Military Heraldry and Flags at a Memorial

So there I was, just killing a little time in the wilds of Utah, waiting for the time for a memorial service to begin, and I thought I would drive around a bit to see what I could see.

Well, wouldn't you know it? One of the things to see that I ran across was the Orem City Cemetery. Now, in addition to being a heraldist, I am also a genealogist, so there was kind of a draw for me.

And as I was driving through the cemetery, I noticed a bunch of flags, which proved to be part of a veterans memorial there.

And here's an overview of the aforementioned flags.

Right in the center, from front to back, we have the flags of the United States Coast Guard, the United States Air Force, and the United States Navy. (And behind the pole on the right, the U.S. Marine Corps.)

And in this next photo, front to back and then left to right, the U.S. Merchant Marine, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Marine Corps, and (harder to make out, but I couldn't get the wind to cooperate fully for me) the U.S. Army.

Finally, we have the flag of the U.S. Space Force, with the upper hoist corner of the POW-MIA flag in the lower right corner.

This is not to imply that all of these flags are truly heraldic. Indeed, the only one that could be said to be truly heraldic is the one with the coat of arms of the U.S. Air Force. Most of the rest display what are more like badges (e.g., the U.S. Marine Corps)* or even logos. Still, they are certainly heraldry-adjacent, and I have photographed all of these emblems before in various places (for example, on the capitol building grounds in Raleigh, North Carolina), and will no doubt continue to do so in the future as I see them.

* MAD Magazine way back in the 1960s (well, I'm certainly dating myself with that reference!) did some parodies of the service songs of the branches of the U.S. armed forces. (Well, not the Space Force, which was not in existence back then.) I had a little fun on this trip singing their version of The Marines Hymn to my former Marine nephew who was there. The tune remains the same; only the words have been changed to make it more "realistic."

From the neck high mud of fo-oxholes

To malaria-filled bogs,

We will march for ninety miles a day

And drop out and die like dogs.

We will land on mine-strewn be-eaches

And we'll live with snakes and fleas;

Then we'll all leave Parris Island** for

Restful combat overseas.

** Parris Island, a district in the city of Port Royal, South Carolina, has been the site of Marine Corps recruit training since 1915.

A Diversion From One Person's Trip to Another

We're going to take a short break from reviewing the pictures of heraldry that my friend Katie sent me from her European cruise trip, and look at a little heraldry that I ran across in a short trip to Utah for a family funeral.

Okay, that last bit sounded funny. It was a funeral for someone in the family, not a funeral for the whole family. I just want to make that clear.

Anyway, there was some time after lunch on Saturday, and so my oldest daughter and her family took me to Moon's Rare Books ("A Museum Disguised As a Bookstore") up in Provo. (If you're really interested, you can find them on-line at https://moons-rare-books.myshopify.com/)* They do have an amazing collection of old and rare and newer and signed books there. Alas, they did not, while I was there, have any old heraldry books. The closest they came was a 17th Century peerage by William Dugdale, one time Garter Principal King of Arms at the College of Arms in London. I admit, it was a little tempting, even though it was a peerage and not heraldry per se, but they were asking more for it than I was willing to pay, and so I let it go back to its place on the shelf in the store.

But they did indeed have an interesting piece of heraldry in there! (Not that I was going to buy it; it was so big and heavy that I would have had more difficulty than it was worth get on the airplane home!) But it was sitting right out there for anyone to see, and so I asked if I could take a picture of it. And, gratefully, they said yes.

The object was this big, old, and heraldic iron fireback.**

What we see here, beneath the Royal Crown of France, are two shields: that to dexter (on the left), the Royal Arms of France; and that to sinister (the right as you look at it), the Arms of the Kingdom of Navarre. The two shields encircled by the collar of the Order of St. Michael inside the collar of the Order of the Holy Spirit.

This collection of symbols on the fireback indicate that it may date to the reign of King Henry IV (King of France 1589-1610, and King of Navarre 1572-1610) and Queen Margaret of Valois (Queen of Navarre 1572-1599).

The Order of St. Michael (the inner collar) was founded in 1469. The Order of the Holy Spirit (the outer collar) was founded in 1578 by King Henry III, Henry IV's father predecessor as king.

What an odd, and fun, practical piece of both history and heraldry to run across in a rare book store in the wilds of northern Utah!

* "Moon’s Rare Books is a museum disguised as a bookstore. We specialize in high points in literature (Shakespeare to J. R. R. Tolkien), Bibles from 1482-1899, early Utah and Mormon history, and pop culture (including movie props from Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Hunger Games, Indiana Jones and more). Fun for all ages."

**A fireback is a heavy cast-iron or steel plate placed against the rear wall of a fireplace to protect the masonry from heat damage, increase efficiency by reflecting heat back into the room, and to act as a decorative element. All the things that this one would, installed in a fireplace.

An Armorial Memorial in Vienna

Today's coats of arms come from a carved stone memorial mounted on the outside wall of St. Stephen’s Cathedral (German: Stephansdom), the main cathedral of Vienna. It stands in Stephansplatz in the 1st District (Innere Stadt) in the historic center of the city.

