A New Website with Articles on Heraldry

Heraldry enthusiast, President (for thirteen years) of Norsk Heraldisk Forening, and friend, Hans Cappelen of Oslo, Norway, has created a new website onto which he is uploading his articles about heraldry and flags to share with the rest of the world.

The page is entitled, appropriately, Heraldikk og flagg (Heraldry and flags).

If you have an interest in Scandinavian heraldry and vexillology, or even more specifically Norwegian heraldry and vexillology, please drop by his page and see some of the articles he has uploaded there. Many of them are written in English, or at the very least have an English summary (very helpful for folks like myself whose comprehension of Norwegian is, alas, minimal). And, of course, there are pictures to help.

Heraldry and flags can be found on-line at http://www.cappelen-krefting.no/hans/index.html (I have also added this URL to "Websites of Heraldic Interest" in the left-hand column of this blog.)

Enjoy!

A Colonial American Hatchment

Hatchments, a specific type of heraldic display following the death of someone, though they can be found on display in many churches in Europe, are truly not all that common. In the land that is now the United States of America, they are even more rare. However, occasionally you might run across one.

This little gem of an American colonial hatchment was auctioned in 2013 by Northeast Auctions. It didn't reach but half of its estimated auction price, but I couldn't have afforded it even if I'd known about it at the time.

The hatchment is 16" x 14", done in painted and gilt silk. It shows the impaled arms of Hancock and Henchman, and was created for the funeral of Thomas Hancock (1703-1764), a wealthy merchant of Boston, Massachusetts, in August 1764. His wife was Lydia Henchman (1714-1777). Thomas was the uncle to John Hancock (1737-1793), well-known signer of the Declaration of Independence, whose grave marker in the Granary Burying Ground in Boston bears these Hancock arms.

Thomas and Lydia had raised his nephew since the death of young John's father in 1744.

You can learn a little more about this rare bit of American heraldry on the website of the auction house at http://northeastauctions.com/product/rare-and-important-mourning-escutcheon-bearing-the-hancock-henchman-family-coat-of-arms-from-the-funeral-of-thomas-hancock-boston-august-1764/

Something Heraldic to "Ring" in the New Year

It's always interesting to see the different ways in which people use (and sometimes misuse) heraldry.

Recently on Facebook I ran across this:

"What is it?" you ask. Why, it's a Barris Custom guitar by Hallmark, of course. The design is based on custom hotrod builder George Barris' personal "crest."  How real is that coat of arms? Not very, I suspect, but isn't that a cool guitar?  And wouldn't it be great to use to help bring in the new year?

There's a bit more information about and photographs of another one of these guitars, as well as photos of a couple of Mr. Barris' car creations, at http://jimsworldandwelcometoit.com/tag/hallmark-guitar/ Only fifty of these guitars were made, and as of my writing this, one of them is for sale on eBay. Or you can pick one up from the source for only US$999 at http://www.hallmarkguitars.com/Barris/default.html (The site runs Flash and plays music when you open it. You have been warned!)

Enjoy!

More Movie Heraldry: Star Wars

Well, as long as I'm still on a roll with heraldry from the movies, and since we're still undergoing the phenomenon that is Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, I found a couple of articles on-line about where someone had designed flags for many of the planets, and even the Death Star, from the movies, animated series, comic books, and video games.  ('Cause some folks just can't get enough of their Star Wars, don'tcha know?)

Anyway, while not heraldry strictly speaking (though vexillology, the study of flags, is certainly a related field to heraldry), I thought that these might be of interest.

Art director and New Zealander Scott Kelly has designed over 100 flags to represent the planets (and the Death Star!) from the Star Wars world.

This, for example, is the flag he designed for Tatooine, Luke Skywalker's home planet, with its two suns.  It's also highly reminiscent of one of the stills from the original Star Wars movie, now Episode IV: A New Hope), with our erstwhile hero looking out over the desert as the two suns set in the distance. (This design is actually my favorite, I think. It's clear, simple, readily identifiable; everything that a flag, or a coat of arms, should be.)

