Tincture (heraldry)
Tinctures constitute the limited palette of colours and patterns used in heraldry. The need to define and blazon the various tinctures is one of the most important aspects of heraldic art and design; the use of these tinctures dates back to the formative period of European heraldry, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but the range of tinctures and the manner of depicting and describing them has evolved over time, as new variations and practices have developed. The basic scheme and rules of applying the heraldic tinctures dates to the formative period of heraldry, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. By the time of the earliest coloured heraldic illustrations, in the mid-thirteenth century, the use of two metals, five colours, two furs had become standardized, since that time, the great majority of heraldic art has employed these nine tinctures. Over time, variations on these basic tinctures were developed with respect to the furs, although the authorities differ as to whether these should be considered separate tinctures, or varieties of existing ones.
Two additional colours appeared, were accepted by heraldic writers, although they remained scarce, were termed stains, from the belief that they were used to signify some dishonour on the part of the bearer. The practice of depicting certain charges as they appear in nature, termed proper, was established by the seventeenth century. Other colours have appeared since the eighteenth century in continental heraldry, but their use is infrequent, they have never been regarded as heraldic, or numbered among the tinctures that form the basis of heraldic design; the frequency with which different tinctures have been used over time has been much observed, but little studied. There are, some general trends of note, both with respect to the passage of time, noted preferences from one region to another. In medieval heraldry, gules was by far the most common tincture, followed by the metals argent and or, at least one of which appeared on the majority of arms. Among the colours, sable was the second most common, followed by azure.
Over time, the popularity of azure increased above that of sable, while gules, still the most common, became less dominant. A survey of French arms granted during the seventeenth century reveals a distinct split between the trends for the arms granted to nobles and commoners. Among nobles, gules remained the most common tincture followed by or by argent and azure at nearly equal levels. Among commoners, azure was the most common tincture, followed by or, only by gules and sable, used more by commoners than among the nobility. Purpure is so scarce in French heraldry that some authorities do not regard it as a "real heraldic tincture". On the whole, French heraldry is known for its use of azure and or, while English heraldry is characterized by heavy use of gules and argent, unlike French heraldry, it has always made regular use of vert, occasional, if not extensive, use of purpure. German heraldry is known for its extensive use of or and sable. German and Nordic heraldry make use of purpure or ermine, except in mantling and the lining of crowns and caps.
In fact, furs occur infrequently in Nordic heraldry. The colours and patterns of the heraldic palette are divided into three groups known as metals and furs; the metals are or and argent, representing gold and silver although in practice they are depicted as yellow and white. Or derives its name from the Latin aurum, "gold", it may be depicted using either metallic gold, at the artist's discretion. Argent is derived from the Latin argentum, "silver". Although sometimes depicted as metallic silver or faint grey, it is more represented by white, in part because of the tendency for silver paint to oxidize and darken over time, in part because of the pleasing effect of white against a contrasting colour. Notwithstanding the widespread use of white for argent, some heraldic authorities have suggested the existence of white as a distinct heraldic colour. Five colours have been recognized since the earliest days of heraldry; these are: red. Gules is of uncertain derivation. Sable is named for a type of marten, known for its luxuriant fur.
Azure comes through the Arabic lāzaward, from the Persian lāžavard both referring to the blue mineral lapis lazuli, used to produce blue pigments. Vert is from Latin viridis, "green"; the alternative name in French, sinople, is derived from the ancient city of Sinope in Asia Minor, famous for its pigments. Purpure is in turn from Greek porphyra, the dye known as Tyrian purple; this expensive dye, known from antiquity, produced a much redder purple than the modern heraldic colour. As a heraldic colour, purpure may have originated as a variation of gules. Two more were acknowledged by most heraldic authoriti
Heraldry
Heraldry is a broad term, encompassing the design and study of armorial bearings, as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony and pedigree. Armory, the best-known branch of heraldry, concerns the design and transmission of the heraldic achievement; the achievement, or armorial bearings includes a coat of arms on an shield and crest, together with any accompanying devices, such as supporters, heraldic banners, mottoes. Although the use of various devices to signify individuals and groups goes back to antiquity, both the form and use of such devices varied and the concept of regular, hereditary designs, constituting the distinguishing feature of heraldry, did not develop until the High Middle Ages, it is often that the use of helmets with face guards during this period made it difficult to recognize one's commanders in the field when large armies gathered together for extended periods, necessitating the development of heraldry as a symbolic language but there is little actual support for this view.
