Stall Plates of the XXIII Chapter of the Order of the Golden Fleece, 1559, Part 4

In our final post of the stall plates of the XXIII Chapter of the Order of the Golden Fleece held in 1559 in St. Bavo's Cathdral, we see the following.

As always, I recommend clicking on an image to see a larger and more detailed photo of these armorial plates.

Anyway, from left to right, we have:

Don Carlos of Spain, eldest son of Phillip II (1545-1568): blank shield.

Alfonso de Aragon y Portugal, Count of Ampurias, 2nd Duke of Segorbe, 3rd Duke Consort of Cardona (1489–1563): blank shield. (His father’s arms were: Paly of three: Dexter, Or four pallets gules (Aragon); Center: Per fess gules and argent a tower or and a lion rampant gules; and Sinister: Per saltire: chief and base, Or four pallets gules; dexter and sinister, Argent an eagle displayed sable (the Two Sicilies).)

Philippe de Stavele, Baron de Chaumont (1508-1562): Ermine a bend gules.

Philippe de Montmorency, Count of Horn (1518-1568): Or a cross gules between sixteen eagles displayed four four four and four sable.

Immediately below those four plates we have:

William I, Prince of Orange, seigneur de Breda (1533-1584): Quarterly: 1, Azure billety a lion rampant or; 2, Or a lion rampant gules crowned sable; 3, Gules a fess argent; 4, Gules two lions passant guardant in pale or; overall an inescutcheon: Quarterly: i and iv, Gules a bend or; ii and iii, Or a hunting horn azure stringed gules, overall an inescutcheon Checky of nine or and azure (or, Or a cross quarter-pierced azure) (Châlon-Arlay as Princes of Orange).

Johan I of East Frisia (1506-1572): Per pale: Sable a frauenadler between four mullets pierced or; Per bend azure and gules, two lions rampant or, on a chief or an eagle displayed issuant sable (or, a chief of the Empire).

Francisco Fernando d'Avalos d'Aquino, 5th Marquis of Pescara (?-1571): Quarterly: 1 and 4, Gules a tower or a bordure compony argent and gules; 2 and 3, Quarterly: i and iv, Or three bendlets gules; ii and iii, Per fess argent and gules a lion rampant counterchanged.

Ascanio Sforza-Sforza, Count of Santa Fiora (1520-1575): Azure a lion rampant or maintaining in its sinister forepaw a rose or slipped and leaved proper.

And last, but certainly not least, we see:

Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, Margrave of Burgau, second son of Emperor Ferdinand I (1529-1595): A very complex coat of arms, as you might expect, and one which I am not going to blazon here. Feel free to make the attempt yourself; I won't try to stop you.

Jean de Lannoy, Seigneur de Molembaix (1509-1560): Quarterly: 1 and 4, Argent three lions rampant azure; 2 and 3, Quarterly: i and iv, Gules a winged arm or maintaining a sword erect proper; ii and iii, Argent a lion rampant sable crowned or; overall, an inescutcheon of Burgundy.

And this ends our look at the stall plates of the 1559 Chapter of the Order of the Golden Fleece, held in St. Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium. I hope that you have found this review of the stall plates from both the 1445 and 1559 Chapters on exhibit in the Cathedral to have been of interest.

Now if I could just get my own coat of arms painted on a large board in the manner of these stall plates. (Of course, I have no idea where I would hang it! I can't think of any really good spaces in my house for such a display of armory.)

To Whom Do These Arms Belong?

It's always interesting, visiting an art and/or antique store I've never been to before, because you just never know what you're going to find.

We've been looking lately for a painting or other art piece to go over the television in the living room. We're taking our time with it, because whatever we get we're going to be looking at for a long time. But our tastes are pretty similar, and we're pretty sure that when we see "it," we'll know.

In the process of that search, we went to an antiques store we'd never been to before. We didn't find the art that we were looking for, but we did find this:

It's clearly a large (I'm afraid a little too large to do well in our living room, but we were a little tempted by it anyway) memorial board. We were told that it came from a French church, but there wasn't a lot more they could tell us about it besides the (hefty) price.