The memorial is one of several Renaissance-era memorial plaques set into the exterior walls of the cathedral. It is located along the north side of the nave, near one of the smaller side entrances, mounted high on the stone wall.

For centuries, grave markers and memorial epitaphs were embedded in the exterior walls of the cathedral because the churchyard cemetery once surrounded the building. When the cemetery was later removed, many stones remained built into the walls. I have seen such memorials mounted on the exterior walls of churches in other places, e.g., the Peterskirche (St. Peter's Church) in Heidelburg, Germany, where my great-grandfather was baptized.

But I digress. Here is the photograph that Katie took of this memorial:

The inscription is in two parts:

The shorter inscription on the small plaque above the two shields translates roughly into English as:

Those who die in God are blessed from now on. So that they all, who here in Christ fall asleep (die), shall be saved. (This is a paraphrase of Revelation 14:13 — a very common funerary text.)

The much longer inscription at the base of the monument translates roughly into English as:

To the honor of Almighty God and in special remembrance of the noble and learned lord Jacob Himmelreich Bieder, Doctor of Law of the Roman Emperor Ferdinand, city judge and also elder of the inner city council here in Vienna, who died on the 8th day of January in the year 1570, this epitaph was erected for the first lady of the house, Katherine née Freislebin, who passed away peacefully in God before the month of May 1555, and for her deceased children. This epitaph was erected by the aforementioned Count's retired son, Barthelm Himmelreich the expediter and tax assessor of the government of Archduke Charles of Austria, and Leopold Himmelreich, his brother, chamberlain to the Empress. May Almighty God, through Jesus Christ, raise them up again on the Last Day.

I have been unable to locate either the husband's or the wife's arms in the sources I have at hand. Not that I am surprised at this; armorials for German-speaking Europe and many and not easy to research; it often involves going though armorial after armorial page by page, and successful searches are pretty rare barring something like inclusion in J.-B. Rietstap's Armorial Général, which, alas, contains no arms for Bieder or Freislbin (or anything like it; yes, I know that often the "in" ending in German is a gender marker, i.e., "Mrs. Freisleb").

Herr Bieder's coat of arms (oh the left) appear to be: Quarterly: 1 and 4, An image of Atlas (a man dressed in a loincloth which is issuing a length of cloth to each side and bearing a globe of the world upon one shoulder); 2 and 3, A lion rampant. His wife Catherine's arms are:  A lion rampant maintaining in three paws a halberd.

The crests are: Issuant from a ducal coronet a crowned demi-man dressed in a loincloth which is issuing a length of cloth to each side between and holding a pair of buffalo horns/elephant's trunks each tipped with a comet (Bieder); Issuant from a ducal coronet a demi-lion erect mainting in its paws a halberd (Freislebin).

Still and all, though, I'm always grateful to be able to put a name to a coat of arms, or here, names to two coats of arms, whether or not we can determine the colors of the shield and its charges.

The Emperor's Beasts?

Well, admittedly, I ask that question in the title above because of the well-known British "Queen's Beasts", various animals holding shields which appeared at Queen Elizabeth II's coronation at Westminster Abbey.

Anyway ....

Having sailed up the Danube from Bratislava to Vienna, Austria, my friend Katie took two pictures of what I like to think of as the "Emperor's Beasts", crowned lions holding shields of arms, just outside of and flanking the way up to the Schweizertor (Swiss Gate) of the Hofburg Palace there.

The Schweizertor is a historic Renaissance-style archway built between 1552-1553 under Emperor Ferdinand I. Recognized by its striking red and black design, it serves as the entrance to the Schweizerhof (Swiss Court) and connects it to the Innerer Burghof. It is a beautiful example of 16th-century fortification architecture.

The crown that each lion is shown wearing is, of course, the Crown of St. Stephen, the coronation crown used by the Kingdom of Hungary since the 12th Century.

This lion holds the very well-known arms of Austria (Österreich): Gules a fess argent.

Directly across from the first lion is this one, holding what I believe are the arms of Niederösterreich (Lower Austria): Azure five eagles displayed or.

That said, the arrangement of the birds (which don't especially look like eagles, more like the quail on the arms of Wachtler that we looked in our last post) on the shield is unusual: one, two, and two, rather than the more common two, two, and one. Now, this could, of course, simply be an error of the stonecarver. (I mean, I've seen some heraldic carvings that really didn't match the blazon of the arms closely at all!) Or not.

Niederösterreich was created as a Duchy in 1156 and became part of Austria in 1282. Around 1450 a large part, now mainly Oberosterreich, was removed from the Duchy.

The arms with the five eagles first appears in 1335, as the legendary arms of the H. Leopold, who originated from the area. Around 1360 Duke Rudolf IV adopted the eagles as the arms of Old Austria. Ever since the arms represented Niederösterreich in the ducal and imperial arms.

The arms were not officially granted until 1920.

And Vienna was the capital of Niederösterreich at least until the city became a separate state in 1921.

So all of this history leads me to believe that this shield is the arms of Niederösterreich, at least until someone can lead me to a different conclusion.

Do you have thoughts about these "Emperor's Beasts" and the coats of arms they hold?