The beauty and pageantry of heraldic designs allowed them to survive the gradual abandonment of armour on the battlefield during the seventeenth century. Heraldry has been described poetically as "the handmaid of history", "the shorthand of history", "the floral border in the garden of history". In modern times, individuals and private organizations, cities and regions use heraldry and its conventions to symbolize their heritage and aspirations. Various symbols have been used to represent groups for thousands of years; the earliest representations of distinct persons and regions in Egyptian art show the use of standards topped with the images or symbols of various gods, the names of kings appear upon emblems known as serekhs, representing the king's palace, topped with a falcon representing the god Horus, of whom the king was regarded as the earthly incarnation. Similar emblems and devices are found in ancient Mesopotamian art of the same period, the precursors of heraldic beasts such as the griffin can be found.
In the Bible, the Book of Numbers refers to the standards and ensigns of the children of Israel, who were commanded to gather beneath these emblems and declare their pedigrees. The Greek and Latin writers describe the shields and symbols of various heroes, units of the Roman army were sometimes identified by distinctive markings on their shields; until the nineteenth century, it was common for heraldic writers to cite examples such as these, metaphorical symbols such as the "Lion of Judah" or "Eagle of the Caesars" as evidence of the antiquity of heraldry itself. The Book of Saint Albans, compiled in 1486, declares that Christ himself was a gentleman of coat armour, but these fabulous claims have long since been dismissed as the fantasy of medieval heralds, for there is no evidence of a distinctive symbolic language akin to that of heraldry during this early period. The medieval heralds devised arms for various knights and lords from history and literature. Notable examples include the toads attributed to Pharamond, the cross and martlets of Edward the Confessor, the various arms attributed to the Nine Worthies and the Knights of the Round Table.
These too are now regarded as a fanciful invention, rather than evidence of the antiquity of heraldry. The development of the modern heraldic language cannot be attributed to a single individual, time, or place. Although certain designs that are now considered heraldic were evidently in use during the eleventh century, most accounts and depictions of shields up to the beginning of the twelfth century contain little or no evidence of their heraldic character. For example, the Bayeux Tapestry, illustrating the Norman invasion of England in 1066, commissioned about 1077, when the cathedral of Bayeux was rebuilt, depicts a number of shields of various shapes and designs, many of which are plain, while others are decorated with dragons, crosses, or other heraldic figures, yet no individual is depicted twice bearing the same arms, nor are any of the descendants of the various persons depicted known to have borne devices resembling those in the tapestry. An account of the French knights at the court of the Byzantine emperor Alexius I at the beginning of the twelfth century describes their shields of polished metal, utterly devoid of heraldic design.
A Spanish manuscript from 1109 describes both plain and decorated shields, none of which appears to have been heraldic. The Abbey of St. Denis contained a window commemorating the knights who embarked on the Second Crusade in 1147, was made soon after the event. In England, from the time of the Norman conquest, official documents had to be sealed. Beginning in the twelfth century, seals assumed a distinctly heraldic character. A notable example of an early armorial seal is attached to a charter granted by Philip I, Count of Flanders, in 1164. Seals from the latter part of the eleventh and early twelfth centuries show no evidence of heraldic symbolism, but by t
Supporter
In heraldry, sometimes referred to as attendants, are figures or objects placed on either side of the shield and depicted holding it up. Early forms of supporters are found in medieval seals. However, unlike the coronet or helmet and crest, supporters were not part of early medieval heraldry; as part of the heraldic achievement, they first become fashionable towards the end of the 15th century, but in the 17th century were not part of the full heraldic achievement. The figures used as supporters may be based on real or imaginary animals, human figures, in rare cases plants or other inanimate objects, such as the pillars of Hercules of the coat of arms of Spain; as in other elements of heraldry, these can have local significance, such as the fisherman and the tin miner granted to Cornwall County Council, or a historical link. The arms of nutritionist John Boyd-Orr use two'garbs' as supporters. Letters of the alphabet are used as supporters in the arms of Spain. Human supporters can be allegorical figures, or, more specifically named individuals.