I thought to myself that, given that it appears to be the shields of a husband and wife who are pretty clearly of the nobility, it shouldn't be all that hard to track down whom this board memorializes. It turns out, I was only partially correct.

The coronet appears to be that of a baron of The Netherlands. The supporters are two griffins or, armed and langued gules. The motto is Crux decus spes (Cross honor hope). (A slightly different motto, Crux decus et spes, was borne by Gerard du Demaine, per the Dictionnaire Des Devises Historiques Et Héraldiques, Vol 1.) The date of death at the bottom is 12 November 1885.

The wife's arms were actually as easy to track down as I thought the entire achievement would be. They are found in Rietstap's Armorial Général as:

Draeck (de) Anvers, Gand - (Barons, 18 mai 1782. M[aison]. ét[einte].). Écartelé: aux 1 et 4, d'azur, à un dragon ailé et écaillé d'or (de Draeck); aux 2 et 3, d'argent, à trois chevrons de gueules (de Wesele dit Sompecqui). Cimier le dragon. Supports deux dragons ailés et écaillés d'or lampassés de gueules.

My attempt at a translation into English makes it: Draeck (de)  Antwerp, Ghent (Barons, 18 May 1782. [Literally, House off. I assume that means the de Draeck line had died out by the late 1800s.] Quarterly: 1 and 4, Azure a dragon [which the English would blazon a wyvern] winged and scaled or (de Draeck); 2 and 3, Argent three chevrons gules (de Wesele known as Sompecqui). Crest: A dragon as in the arms. Supporters: Two dragons winged and scaled or langued gules.

And the arms appear in Rolland and Rolland's Illustrations to the Armorial Général:

But I was striking out completely on the husband's arms. Oh, Rietstap had plenty of quarterly arms with a gold rampant lion on a blue field in the first and fourth quarters, as here, but the other quarters were completely different from these. Riestap has only three entries for a red field with six white billets:

Esmez (Bretagne) De gueules, à six billettes d'argent.
Mauger (Normandie) De gueules, à six billettes d'argent.
Périchou de Kerversau (Bretagne) De gueules, à six billettes d'argent.

Not all that helpful, especially since the three entries are from Brittany and Normandy, on the west side of France, where the other identified arms, and the coronet, seem to indicate an origin in the Low Countries.

After asking on-line among some heraldry enthusiasts if anyone had any idea on who these arms could belong to, our friend Luc Duerloo provided an identification for the inescutcheon on the husband's arms, de Bousies, a Belgian noble family. (He also thinks the entire achievement looks Belgian.)

Here's an image of de Bousies, also as an escutcheon of pretence on a quarterly coat of arms (though, alas, an entirely different coat from the arms on the memorial board), from the Wapenboek van de Belgische Adel by Luc Duerloo and Paul Janssens. (It's a great book, basically an illustrated ordinary of Belgian arms, with a names list at the back. It's also cool that I know one of the authors personally. It's also a very thick book; I'm pretty sure it about doubled the weight of my suitcase when bringing it back to the States from where I purchased it in Europe.)

So there you have it. We've managed to identify two of the three shields on this memorial board. Unfortunately, the one so far been identified is the husband's arms, and that makes researching the rest of the family a lot more difficult. What little I've been able to find on de Draeck women has them marrying men who bear different coats of arms from the one here.

So if you think you might know to whom these arms belong, I'd love to hear your thoughts, because I've gone just about as far as I can in identifying them, and I'd really like to know more.

And, of course, if you have the room at your place (and a few thousand dollars laying about the house just waiting to be spent) for this memorial board, let me know and I'll tell you where this heraldic gem is currently hanging out and waiting for the right buyer to come along.

Heraldry in Maastricht, Part Fourteen

Next door to the Museum aan het Vrijthof (the red building just barely showing on the right in the photograph below, and which I discussed in my last post) is a white brick building housing the GE Artesia Bank.

What is really cool about this building is that across the front (above),

down the side (above),

and across the back (above) is a row of some sixteen coats of arms (one is a duplicate; two of the arms, one on the front and one on the back, are the arms of the City of Maastricht), each set into the wall on a concrete (I believe) square.