Anyway, if you're a fan of heraldic symbols, or of flags, or even just of Star Wars, you might check out Mr. Kelly's designs.  You can see some of his designs at http://www.dezeen.com/2015/12/16/scott-kelly-fictional-flags-planets-of-star-wars/#disqus_thread or at http://curbed.com/archives/2015/12/17/star-wars-flags-flipped.php

More Heraldry from the Harry Potter Movies

"Crests, flags and coats of arms possess a kind of power."

Thus opens a website which brings to us some of the heraldry which can be found in the Harry Potter books and movies.

For example, the "coat of arms" of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, consisting of the emblems of its four founders whose names are given to the four houses within the school: Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw (in quarters one, two, three, and four, respectively).

There's a fair bit more, of course.  Not as much as heraldry enthusiasts might prefer, but still ....

You can find the new MACUSA arms which we discussed in my last post, the arms of Hogwarts, and a number of others on the website Pottermore on a page entitled "The MACUSA seal and other other emblems from the wizarding world" at https://www.pottermore.com/features/the-macusa-seal-and-other-emblems-of-the-wizarding-world

Heraldry In The Movies

Well, in a movie, anyway.

To be truthful, in a movie that's going to be released almost a year from now, on November 18, 2016.

The movie, a Harry Potter prequel, set in New York, entitled Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, that has just released its first "teaser trailer" to the public.

Surprisingly enough, there was a shot of some heraldry in one of the scenes: a version of the arms of the United States of America.

Not as surprisingly, the depiction was not the coat of arms of the U.S. (Well, technically speaking, I suppose, what we are seeing here is the emblem of the "Magical Congress of the United States of America." So, not really the arms of the US, just something that tries to be.)

The US arms are probably best blazoned as Paly of thirteen argent and gules a chief azure.  The above image shows those arms but with the red and white stripes switched, and the chief is just crammed full of white stars (heraldic mullets argent).

So close, and yet so far.

It will be interesting to see if there is any other heraldry used in the movie.  I'll be sure to let you know if I run across any.

And if you want to see the trailer for this new movie yourself, you can find it on-line at: http://www.techinsider.io/fantastic-beasts-trailer-2015-12

Apropos of the Season

Appropriate to the season, and another fine example of attributed arms (which are on my mind right now owing to running across the arms of Goliath as I discussed in my post of December 10), here is a portrait and the attributed arms of St. Nicholas.

Ermine a chief quarterly or and gules.

A Proposal for a Replacement Coat of Arms in Australia

We've covered the topic of the coat of arms, and some of the folks who think that they ought to be changed, of the Australian Capital Territory and the City of Canberra (which the ACT has simply used to represent itself, despite the arms having been granted to the Federal Capital Commissioners for the City of Canberra), several times previously in this blog.  (See our posts of September 6, 2012; April 4, 2013; and August 8 and 26, 2013.)

Well, they're at it again.

The complaint is that there's really nothing Australian about the coat of arms. With which argument, frankly, I have to agree. See what I mean?

I recently ran across an article in The Canberra Times which highlighted a proposed new coat of arms for the ACT and Canberra (though why they think the two should bear the same arms I do not know) which is just chock-full of Australian imagery.

I do wish they hadn't made the background black; it makes the black swan supporters very hard to identify.

This proposed coat of arms also reminds me a bit of the "arms" of the State of New York here in the U.S.

But that, I suppose, should be neither here nor there.  (No, really!  It shouldn't be here, and it shouldn't be there. But then, I don't care for much of the "landscape heraldry" that passes for state symbols here in the U.S. Maybe that's just me, though. Others may like their heraldry that way.)

But I digress.

In addition to the gang-gang cockatoo on the arms, the designer, Steven Squires, has filled the shield and crest and other external additaments with lots of local meaning. And it's certainly not as bad as some of the heraldry that I've seen some people come up with. Still and all, though, I'm not sure that it's all that fortuitous a design. Yes, it is more "Australian," but no, it's not that great a piece of heraldry.