There is one supporter on each side of the shield, though there are some examples of single supporters placed behind the shield, such as the imperial eagle of the coat of arms of the Holy Roman Empire. The arms of the Congo provide an unusual example of two supporters issuing from behind the shield. While such single supporters are eagles with one or two heads, there are other examples, including the cathedra in the case of some Canadian cathedrals. At the other extreme and rarer, the Scottish chief Dundas of that Ilk had three supporters: two conventional red lions and the whole supported by a salamander; the coat of arms of Iceland has four supporters. The context of the application of supporters may vary, although entitlement may be considered conditioned by grant of a type of augmentation of honour by admission in orders of chivalry or by heraldic authorities, such as in the case of traditional British heraldry. Animal supporters are, by default, as close to rampant as possible, if the nature of the supporter allows it, though there are some blazoned exceptions.
An example of whales'non-rampant' is the arms of the Dutch municipality of Zaanstad. Older writers trace origins of supporters to their usages in tournaments, where the shields of the combatants were exposed for inspection, guarded by their servants or pages disguised in fanciful attire. However, medieval Scottish seals afford numerous examples in which the 13th and 14th century shields were placed between two creatures resembling lizards or dragons; the seal of John, Duke of Normandy, eldest son of the King of France, before 1316 bears his arms as. In Canada, Companions of the Order of Canada, Commanders of the Order of Military Merit, Commanders of the Royal Victorian Order: people granted the style the Right Honourable, corporations are granted the use of supporters on their coats of arms. Further, on his retirement from office as Chief Herald, Robert Watt was granted supporters as an honour. In France, writers made a distinctive difference on the subject of supporters, giving the name of Supports to animals, real or imaginary, thus employed.
Trees and other inanimate objects which are sometimes used are called Soutiens. Knights Grand Companion and Principal Companions of the New Zealand Order of Merit are granted the use of heraldic supporters. In England, supporters were regarded as little more than mere decorative and artistic appendages. In the United Kingdom, supporters are an example of special royal favour, granted at the behest of the sovereign. Hereditary supporters are limited to hereditary peers, certain members of the Royal Family, to some chiefs of Scottish clans. Non-hereditary supporters are granted to life peers and Ladies of the Order of the Garter and Order of the Thistle and Dames Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, Order of St Michael and St George, Royal Victorian Order and Order of the British Empire, Bailiffs and Dames Grand Cross of the Order of St John. Knights banneret were granted non-hereditary supporters, but no such knight has been created since the time of Charles I. Supporters may be granted to corporations which have a royal charter.
Confronted animals
Arthur Charles Fox-Davies
Arthur Charles Fox-Davies was a British expert on heraldry. His Complete Guide to Heraldry, published in 1909, has become a standard work on heraldry in England. A barrister by profession, Fox-Davies worked on several notable cases involving the peerage, worked as a journalist and novelist. Arthur Charles Davies, known to his friends as Charlie, was born in Bristol, the second son of Thomas Edmond Davies and his wife Maria Jane Fox, the daughter and co-heiress of Alderman John Fox, JP. Fox-Davies was brought up at Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, where his father worked for the Coalbrookdale Iron Company, he added his mother's maiden name to his own by deed poll on his nineteenth birthday in 1890, thereby changing his surname from Davies to Fox-Davies. In 1894, his father took the rest of the family. Fox-Davies attended Ackworth School in Yorkshire, but was expelled in 1884 at the age of fourteen, after hitting one of the schoolmasters, he received no further formal education, but was admitted to Lincoln's Inn in 1901 and called to the bar in 1906.
