Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.Various
History
Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
In his last communication MR. NICHOLS lays it down that "livery collars
were perfectly distinct from collars of knighthood;" adding, they did not
exist until a subsequent age. Of course the collars of such royal orders of
knighthood as have been established since the days of our Lancastrian kings
had necessarily no existence at the period to which he refers. But Gough
(not MR. GOUGH NICHOLS) mentions that the Collar of SS. was upon the
monument of Matilda Fitzwalter, of Dunmow, who lived in the reign of King
John; and Ashmole instances a monument in the collegiate church at Warwick,
with the portraiture of Margaret, wife of Sir William Peito, said to have
been sculptured there in the reign of Edward III. What credit then are we
to attach to MR. N.'s averment, that the "Collar of Esses was not a badge
of knighthood, nor a badge of personal merit, but was a collar of livery,
and the idea typified by livery was feudal dependence, or what we now call
party?" What sort of feudal dependence was typified by the ensign of
equestrian nobility upon the necks of the two ladies named, or upon the
neck of Queen Joan of Navarre? MR. NICHOLS states that in the first
Lancastrian reigns the Collar of SS. had no pendant, though, afterwards, it
had a pendant called "the king's beast." On the effigy of Queen Joan the
collar certainly has no pendant, except the jewelled ring of a trefoil
form. But on the ceiling and canopy of the tomb of Henry IV., his arms, and
those of his queen (Joan of Navarre), are surrounded with Collars of SS.,
the king's terminating in an eagle volant (rather an odd sort of a beast),
whilst the pendant of the queen's has been defaced.
MR. NICHOLS, in a postscript, puts this query to the antiquaries of
Scotland: "Can any of them help me to the authority from which Nich. Upton
derived his livery collar of the King of Scotland de gormettis fremalibus
equorum?" If Mr. N. puts this query from no other data than the citation
given in my former paper upon this subject (vide Vol. ii., p. 194.), he
need not limit it to the antiquaries of Scotland. Upton's words are as
follows:--
"Rex etiam scocie dare solebat pro signo vel titulo suo, unum collarium
de gormettis fremalibus equorum de auro vel argento."
This passage neither indicates that a King of Scotland is referred to, nor
does it establish that the collar was given as a livery sign or title. It
merely conveys something to this purport, that the king was accustomed to
give to his companions, as a sign or title, a collar of gold or silver
shaped like the bit of a horse's bridle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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