Stall Plates of the XXIII Chapter of the Order of the Golden Fleece, 1559, Part 3

Continuing with our review of the heraldic stall plates of the XXIII Chapter of the Order of the Golden Fleece held in 1559 in St. Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium, we have the following, from left to right:

As always, I recommend clicking on an image to see a larger and thus more detailed photograph.

Pedro Fernandez de Velasco, 3rd Duke of Frias (1485-1559): Checky of nine or and per fess nebuly argent and azure, a bordure compony gules and argent charged alternately with towers or and lions rampant purpure crowned or.

Ferrante Gonzaga, Duke of Ariano: Argent a cross formy throughout gules between four eagles displayed sable, overall an inescutcheon Quarterly: i and iv, Or two bars sable; ii and iii, Gules a lion rampant argent.

Jean de Hennin, 1st Comte de Boussu (1480-1562): Gules a bend or.

Andrea Doria, 1st Prince of Melfi (1466-1560): Per fess or and argent an eagle displayed sable between four ragged staffs in saltire gules.

Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alva (1508-1582): Checky of fifteen argent and azure. (This could also be blazoned: Argent two bars azure a pale counterchanged, though I think that blazon is a little less elegant.)

Albert V, Duke of Bavaria (1528-1579): Quarterly: 1 and 4, Sable a lion rampant or; 2 and 3, Lozengy bendwise azure and argent.

In the row of plates immediately below that one, we have, from left to right:

Ottavio Farnese, Duke of Parma (1524-1586): Or on a pale gules between six fleurs-de-lis azure an ombrellino or surmounted by a pair of keys in saltire or and argent. We have seen a slightly later iteration of the Farnese arms in the person of Alexander Farnese (1545-1592), Duke of Parma, who was the son of Ottavio here, in a stained glass window in the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp.

Friedrich von Fürstenberg (1496-1559): Or an eagle displayed gules a bordure per bordure nebuly argent and azure.

Ponthus de Lalaing, Seigneur de Bugnicourt: Gules ten lozenges conjoined three three three and one argent.

Claude de Vergy, Comte de Gruères (1495-1560): Gules three roses (or cinquefoils) or.

Peter Ernest I von Mansfeld-Vorderort, Count of Mansfeld (1517-1604): Quarterly: 1 and 4: Quarterly: i and iv, Gules three bars argent; ii and iii, Argent six lozenges conjoined throughout three and three gules; 2, Sable an eagle displayed argent crowned beaked and legged or; 3, Azure a lion rampant or overall a bend compony gules and argent.

Next up, still left to right, we find:

Pierre de Barbançon, Stadtholder of Hainault: Azure billety a lion rampant argent armed and langued gules.

Henry II, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1489-1568): Quarterly: 1, Gules two lions passant guardant in pale or; 2, Or semy of hearts gules a lion rampant azure (sable?); 3, Azure a lion rampant argent crowned armed and langued or; and 4, Gules a lion rampant or a bordure compony azure and argent.

Philippe de Croy, 3rd Duc d'Aerschot (1521-1595): Quarterly: 1 and 4, Argent three bars gules; 2 and 3, Argent three axes the two in chief addorsed gules. We have seen these arms earlier among the stall plates of the Knights of the Order of the Golden Fleece in the Chapter held in 1445, in the persons of Antoine de Croy and Jehan de Croy.

That's all for this time! Isn't it enough? No? Well, we've got one more post with the remainder of these stall plates for you. Stay tuned!

Norway, Part Three - A Bit of German Heraldry

Of course, whenever you go looking for heraldry, you are likely to find some, even - or sometimes especially - when what you see is totally unexpected.

While we were visiting Oslo for the Congress, the city had another visitor, the FGS Bayern, a German Type 123 Brandenburg class Frigate.

And though its lower hull was partially blocked by cargo containers and whatnot, I managed to find the arms of Bavaria which mark this ship.