Each coat of arms is painted as well as hatched.  They are, in order from right to left, beginning on the front of the building, going down the side, and then across the back:

The City of Maastricht

The City of Rotterdam

The City of Amsterdam

 The Province of North Holland

 The Province of Friesland

 The Province of Grongingen

 The Province of Overijssel

The Province of Drenthe

 The Province of South Holland

 The Kingdom of The Netherlands

 The Province of Zeeland

 The Province of North Brabant

 The City of Maastricht (again)

 The Province of Limburg

 The Province of Gelderland

  The Province of Utrecht

Isn't that all a great display of heraldry?

Heraldry in Maastricht, Part Thirteen

Leaving the Basilica of St. Servaas and walking along one side of Vrijthof Square, we come to the Museum aan het Vrijthof (previously the Museum Spaans Gouvernement), a museum of local history, art and artifacts housed in the old Spanish government building.  (The Museum also has a great set of entrance doors, but non-heraldic and thus not particularly related to the topic of this blog.  Still, if you are ever in the neighborhood, you should consider visiting.)

The facade of the building is dominated by a row of windows, the three on the right of which each have an arch above them which house heraldic elements.

The central of the three has a rendition of the double-headed eagle, on its breast a shield marshalling the arms of Austria (the Hapsburgs were also known as the House of Austria and they used the arms of Austria extensively; the family arms were different: Or a lion rampant Gules armed, langued, and crowned Azure) and Castile.  While impressive, it does seem to be a bit crudely painted.

The windows on either side have the imperial crown between the crowned pillars of Hercules, a badge adopted by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, along with his motto, Plus Oultre (in Old French, it is often written as the Latin Plus Ultra; in either case it means "further beyond").  The pillars and motto can still be found used in the achievement of arms of Spain, where the pillars are used as supporters for the shield.  (See, e.g., http://www.ngw.nl/int/spa/spannat.htm)

(The netting in the close-ups is to keep the pigeons from roosting or nesting there; pigeons everywhere seem to have no respect at all for art.)

Heraldry in Maastricht, Part Twelve

For the final heraldic offering from the ridiculously large number of photographs I took in the Basilica of St. Servaas in Maastricht, is this beautiful triptych set in a side (presumably private) chapel in the basilica.

The central panel shows the martyrdom of St. Sebastian, with the side panels portraying the husband and men of the household on the left and the wife and women of the household on the right, each group with their own saint.

The left-hand panel also bears the arms of the husband (Quarterly, 1 and 4, Vert? three lions rampant Argent? armed, langued and crowned Gules?, 2 and 3, Sable six Xs three, two, and one Or),

while the right-hand panel bears the marshalled arms of husband (as above) and wife (Or on a bend Sable three mullets Or) on a lozenge (as was appropriate for a woman, but certainly cramping the design of the husband's quarterly coat!).

Heraldry in Maastricht, Part Eleven

Continuing with more highlights from our heraldic tour of St. Servaas Basilica in Maastricht, there were lots and lots of carved armorial (and a bunch of non-armorial) memorials set into the floors.  Some of the following may look like they were cast in metal, but they are all carved in stone, polished by the soles of the hundreds of feet which have walked across them over the years.

The arms to sinister (to the right as you look at it) are reminiscent - though they do not match, as this one appears to be wearing a boot and the one below is wearing only a sandal, plus there is a star in dexter chief in the coat in Florence - the following coat of arms that I photographed in Florence, Italy a couple of years ago.

We now return you to the armorial memorials found in the Basilica of St. Servatius.

Because of where some of these memorials lay in the basilica (under chairs, under portable pews, etc.), I was not always able to photograph the text accompanying the arms.  And in others, the text was simply too worn to read well.  However, for the last coat of arms above, I obtained a clear photograph of the the text, which read (in Latin, of course):


Hic iacet sepultus reveren
dus dominus Michael Crusens
iul huius ecc~liæ canonicus
obiit 1 Martii 1626 requiescat
in sancta pace amen

And finally, there was this example, which has been cut down (and probably moved from its original location in the basilica) to serve as a paving tile.  (Leading me to the question: "If they saw heraldry in half in a basilica, is it still considered to be heraldic heresy?")  Admittedly, it does not appear that the arms of the individual buried there were cut down (those would be in the circle of which you can see the bottom arc here), but "only" those of some of his ancestors down the left-hand side of the memorial.