As a barrister, he practised on the South Eastern Circuit, at the Old Bailey, at the Surrey and South London Sessions. He prepared printed cases for peerage cases in the House of Lords, he married in 1901 Mary Ellen Blanche Crookes and coheiress of Septimus Wilkinson Crookes and Anne Blanche Harriet Proctor. They had a son, Harley Edmond Fitzroy Fox-Davies, a daughter, Moyra de Somery Regan, his wife worked as an heraldic artist for her husband's publications, under the pseudonym "C. Helard". Neither the Fox nor the Davies families were armigerous, so in 1905, when Fox-Davies was 34 and well-advanced in his career as a writer on heraldic and genealogical subjects, he organised posthumous grants of arms to both his grandfathers; the arms granted to Charles Davies were sable, a demi sun in splendour issuant in base or, a chief dancetée of the last, for crest, "a demi dragon rampant gules collared or, holding in the dexter claw a hammer proper". Fox-Davies bore the Davies arms with a crescent for cadency, intended to quarter them with the Fox arms after his mother's death.
He considered obtaining grants to his wife's families of Crookes and Proctor, which would entitled his children to additional quarterings, but at this point he no longer had the money for further grants of arms. He did obtain, in 1921, the grant of a badge, his motto was Welsh for "good faith" and a pun on the name Davies. In addition to his writings on heraldry, he published a number of works of fiction, including detective stories such as The Dangerville Inheritance, The Mauleverer Murders and The Duplicate Death. Politically Conservative, Fox-Davies "quite hopelessly" stood for election as a member of parliament for Merthyr Tydfil in 1910, 1923, 1924, he was, however elected as a member of Holborn Borough Council in London. Fox Davies lived at 65 Warwick Gardens in Kensington and had chambers at 23, Old Buildings, Lincoln's Inn, he died, aged 57, of portal hypertension and cirrhosis of the liver, having lain ill in his home for several weeks. He was buried at the parish church in Coalbrookdale.
Fox-Davies's writing on heraldry is characterised by a passionate attachment to heraldry as art, history and as law. He was something of a polemicist, issued one of his most controversial works, The Right to Bear Arms, under the pseudonym X. However, he always supported his arguments with specific historical and manuscript evidence, he was the editor of the Genealogical Magazine from 1895–1906. He conducted a lifelong campaign against the bearing of coats of arms without lawful authority in accordance with the Law of Arms, whether that authority was a right recognised at the Visitations conducted by heralds between the 16th to 18th centuries or, more a right deriving from a specific grant entered in the records of the College of Arms. In support of this campaign, he produced a directory which attempted to list all living bearers of arms in England and Wales who could prove such authority, under the title Armorial Families; this served as an incentive to families who had not got such authority to regularise their position at the College of Arms and the size of the work increased until its final edition in 1929, which remains the most comprehensive published record of post-Victorian heraldry in Britain.
Many of the arms were illustrated with specially commissioned heraldic drawings, Fox-Davies drew on this large resource when illustrating his more systematic treatises on heraldry. The most lavish of these was The Art of Heraldry: An Encyclopædia of Armory, conceived as an English translation of a German publication but, transformed, in Fox-Davies's hands, into a original work directed to the history and practice of English heraldry, with illustrations in black and white and in colour throughout; this large 500-page book was first published in 1904 and was re-issued in black and white only in 1976 by an American publisher and in 1986 in colour by a London publisher. Much of the material in this book was re-used in a shorter and more popular exposition of contemporary English heraldic practice, A Complete Guide to Heraldry, which proved successful and i
Robert Ross (British Army officer)
Major-General Robert Ross was an officer in the British Army, born in Ireland, who served in the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. Ross enlisted in the British Army in 1789, he served as an officer in several battles during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1809, he was sent to serve in the Peninsular War, he was wounded in the neck at the Battle of Orthez in France on February 27, 1814. Upon returning to duty that year, Ross was made a major general and sent to North America, where he took command of a British force designated to attack the United States capital of Washington D. C. during the War of 1812. Ross's professional soldiers defeated a poorly organized American militia at the Battle of Bladensburg on August 24, that evening proceeded to enter Washington; the British Army burned many important U. S. Government buildings, including the White House and the Capitol and damaging the American war effort. Ross led a British invasion north up the Chesapeake Bay towards the city of Baltimore which culminated in the Battle of Baltimore that September.