Artificial Intelligence, Maybe Not Quite So Intelligent After All

At least not for correctly identifying coats of arms, anyway.

My on-going, and only partly successful, attempts to use artificial intelligence (AI) as an aid in the identification of coats of arms continues, with mixed results.

For today's coat of arms, photographed in Bratislava, Slovakia, it was eventually mostly successful, but only after several attempts where I had to keep double-checking everything it was trying to tell me, explain why what it said was incorrect, and have it try again.

I was asking AI for the specific building in Bratislava with this coat of arms above the doorway, and the name of the family whose coat it was.

AI did manage to give me the name of the building pretty quickly (naturally, I had told it that this building was in Bratislava, to enable it to narrow down its search).

It told me that this building is the "Palffy Palace, and is among the oldest historic sights in Bratislava. Detailed research in the interior discovered masonry from the first half of the 13th century. In 1988 the palace was taken over by the Bratislava City Gallery that holds here a range of permanent expositions and temporary exhibitions."

Super! Now I have an identification of the building.

For the arms, though, I had to go through several iterations with AI to get a good identification.

First it told me that the bird was an eagle (a close look at the arms makes this unlikely), and I had to keep guiding guiding it back on track to get it to finally produce an identification that not only made sense, but was also corroborated by other information on the internet.

This is what AI finally told me (my comments about its findings are contained in square brackets):

"It [the coat of arms] belongs to Bernhard Wachtler, a member of the Prešov city council. [I question this; Prešov is quite a distance from Bratislava. Other information I found about Bernhard tells me that Bernhard Wachtler (†1827) became a member of the city council of ... Bratislava, Slovakia in 1801.]

The Wachtler family was the owner of the palace from 1870 to 1945. [So the arms are in fact not those of this Bernhard; he died 43 years before the family owned the palace.] The coat of arms shows a quail holding a stalk in its beak. It is a so-called speaking [canting] coat of arms (quail, German: wachtl), which corresponds to the surname of its bearer. The crown above the coat of arms with five pearls (baronial) indicates that its bearer was a nobleman. [I decided not to get into a conversation with AI about this statement. I was looking for the identification of the arms, and not the family's status.] The Wachtlers were wealthy merchants and city officials, and owned or renovated several properties in central Bratislava."

I've not been able to find a blazon for the Wachtler arms in any of the usual suspects (most importantly, J-B Rietstap's Armorial Général). The field, presumably, is blue. The trimount in base, equally presumably, is green. The quail, likely silver, but possibly gold, and is either rising or displayed. I have not been able to identify the sprig in its beak; it appears to consist of a short branch with three or four leaves and what may be a couple of berries of some type on it. (Though this last could just by my misinterpretation of the way the carving looks.)

Be that as it may, with at least a fair bit of coaching and explaining and telling it outright that it was wrong, AI finally did come up with an accurate (mostly) identification of the arms over the doorway on the façade of the Palffy Palace in Bratislava, Slovakia.

My thanks once again to my friend Katie, who thought to take pictures of heraldry for me while on her river cruise through Europe.

I Love My Friends. Artificial Intelligence, Not So Much

Late last year a friend of mine, Katie, returned from a two-week river cruise vacation in Europe, and here and there amidst all of the fun and good times she was having there, she thought to take some pictures of the coats of arms she saw there just for me!

And now, with her kind permission, I get to share some of her photos of heraldry with you.

The trick, of course, is to identify all of these coats of arms. "Ah,", I thought. "This could be a good trial of just how effective artificial intelligence can be in helping to identify at least the buildings, and likely the coats of arms carved on their facades."

Well, I was half right.

The first trial was this shot, taken in Bratislava, Slovakia.

I uploaded this photo to AI, and it quickly (and accurately; I checked) told me that this building is the Reduta, the historic home of the Slovak Philharmonic in Bratislava, Slovakia, built between 1913 and 1915.

Then I asked it specifically about the coats of arms above the doorway. (Alas, the oval cartouche in the center of the triangular pediment in the upper portion of this picture is blank. No arms or any other carving.)

It quickly and, again, accurately, identified the arms on the shield on the right as the coat of arms of the city of Bratislava: Gules a triple-towered castle argent roofed proper portcullised or. These arms have been used by the city since 1436.

However, regarding the arms in the oval frame on the left, AI flat out lied to me! It explained that the arms on the left were those of the Kingdom of Hungary.

A close look at the photograph above, and comparing to some other photographs of this doorway I found on-line, what I see there is not one, but four overlapping shields: Two behind and flanking, with eagles displayed; a larger one in the center, with looks like a pale, but I can’t see it clearly enough to be sure; and a smaller uppermost shield which looks a bit like Slovakia (or the sinister half of the arms of the Kingdom of Hungary). The Slovakian arms are a 20th century creation based on an existing 14th century Hungarian coat of arms in the seal of King Louis I of Hungary.

So, not a single shield with the arms of Hungary, but four shields with different charges on them, none of which appear to be the arms of Hungary.

But who am I going to believe, AI or my own eyes?

For some reason, I am reminded of Carol Kane playing Miracle Max's wife in The Princess Bride:

Liar! Liar!