The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 4 (of 4)
History
The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 4 (of 4)
Cornwall (England : County) -- History; Geology -- England -- Cornwall (County)
better before than those French or Latin terms could make them, in
which many of the English may be blamed as well as we; for the
herald’s art hath many mysteries in it under their French and Latin
terms, and many mistakes may be thereby to us and others who are not
well acquainted with them, but in those that concern our own tongue,
it is evident many have wronged themselves, and more may do so if not
well heeded.
The grounds of two mistakes are very obvious. 1st. Upon the Tre or
Ter. 2dly. Upon the Ross or Rose. Tre or Ter in Cornish commonly
signifies a town, or rather place, and it has always an adjunct with
it. Tri is the number. 3. Those men willingly mistake one for another;
and so in French heraldry terms, they use to fancy and contrive those
with any such three things as may be like or cohere with, or may be
adapted to any thing or things in their surnames; whether very
handsome or not, is not much stood upon. Another usual mistake is upon
Ross, which, as they seem to fancy, should be a rose; but Ross in
Cornish is a vale or valley. Now for this their French-Latin tutors,
when they go into the field of Mars, put them in their coat armour
prettily to smell out a rose or flower (a fading honour instead of a
durable one); so any three such things, agreeable perhaps a little to
their names, are taken up and retained from abroad, when their own at
home have a much bttter scent and more lasting.
Some, however, amongst us, have kept themselves better to the
antiquities of their Cornish names in their coat armour, as that
honourable family Godolphin,[39] in keeping still displayed abroad his
white eagle, from the Cornish Gothulgon. Richard, king of the Romans,
Emperor elect, supplied his Cornish border with silver (perhaps tin)
plates, deducing them from the antient earls of Cornwall, as borne by
them before the Norman Conquest, and, in honour to them and himself,
still bearing the same afterwards. Chiverton, whose name in Cornish is
a house on a green place or hill, he beareth a coat thereunto
accordant, a castle with a green field under it; which may be well
thought on as to the name in[40] Cornish, though, in the heraldry it
had been more complete. V. a castle A. as I apprehend; Scaberius,
which is sweepers or sweeping, A. 3 broom besoms V.; Gavergan, a goat;
Keverel, a he-goat, or he-goats; that creature taking most delight, as
it is observed, in the cliffs thereabout. These are better
significations taken from home, than the other that are foreign; and
yet the assumption of a coat from any particular act of a man’s own,
is better than such as have reference barely to names, without some
special signification therewith.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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