On September 12, he was shot while commanding troops at North Point, died while being moved to the rear. Ross was born in Rostrevor, County Down, Ireland, to Major David Ross, an officer in the Seven Years' War and his wife, Elizabeth Adderley, the maternal half-sister of James Caulfeild, 1st Earl of Charlemont, he was educated at Trinity College, Ireland, where he was a treasurer of the College Historical Society and joined the 25th Regiment of Foot as an ensign in 1789. Ross fought as a junior officer at the battles of Krabbendam in the Netherlands in 1799 and the Battle of Alexandria in Egypt in 1801. In 1803, he was promoted to given command of the 20th Regiment of Foot, he next fought at the Maida in the Kingdom of Naples in 1806. He was promoted to Lieutenant–Colonel at the end of 1808 and fought in the Battle of Corunna in Spain in early 1809 during the Peninsular War. In 1810, Ross was made a full Colonel as well as aide-de-camp to the King. In 1813, Ross was sent to serve under Arthur Wellesley and commanded his regiment at the battles of Vittoria and Sorauren that year.
He was wounded in the left side of his neck at the Battle of Orthez, on 27 February 1814, had just returned to service when he was given command of an expeditionary force to attack the United States. Ross sailed to North America as a Major General to take charge of all British troops off the east coast of the United States, he led the British troops ashore in Benedict and marched through Upper Marlboro, Maryland, to the attack on the Americans at the Battle of Bladensburg on 24 August 1814, causing the hastily organised militia of the American army to collapse into a rout. Moving on from Bladensburg, Ross moved on to nearby Washington, D. C. and was fired upon. The public buildings and Navy Yards of the city, including the United States Capitol and the White House were burned as retaliation for destructive American raids into Canada, most notably the Americans' Burning of York earlier in 1813, which were themselves in retaliation to British raids into the United States. Controversy surrounds Ross's decision to destroy public property but spare a lot of private property during the burning.
In reality several private properties were destroyed or damaged. Ross was persuaded to attack Baltimore, Maryland, his troops landed at the southern tip of the "Patapsco Neck" peninsula of southeastern Baltimore County at North Point, twelve miles southeast from the city, on the morning of 12 September 1814. En route to what would be the Battle of North Point, a part of the larger Battle of Baltimore, the British advance encountered American skirmishers. General Ross rode forward to direct his troops. An American sharpshooter shot him through the right arm into the chest. According to Baltimore tradition, two American riflemen, Daniel Wells, 18, Henry McComas, 19, fired at him and one of them had fired the fatal shot. Ross died. Ross's body was preserved in a barrel of 129 gallons of Jamaican rum aboard HMS Tonnant; when the Tonnant was diverted to New Orleans for the forthcoming battle in January 1815, his body was shipped on the British ship HMS Royal Oak to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where his body was interred on 29 September 1814 in the Old Burying Ground.
He is commemorated by a 99-foot granite obelisk near the shoreline of Carlingford Lough in the Ross home village of Rostrevor, County Down in Northern Ireland, as well as by a monument in St Paul's Cathedral in London, England. The inscription on the monument reads: DEDICATED AT THE PUBLIC EXPENSE TO THE MEMORY OF MAJOR GENERAL ROBERT ROSS WHO HAVING UNDERTOOK AND EXECUTED AN ENTERPRISE AGAINST THE CITY OF WASHINGTON, THE CAPITAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WHICH WAS CROWNED WITH COMPLETE SUCCESS WAS KILLED SHORTLY AFTERWARDS WHILE DIRECTING A SUCCESSFUL ATTACK UPON A SUPERIOR FORCE NEAR THE CITY OF BALTIMORE ON THE 12TH DAY OF SEPTEMPTER 1814 By the beginning of the Troubles in the 1960s, the monument in Rostrevor - now located in a predominantly Roman Catholic region - was neglected and overgrown by brambles. After the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, the Newry and Mourne District Council, though Irish republican, agreed to refurbish the monument as part of Rostrevor's history, it was reopened in 2008.