Still you can find out all about it (and its meanings) in the article by Ian Warden entitled "Gang-gang: Republican design imagines new ACT coat of arms" on the website of The Canberra Times at http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/canberra-life/ganggang-republican-design-imagines-new-act-coat-of-arms-20151209-gljzlw.html

An Unusual Heraldic Find

One of the my "guilty pleasures" in looking at/for coats of arms is the occasional find of another coat of attributed arms; a coat of arms designed and representing an individual, real or mythological, who lived some time before the introduction of heraldry in the 12th Century.

There are the ones you find in any number of old books, of course: King Arthur and the rest of the Nine Worthies; the three magi (below, from the Wernigeroder Wappenbuch); Jesus; and even Satan.

I even have a subfolder on my computer labeled "Attributed Arms" in which I place images of such arms that I run across, just so I can go back to them periodically without having to hunt them down in all the armorials, etc. from which I originally found them.

I was going back through another old source on-line which wasn't even primarily about heraldry; the Speculum humanae salvationis, Hs-2505, an old manuscript of illustrated stories from the Bible that I ran across on the website of the Darmstadt University Library.

While not specifically heraldic, a number of the illustrations included coats of arms to identify some of the figures they contained. The one that most attracted my attention was this one:

From the story of David and Goliath, we have the arms of the giant Goliath of Gath.

It came as a complete surprise to me; I'd not seen attributed arms for Goliath before.  And what a great, and simple, coat of arms it is, too! Very much Germanic in style, with the crest on the helmet matching the charges on the shield. Goliath of Gath! Who knew?

If you are interested in seeing this old manuscript, you can find it on the website of the Darmstadt University Library at http://tudigit.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/show/Hs-2505?sid=4e2a9d709bd960c47873f761448f19f8

Take a look and see what other rare attributed arms you can find!

Heraldic Controversy in Cambridge, Massachusetts

In a recent article at the Boston Globe entitled “Harvard Law will scrutinize use of slaveholders' seal,” journalist Steve Annear covers the controversy which has arisen over the inclusion of a colonial coat of arms in the logo/coat of arms used by the Harvard University School of Law.

The arms of the Law School could be blazoned Azure three garbs or, a chief of Harvard (Gules on three open books argent garnished or the word VE-RI-TAS [Latin: Truth] sable).

This controversy arises in the wake of the decisions in some of our southern states to remove the Confederate battle flag from certain public venues because of its adoption and use by those opposing equal rights for blacks in this country in the 1960s and since.

The main portion of the shield - Azure three garbs or - are the arms of Isaac Royall, as found on a baptismal basin donated by him to St. Michael’s Church in Bristol, Rhode Island; on his bookplate; on a two-handled cup in the possession of the First [Congregational] Church of Medford, Massachusett; and on the tomb of Isaac Royall and his father, William Royall, in Dorchester, Massachusetts (Bolton’s American Armory, Charles Knowles Bolton, The F.W. Faxon Company, Boston, 1927, pp. 142-143). (Bolton’s work, which heraldic scholars have noted has many errors in it, is the only work in which I have found these arms.)

Isaac Royall left in his will land for Harvard College to sell and establish the first law professorship in his name. However, he was a slaveowner, and further, “Royall's father ‘treated his slaves with extreme cruelty, including burning 77 people to death,’ according to a statement from the law school.” Hence the controversy, and following a call from students, Martha Minow, dean of the law school, formed a special committee to study, discuss, and make recommendations about the use of the arms to represent the school.

You can learn more about this controversy (on the one hand, it would disassociate the school from the history of slavery in this country; on the other hand, would it be sanitizing the past rather than confronting it?) on the website of the Boston Globe at http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/12/01/harvard-law-school-forms-committee-examine-use-crest-tied-slave-ownership/1JR7OwiLIsPc3BxRUiH6yH/story.html?event=event25