Heraldic Badges

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1907. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... heraldic badges Heraldic Badges I exact status of the badge in this country, to which it is peculiar, has been very much misunderstood. This is probably due to the fact that the evolution of the badge was gradual, and that its importance increased unconsciously. Badges formerly do not appear to have ever been made the subjects of grants pure and simple, though grants of standards were frequent, and standards often had badges thereupon. Apart from such grants of standards, however, the instances which can be referred to as showing the control, or even the attempted control, by the Crown of the use of badges are very rare indeed in times past. As a matter of fact, the Crown seems almost to have purposely ignored them. Badges are not, as we know them, found in the earliest period of heraldry, unless we are to presume their existence from early seals, many of which show isolated charges taken from the arms; for if, in the cases where such single charges appear upon the seals, we are to accept those seals as proofs of the contemporary existence of those devices as heraldic badges, we should often be led into strange conclusions. There is no doubt that these isolated devices, which are met with constantly at an early period, were not only parts of arms, but were in many cases the origin of arms, which we find later in the use of the descendants of the same families as those which made use of the earlier form. Devices possessing a more or less personal and possessive character occur in many cases before record can be traced of the arms into which they subsequently developed. This will be noticed in relation to the arms of Swinton, for example. The earliest Swinton seal shows the isolated charge of a boar's head, whilst the developed coat of arms was a chevron between t...