Neither General Ross nor his immediate descendants were knighted or received a title of nobili
Luttrell Psalter
The Luttrell Psalter is an illuminated psalter commissioned by Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, lord of the manor of Irnham in Lincolnshire and illustrated on parchment circa 1320–1340 in England by anonymous scribes and artists. Along with the psalms, the Luttrell Psalter contains a calendar, the Mass and an antiphon for the dead; the pages vary in their degree of illumination, but many are richly covered with both decorated text and marginal pictures of saints and Bible stories, scenes of rural life. It is considered one of the richest sources for visual depictions of everyday rural life in medieval England though the last folio is now lost; the Psalter was acquired by the British Museum in 1929 for £31,500 from Mary Angela Noyes, wife of the poet Alfred Noyes, with the assistance of an interest-free loan from the American millionaire and art collector J. P. Morgan, it is now in the collection of the British Library in London, since the separation of the Library from the British Museum. The Luttrell Psalter was created in England sometime between 1320 and 1345, having been commissioned by Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, lord of the manor of Irnham in Lincolnshire.
The date of its completion has not been established with certainty. Eric Millar writes that the manuscript was made around 1335–40, before the death of Luttrell's wife, Agnes Sutton, because the illustrations show characteristics of the "late'decadence' of the Late East Anglian style". Lucy Sandler prefers to date the creation around 1325–30 because the styles are similar to the other manuscripts of that time. Michelle Brown believes it was made and planned much around 1330–45. Luttrell, a wealthy land owner, felt his death was coming and wanted to account for all his actions, as is stated in the colophon of the psalter; the purpose of the manuscript was to help with the provisions for his will, in which Luttrell requested twenty chaplains to recite masses for a five-year period after his death and clerks to recite the Psalms, other activities for stated levels of monetary remuneration. The creation of the Luttrell Psalter might be connected either to the papal dispensation of 1331 which allowed the Luttrell-Sutton marriage or to the coming of age in 1334 of Andrew Luttrell, Sir Geoffrey's son.
Such indications are present in the illustrations in the manuscript. The psalter contains a portrait of Luttrell, at the end of Psalm 109 armed and mounted on a war-horse, with an extravagant display of the Luttrell arms; the image is believed to have served to emphasise his knightly status during a marriage union of a family member. To assert his role as patron of the work, the line Dominus Galfridus Louterell me fieri fecit appears above the portrait; the manuscript contains images of beggars and street performers and grotesques, all symbolizing the chaos and anarchy, present in mediaeval society and feared by Sir Geoffrey Luttrell and his contemporaries. The Luttrell Psalter was composed by one scribe and at least five different artists, all of them with different styles; the first Luttrell artist is referred to as "the decorator". He used a linear style of drawing rather than a two-dimensional approach; the second Luttrell artist, "the Colourist" drew images that were more sculptural and modelled by light and shade.
He took more notice of human posture in his drawings. The third Luttrell artist, "the Illustrator", favoured a two-dimensional style; the fourth Luttrell artist, "the Luttrell Master", was skilled in rural themes and outlandish grotesques. He drew the depictions of the Luttrell family, he shows great skill at producing effects of texture. His technique is similar to the style used in most of the East Anglian manuscripts of the period; the manuscript came to public notice in 1794, when miniatures of Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, his wife and daughter-in-law were reproduced along with a summary of the book. The following is from Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society Magazine 1906: "The Louterell Psalter, a national relic of priceless value which, while the property of the Weld family, is on loan at the British Museum, from which it had been got down for the occasion; the pictorial embellishment of the Psalter shows that the illuminators were artists of vivid perception, strong imaginative faculty, ingenuity and a keen sense of humour, were in touch with the full-bodied homely, racy English life of the period - husbandry, the chase, the use of arms, devotion and industrial occupations.
The Psalter contains the Canticles, Te Deum, Athanasian Creed, Litany of the Saints, Office of the Dead, preceded by a calendar. It is supposed to have been done for Sir Godfrey Louterell, of Irnham, born in 1276 and died 1345. On page 202, at the end of Psalm cviii; the last of the Psalms sung at Matins, is the inscription in the same hand as the text: "Dominus Galfirdus Louterell me fieri fecit."" The Luttrell Psalter measures 350 x 245 mm. It comprises 309 high-quality vellum leaves with flyleaves of paper. Most of the pages are decorated in red paint with details in gold and blind; the illustrations are tooled into the paper. The manuscript has eight cords, it has a modern binding of dark brown Morocco leather. The scribes used ruling as a method of an expensive method; the scripts are large. Each frame of the manuscr
Order of the Garter
The Order of the Garter is an order of chivalry founded by Edward III in 1348 and regarded as the most prestigious British order of chivalry in England and the United Kingdom. It is dedicated to the image and arms of England's patron saint. Appointments are made at the Sovereign's sole discretion. Membership of the Order is limited to the Sovereign, the Prince of Wales, no more than 24 living members, or Companions; the order includes supernumerary knights and ladies. New appointments to the Order of the Garter are announced on St George's Day, as Saint George is the order's patron saint; the order's emblem is a garter with the motto Honi soit qui mal y pense in gold lettering. Members of the order wear it on ceremonial occasions. King Edward III founded the Order of the Garter around the time of his claim to the French throne; the traditional year of foundation is given as 1348. However, the Complete Peerage, under "The Founders of the Order of the Garter", states the order was first instituted on 23 April 1344, listing each founding member as knighted in 1344.
