[MR] Heraldic Word of the Day

[David W. James]

On 2009 Apr 08, at 9:58 PM, Jim Looper wrote:
> Anyone may register heraldry. Until they receive an Award of Arms  
> from the Crown, it is called a "heraldic device" instead of a "coat  
> of arms". The two are registered and displayed identically; only the  
> terminology changes when you become armigerous. N.B.: This is not a  
> practice firmly based on historical precedent.


    Well... rather than saying 'firmly based on historical precedent',  
how about we note that this exact kind of distinction was made in  
period:

(From A Grammar of Signs: Bartolo da Sassoferrato's Tract on Insignia  
and Coats of Arms / Osvaldo Cavallar, Susanne Degenring, Julius  
Kirshner. ISBN 1-882239-07-5)

> p41 In 1302 the Florentine government, controlled by the popolani,  
> drew up a list of magnate families and their respective coats of  
> arms.127 Later, many of the politically excluded magnates were able  
> to purchase a privilege from the same government allowing them to  
> assume the legal status of popolano and thus to qualify for  
> government posts, on condition that they change their family names  
> and choose different arms. After 1349, new coats of arms granted to  
> those magnates who chose to become popolano were carefully  
> registered.128 Florence stands alone in the late Middle Ages with  
> its government that surveyed, registered, and thereby regulated the  
> adoption of coats of arms by its magnate families.

    [Note that you need a registration system for the distinction to be  
made.]

> p59 After 1450, according to Borgia and Cambi Gado, the term stemme,  
> instead of arma, began to be employed by families who wished to  
> distinguish their noble arms from nonnoble ones.

    And there you have it.  Arms=stemme, arma=device, for exactly the  
same reasons.

> p63 The ability to identify individuals unmistakably from their  
> coats of arms was desirable and in the public interest. To remedy  
> the inevitable confusion of identities arising from the promiscuous  
> usage of coats of arms, cities like Florence granted officially  
> registered coats of arms to prevent double usage.213 A notion of  
> public interest similarly informs the Pisan prohibition (1286) of  
> double usage of names.214 Bartolo was intent on protecting the  
> interest of individuals by prohibiting one person from bearing  
> another's coat of arms (DI, c. 6).

Kwellend-Njal
--
    skadvaldurskjaldarmerkjafraedingur "heraldist's nuisance"