And here's what the arms would look like if there weren't a cargo container in the way, taken from the seaforces.org website at http://www.seaforces.org/marint/German-Navy/Frigate/F-217-FGS-Bayern.htm

Don't be confused because the placement of the arms in relation to the gun turret looks "off" in the photo above compared to those on the Seaforces website; in the picture above they had the gun turret rotated to face aft while they were working on it.

It was a neat thing to see, combining two of my loves as it did -- heraldry and naval ships.

Something To Be Thankful For

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States, and I thought I would share a new find that I am thankful for on this day.

To be truthful, while I'm thankful for this particular find, I'm even more thankful to the
Bavarian State Library, which has been for several years now digitizing and uploading 16th and 17th Century heraldic books to make them available to people like me who likely would never even know they existed except for their being uploaded on-line.  So, a hearty Thank You! to the fine folks at the Bavarian State Library.

That being said, the specific book I'm thankful for today is the Hofkleiderbuch (Abbildung und Beschreibung der Hof-Livreen) des Herzogs Wilhelm IV. und Albrecht V. 1508-1551. Wappen mit Reimsprüchen des Holland. Abbildungen bayerischer Regenten - BSB Cgm 1952 (16th Century).  Bing translates the title as "Court dress book (illustration and description of court liveries) of Duke Wilhelm IV. and Albrecht V. 1508-1551. coat of arms with rhyming slogans of Holland. Pictures of Bavarian Regents".  Which is probably close enough to get a rough understanding of what it contains.

Which is a whole lot of stuff, including a page of heralds in their tabards.

Isn't that cool!  (Although the Bavarian herald in the lower right looks like he's about to use his trumpet or baton as a mace!)

Anyway, the entire book can be found, perused, paged through, and even downloaded as a .pdf to your hard drive, at http://bildsuche.digitale-sammlungen.de/index.html?c=viewer&l=en&bandnummer=bsb00016900&pimage=00001&v&nav

Enjoy!  And thank you Bayerische StaatsBibliothek!

Speaking of Old Beer

In a thread on the American Heraldry Society forum about heraldry on beer bottles was this one, in which the company claims to be the oldest brewery in the world, established in 1040 A.D., some three and a half centuries before Spaten, the brewery in my last post.

Of course, the Weihenstephaner label is using the achievement of arms of the State of Bavaria for their logo, which they probably really shouldn’t be doing, as it implies that they are an official arm of the State. (Hmm, is the idea of a government-run brewery a good one or a bad one?)

Heraldry Is Where You Find It

We were attending a concert the other night (B.B. King, if you must know, and yes, it was excellent!), and I saw something that once again proved my growing belief that heraldry can be found just about everywhere and anywhere you look.

In this case, there was a display (and a couple of young ladies giving out samples and selling bottles) of a Bavarian beer. I particularly noticed the display because of the large banner (which had the paly-bendy azure and argent field of Bavaria over its entirety) with a coat of arms (the logo of the brewery, Spaten). Not being much of a beer drinker myself, I can’t tell you how good the beer is, but I did manage to acquire one of the coasters with the coat of arms/logo on it.

I later went out onto the internet to see what I could find out about the company. A brief overview of its history can be found here: http://www.spatenusa.com/2_company_service/2_1_history/index.htm

The most important dates in its history, at least insofar as their heraldry is concerned, are the ownership of the brewery from 1622-1704 by the Spatt family, who gave the brewery its present name (thus the canting arms, a pun on the name), 1807, the year Gabriel Sedlmayr (whose initials appear on the arms) acquired the brewery, and 1884, the year that graphic artist Otto Hupp designed the company logo. Many of you will recognize the name Otto Hupp for his impressive work in producing for many years the Kaffee HAG books of coats of arms and the 51 years of Münchener Kalenders where his heraldic style is so gloriously displayed.

So the next time you go to a concert, look around. You just might find some heraldry!