MAN AND HIS PARTS.—The full human figure is very rarely borne in coats of arms. In Scotland the Dalzells bear sable, a naked man with arms extended, proper ; formerly he was borne suspended from a gibbet.

Wood: azure, three salvage men ambulant in fess, proper; in their dexter hands a shield argent charged with a cross gules, in their sinister a club resting on their shoulders, also proper.

Mr Way mentions all MS. at Melton, in which two knights are represented tilting before a French princess, one of whom bears for a coat three demoiselles caged in a basket.

Canning of Foxcote : argent, three blackamoors’ heads couped sable, capped or fretty gules.

Tremaine of Colacombe: gules, three dexter arms conjoined at the shoulder, flexed in triangle, or, fisted argent.

Maynard : argent, three sinister hands couped at the wrist gules.

Foljambe of Walton bears a man’s leg for a crest.

The Isle of Man : gules, three legs armed in mail proper, garnished and spurred or, conjoined at the thighs and flexed in triangle, a bearing certainly in use as early as the reign of Edward I., and possibly earlier (fig. 116).





A very extraordinary bearing is that granted to Peter Dodge of Stopworth, Cheshire, by Guyenne king-at-arms, 8th April, 34 Edward I., for services in battle, "Porter a son escu d’or et sables, barré de six pièces et ung pal gules, aver une mamelle de femme dégoutante." It is said to be the earliest example of a grant of arms by a herald. Happily for heraldry there are not many such.

Newton; sable, two shin bones saltire-wise, the sinister surmounted by the dexter, argent.

Douglas,: argent, a man’s heart gules, ensigned by a roval crown proper, on a chief azure two stars of the first.

The "quinque vulnera" or five wounds of the crucifixion are a comnion ecclesiastical bearing on architectural shields, and several bishoprics bear ficrures of saints on their shields, but these are scarcely within the limits of proper heraldry. Thus the arms of the see of Chichester are—

Azure, Presbyte, John mitred, seated on a tombstone, in his sinister hand a mound, his dexter extended, all or. In his month a sword fesswise argent, hilted and pomelled or, the point to the sinister.





Read the rest of this article:
Heraldry - Table of Contents