The list includes Sir Sanchet D'Abrichecourt, who died on 20 October 1345. Other dates from 1344 to 1351 have been proposed; the King's wardrobe account shows Garter habits first issued in the autumn of 1348. Its original statutes required that each member of the Order be a knight and some of the initial members listed were only knighted that year; the foundation is to have been inspired by the Spanish Order of the Band, established in about 1330. The earliest written mention of the Order is found in Tirant lo Blanch, a chivalric romance written in Catalan by Valencian Joanot Martorell, it was first published in 1490. This book devotes a chapter to the description of the origin of the Order of the Garter. At the time of its foundation, the Order consisted of King Edward III, together with 25 Founder Knights, listed in ascending order of stall number in St George's Chapel: King Edward III Edward, the Black Prince, Prince of Wales Henry of Grosmont, Earl of Lancaster Thomas de Beauchamp, 11th Earl of Warwick Jean III de Grailly, Captal de Buch Ralph de Stafford, 1st Earl of Stafford William de Montacute, 2nd Earl of Salisbury Roger Mortimer, 2nd Earl of March John de Lisle, 2nd Baron Lisle Bartholomew de Burghersh, 2nd Baron Burghersh John de Beauchamp, 1st Baron Beauchamp John de Mohun, 2nd Baron Mohun Sir Hugh de Courtenay Thomas Holland, 1st Earl of Kent John de Grey, 1st Baron Grey de Rotherfield Sir Richard Fitz-Simon Sir Miles Stapleton Sir Thomas Wale Sir Hugh Wrottesley Sir Nele Loring Sir John Chandos Sir James Audley Sir Otho Holand Sir Henry Eam Sir Sanchet D'Abrichecourt Sir Walter Paveley They are all depicted in individual portraits in the Bruges Garter Book made c.
1431, now in the British Library. Various legends account for the origin of the Order; the most popular involves the "Countess of Salisbury", whose garter is said to have slipped from her leg while she was dancing at a court ball at Calais. When the surrounding courtiers sniggered, the king picked it up and returned it to her, exclaiming, "Honi soit qui mal y pense!", the phrase that has become the motto of the Order. However, the earliest written version of this story dates from the 1460s, it seems to have been conceived as a retrospective explanation for the adoption of what was seen as an item of female underclothing as the symbol of a band of knights. In fact, at the time of the Order's establishment in the mid-14th century, the garter was predominantly an item of male attire. According to another legend, King Richard I was inspired in the 12th century by St George the Martyr while fighting in the Crusades to tie garters around the legs of his knights, who subsequently won the battle. King Edward recalled the event in the 14th century when he founded the Order.
This story is recounted in a letter to the Annual Register in 1774: In Rastel's Chronicle, I. vi. under the life of Edward III is the following curious passage: "About the 19 yere of this kinge, he made a solempne feest at Wyndesore, a greate justes and turnament, where he devysed, perfyted substanegally, the order of the knyghtes of the garter. And afterwarde they were called the knyghtes of the blew thonge." I am obliged for this passage to Esq.. Hence some affirm, that the origin of the garter is to be dated from Richard I* and that it owes its pomp and splendor to Edward III. *Winstanley, in his Life of Edward III says that the original book of the institution deduces the invention from King Richard the First. The motto in fact refers to Edward's claim to the French throne, the Order of the Garter was created to help pursue this claim; the use of the garter as an emblem may have derived from straps used t
