arms. Nisbet states that the Imperial eagle was "not one eagle with two heads, but two eagles, the one laid upon the other, and their heads separate, looking different ways, which represent the two heads of the Empire after it was divided into East and West." The whole discussion is an apt example of the habit of earlier writers to find or provide hidden meanings and symbolisms when no such meanings existed. The real truth undoubtedly is that the double-headed eagle was an accepted figure long before heraldry came into existence, and that when the displayed eagle was usurped by armory as one of its peculiarly heraldic figures, the single-headed and double-headed varieties were used indifferently, until the double-headed eagle became stereotyped as the Imperial emblem. Napoleon, however, reverted to the single-headed eagle, and the present German Imperial eagle has likewise only one head.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 456.--Napoleonic Eagle.]

The Imperial eagle of Napoleon had little in keeping with then existing armorial types of the bird. There can be little doubt that the model upon which it was based was the Roman Eagle of the Caesars as it figured upon the head of the Roman standards. In English terms of blazon the Napoleonic eagle would be: "An eagle displayed with wings inverted, the head to the sinister, standing upon a thunderbolt or" (Fig. 456).

The then existing double-headed eagles of Austria and Russia probably supply the reason why, when the German Empire was created, the Prussian eagle in a modified form was preferred to the resuscitation of the older double-headed eagle, which had theretofore been more usually accepted as the symbol of Empire.

By the same curious idea which was noticed in the earlier chapter upon lions, and which ruled that the mere fact of the appearance of two or more lions rampant in the same coat of arms made them into lioncels, so more than one eagle upon a s.h.i.+eld resulted sometimes in the birds becoming eaglets. Such a rule has never had official recognition, and no artistic difference is made between the eagle and the eaglet. The charges on the arms of Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall, are blazoned as eagles (Fig.

454). In the blazon of a few coats of arms, the term eaglet, however, still survives, _e.g._ in the arms of Child ["Gules a chevron ermine, between three eaglets close argent"], and in the arms of Smitheman ["Vert, three eaglets statant with wings displayed argent, collared or"].

When an eagle has its beak of another colour, it is termed "armed" of that colour, and when the legs differ it is termed "membered." {239}

An eagle volant occurs in the crest of Jessel ["On a wreath of the colours, a torch fesswise, fired proper, surmounted by an eagle volant argent, holding in the beak a pearl also argent. Motto: 'Persevere'"].

Parts of an eagle are almost as frequently met with as the entire bird.

Eagles' heads (Fig. 457) abound as crests (they can be distinguished from the head of a griffin by the fact that the latter has always upstanding ears).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 457.--Eagle's head couped.]

Unless otherwise specified (_e.g._ the crest of the late Sir Noel Paton was between the two wings of a dove), wings occurring in armory are always presumed to be the wings of an eagle. This, however, in English heraldry has little effect upon their design, for probably any well-conducted eagle (as any other bird) would disown the English heraldic wing, as it certainly would never recognise the German heraldic variety. A pair of wings when displayed and conjoined at the base is termed "conjoined in leure" (Fig.

458), from the palpable similarity of the figure in its appearance to the lure with which, thrown into the air, the falconer brought back his hawk to hand. The best known, and most frequently quoted instance, is the well-known coat of Seymour or St. Maur ["Gules, two wings conjoined in leure the tips downwards or"]. It should always be stated if the wings (as in the arms of Seymour) are inverted. Otherwise the tips are naturally presumed to be in chief.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 458.--A pair of wings conjoined in leure.]

Pairs of wings not conjoined can be met with in the arms and crest of Burne-Jones ["Azure, on a bend sinister argent between seven mullets, four in chief and three in base or, three pairs of wings addorsed purpure, charged with a mullet or. Crest: in front of fire proper two wings elevated and addorsed purpure, charged with a mullet or"]; but two wings, unless conjoined or addorsed, will not usually be described as a pair.

Occasionally, however, a pair of wings will be found in saltire, but such a disposition is most unusual. Single wings, unless specified to be the contrary, are presumed to be dexter wings.

Care needs to be exercised in some crests to observe the difference between (_a_) a bird's head between two wings, (_b_) a bird's head winged (a form not often met with, but in which rather more of the neck is shown, and the wings are conjoined thereto), and (_c_) a bird's head between two wings addorsed. The latter form, which of course is really {240} no more than a representation of a crest between two wings turned to be represented upon a profile helmet, is one of the painful results of our absurd position rules for the helmet.

A pair of wings conjoined is sometimes termed a vol, and one wing a demi-vol. Though doubtless it is desirable to know these terms, they are but seldom found in use, and are really entirely French.