Heraldry in Maastricht, Part Ten

Okay, as promised, here are two more armorial stained glass windows in the Basilica of St. Servaas in Maastricht.

This one contains two more female saints, St. Catherine and St. Teresa.

The armorial panel below them contains two coats of arms.  The left-hand panel depicts the arms of Melania de Behr de Laet.  These arms are found in Rietstap's Armorial Général as: de Behr (Maestricht, Bruxelles).  D’arg. à l’ours ramp. de sa. soutenu d’une terrasse de sin.  An English blazon would be: Argent, a bear rampant Sable atop a terrace Vert.  (Yeah, I know, both the bear and the terrace look brown in the window.)

The arms in the right-hand panel are those, if I am reading the Latin correctly (and I am no Latinist!), of Teresa and Maria van der Poes Clement.  These arms are found in Rietstap as one portion of the arms of van der Poest-Clement: D’arg. à trois bill. d’azur, in English, Argent, three billets Azure.  As with one of the coats of arms in the previous post, the window and Rietstap do not match exactly; the window makes the billets (or delfs, as the depiction here makes them square rather than rectangular) red, not blue.  The most likely explanation is that the window depicts the arms of a different branch of the family.  (Other possibilities are that there is an error in Rietstap, or that the glass artist made an error.)  The window also bears the date 1877.

And the final window presented here has, in the upper two rows of panes, scenes from the lives (and deaths) of two saints.

The armorial panel below them contains two coats of arms.  The left-hand armorial panel depicts the arms of the Comte de Gelors.  Rietstap has these arms as Geloes: De sable à la croix engr. d’or; Sable, a cross engrailed Or (yes, I know that the cross looks more like indented here, but indented is a lot easier to depict in stained glass than engrailed is),  and has the same motto: In hoc signo vinces (In this sign, conquer).

I am not yet certain of the arms in the right-hand armorial panel.  But it was either keep hunting for the shield in my "spare" time and delay this posting, or admit that I do not (yet!) have the time I'd like for heraldic research and get the post up as I promised myself I would do.  You can see for yourself the choice I made.

Heraldry in Maastricht, Part Nine

Continuing on in our heraldic tour of the Basilica of St. Servaas in Maastricht, we come to some of the magnificent stained glass windows there.  And when I say "some," I mean I'm not going to do them all, at least not now.  (Someday, when I'm retired and can sit in my home office all day and do heraldic research -- a day I am looking forward to -- then I may present and discuss all of the heraldry I can find in a specific place.  But that day is not yet, and I've only got so much time to look up the coats of arms I am sharing with you here.  So, as I say, "some.")  But for now, here are two of the windows I photographed in St. Servatius, with details and the results of what little research I've been able to do on them.  (And I'll do two more windows in the next post.)

Here we have this wonderfully colorful window, with eight saints subscribed with their names (in Latin, of course).

And here is a detail of the armorial panel at the bottom.  The two left panes contain monograms.  The third pane contains the arms of Villers, blazoned in Rietstap's Armorial Général as: De gu. à trois estoiles d’or, entre deux cotices du mème.  An English blazon would be: Gules, three mullets of six points between two bendlets Or.  As you can see, though, the window makes the charges argent, white, and not gold or yellow.

The fourth panel contains the arms of Liedekerk, found in Rietstap as: De gu. à trois lions d’or, arm., lamp. et cour. d’azur.  (Gules, three lions rampant Or, armed, langued, and crowned Azure.)

 The second window for today is not as tall, and depicts four female saints.

The armorial panel at the bottom bears two coats of arms, each repeated.  I haven't had the time (see "looking forward to retirement," above) to track down the arms in the first and third panes.  An attempt at blazoning them might result in: Or, two bars wavy Azure alternating with two bars Gules.

The second and fourth panes contain the arms of South Holland: Or, a lion rampant Gules armed and langued Azure.

What beautiful examples of the glass stainers skill and armorial art!