A Complete Guide to HeraldryFox-Davies, Arthur Charles
History
A Complete Guide to Heraldry
Fox-Davies, Arthur Charles
Heraldry -- Great Britain
it is interesting to note the curious legend that the "pink" of the hunting
field is not due to any reasons of optical advantage, but to an entirely
different reason. Formerly no man might hunt even on his own estate until
he had had licence of free warren from the Crown. Consequently he merely
hunted by the pleasure of the Crown, taking part in what was exclusively a
Royal sport by Royal permission, and for this Royal sport he wore the
King's livery of scarlet. This being the case, it is a curious anomaly that
although the livery of the only Royal pack recently in existence, the Royal
Buck Hounds, was scarlet and gold, the Master {74} wore a green coat. The
legend may be a fallacy, inasmuch as scarlet did not become the Royal
livery until the accession of the Stuarts; but it is by no means clear to
what date the scarlet hunting coat can be traced.
There is, however, one undoubted instance of the use of sanguine for the
field of a coat of arms, namely, the arms of Clayhills of Invergowrie,[6]
which are properly matriculated in Lyon Register.
To these colours German heraldry has added brown, blood-red (this
apparently is different from the English sanguine, as a different hatching
has been invented for it), earth-colour, iron-grey, water-colour,
flesh-colour, ashen-grey, orange (here also a separate hatching from the
one to represent tenné has been invented), and the colour of nature, _i.e._
"proper." These doubtless are not intended to be added to the list of
heraldic tinctures, but are noted because various hatchings have been
invented in modern times to represent them.
Mr. Woodward, in Woodward and Burnett's "Treatise on Heraldry," alludes to
various tinctures amongst Continental arms which he has come across.
"Besides the metals, tinctures, and furs which have been already described,
other tinctures are occasionally found in the Heraldry of Continental
nations; but are comparatively of such rarity as that they may be counted
among the curiosities of blazon, which would require a separate volume.
That of which I have collected instances is Cendrée, or ash colour, which
is borne by (among others) the Bavarian family of Ashua, as its _armes
parlantes: Cendrée, a mount of three coupeaux in base or_.
"_Brunâtre_, a brown colour, is even more rare as a tincture of the field;
the MIEROSZEWSKY in Silesia bear, '_de Brunâtre, A cross patée argent
supporting a raven rising sable, and holding in its beak a horseshoe
proper, its points towards the chief_."
"_Bleu-céleste_, or _bleu du ciel_, appears occasionally, apart from what
we may term 'landscape coats.' That it differs from, and is a much lighter
colour than, azure is shown by the following example. The Florentine CINTI
(now CINI) bear a coat which would be numbered among the _armes fausses, or
à enquérir: Per pale azure and bleu-céleste, an estoile counterchanged_."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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