Heraldic terminology and fossilised language
Monday, February 28th, 2005 02:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Last week
ladymoonray and I went to the Royal Academy to see the 'Turks' exhibition. (Interesting, but full of people: I'd have enjoyed it more if I hadn't had to queue at every exhibit to see it explained.)
One item -- a mirror, I think, was decorated with 'two sphinxes, addorsed'. I hadn't come across the term before, but deduced that it meant 'back to back' (from dorse, as in 'dorsal'). Turns out to be a heraldic term -- and an introduction to a vast new subset of jargon, loosely based (it seems to me, a non-expert) on medieval French, Latin and English.
Some examples (from An Illustrated Dictionary of Heraldry:
ravissant - a beast in the act of springing on its prey
regardant - looking back over shoulder (of beasts)
reremouse - a bat
retorted - twined together (of snakes)
I've been poking around on the interweb for a site that deals with the origins of the terms: if you like, a discussion of when they fossilised out of common language to become specific to heraldry. Any ideas?
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One item -- a mirror, I think, was decorated with 'two sphinxes, addorsed'. I hadn't come across the term before, but deduced that it meant 'back to back' (from dorse, as in 'dorsal'). Turns out to be a heraldic term -- and an introduction to a vast new subset of jargon, loosely based (it seems to me, a non-expert) on medieval French, Latin and English.
Some examples (from An Illustrated Dictionary of Heraldry:
ravissant - a beast in the act of springing on its prey
regardant - looking back over shoulder (of beasts)
reremouse - a bat
retorted - twined together (of snakes)
I've been poking around on the interweb for a site that deals with the origins of the terms: if you like, a discussion of when they fossilised out of common language to become specific to heraldry. Any ideas?
no subject
Date: Monday, February 28th, 2005 02:55 pm (UTC)I love heraldry, but my interest in it predates the Internet by a long way, so I don't know of any websites/discussion sites.
a vast new subset of jargon, loosely based (it seems to me, a non-expert) on medieval French, Latin and English.
Exactly right. The heraldic terms still in use today (okay, admittedly only by enthusiasts, but still, the correct technical terms used to blazon a coat of arms) are derived from the language used to describe a coat of arms among the Anglo-Norman nobility and their English-speaking servants - Middle English, Medieval Norman-French, and tags of Latin.
The traditions of heraldry are why some flags look odd to us and some flags look "right" - the system of only placing metals on colours and colours on metals is something that visual designers follow even now, though they mostly don't know they're doing that.
no subject
Date: Monday, February 28th, 2005 03:34 pm (UTC)The 'grammar' has its own feel too (two horses, azure, on a field of or, gules - rahter than two blue horses on a gold background etc).
no subject
Date: Monday, February 28th, 2005 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, February 28th, 2005 05:22 pm (UTC)Heraldic terminology is mostly a markup language1, and I think theoretically you can get a unique achievement of arms (the picture of the shield and all the gubbins around it) just by reading off the blazon (the words describing the arms).
I've long wanted some geek to come up with a computer program that let you do just that: type in the blazon and get the arms out on a colour printer. Maybe the College of Arms has one already.
1 CAML=Coat of Arms Markup Language?
no subject
Date: Monday, February 28th, 2005 11:47 pm (UTC)Re the thing where you type in a description and it draws it -- I saw a link today to a page that did that -- sadly didn't bookmark or even get that far! I was googling on 'heraldry etymology' etc ...
More Heraldry Geeks
Date: Tuesday, March 1st, 2005 12:17 pm (UTC)