Explination of Coat of Arms

Ok, I am not sure how much research you have done on our family’s actual coat of arms, but since I am heading to Illinois in a couple of weeks to get it put on my arm I wanted to make sure I knew what it meant! Ha-ha

So, based upon what I have found with my research, this is what our Coat of Arms means:

Often times the picture that you sent me is referred to as a family’s crest when actually the crest merely refers to the object that is sitting on the Helm. The term coat of arms is used to encompass the entire symbol. Escutcheon refers to the shape of the shield itself. In this case the style of the shield is modern French. The escutcheon rarely matches the place of origin of a family and is more so used for personal preference of style and shape. The French description that you sent me is called a Blazon. To "blazon" arms means to describe them using the formal language of heraldry. This language has its own vocabulary and syntax, or rules governing word order, which becomes essential for comprehension when blazoning a complex coat of arms. This is what makes it so hard to decipher because as you probably know with heraldry going on for such a long time, all of the languages used do not always match up. The phrase that you sent me is below.

"DE GU. 'A UN L'EVRIER RAMP. D'ARG., LANGUE' ET COLL. DU CHAMP, BORDE' ET BOUCLE'D OR."

EVERYTHING in a coat of arms is meaningful and represents something! With the exception of only a few details, everything that is depicted in the above sentence has a meaning. Also something that I found to be interesting is that there is no such thing as a 'coat of arms for a surname'. Many people of the same surname will often be entitled to completely different coats of arms, and many of that surname will be entitled to no coat of arms. Coats of arms belong to individuals. For any person to have a right to a coat of arms they must either have had it granted to them or be descended in the legitimate male line from a person to whom arms were granted or confirmed in the past. So, basically the coat of arms that you have was used for one man and was used to depict his life and achievements. (But it is still awesome and I am still going to refer to it as our coat of arms because….i do what I want ha-ha)

This is where it gets tricky. The bold and italic words above are in French and the others are either supporting words (like an, a, the) or heraldic words. When reading the blazon the first word is used to describe the tincture or color of the shield itself. “DE GU” or gules is a heraldic word for red meaning Warrior or martyr; Military strength and magnanimity. In engraving, it is sometimes depicted as a region of vertical lines or else marked with gu as an abbreviation. This is why there are vertical lines on the Field in our shield.

The next part of the blazon describes the charge which can be any object or animal that is on the shield. L’evrier refers to a greyhound in French and “ramp” is heraldic for rampant. The greyhound was chosen for our coat of arms in order to depict majesty, courage, and most importantly loyalty. This to me was one of the most interesting parts of the coat of arms because the meanings behind the greyhound are qualities that not only do I think that all of our family possess, but also qualities that we expect from others. The word ramp that comes after the “charge” is used to describe the charges attitude. In heraldry, an attitude is the position in which an animal, fictional beast, mythical creature, human or human-like being is emblazoned as a charge, supporter or crest. Rampant in the English language is defined as Violent or unrestrained in action or performance, and means that the charge is depicted in profile standing erect with forepaws raised as if ready for battle. After describing the charges attitude it then describes the charges color which is D’ARG meaning peace and sincerity.

The next part of the phrase - LANGUE' ET COLL. DU CHAMP is pretty straightforward. Langue is French for tongue which originated from the word language. Col means collar in French and champ mean field. “DU” was the tricky word, but from my research it has a meaning of ownership so when the phrase says tongue and collar “DU CHAMP” it is saying that those items are the same color as the field which we already determined was red. These Items hold no meaning as far as I could find. Many charges have some decorations on them and some have tongues out and some don’t, but it really comes down to the artist’s preference when creating the coat of arms.

“BORDE' ET BOUCLE'D OR.” is the last part of the phrase that you sent me. It is mostly French with the exception of “OR” which is gold in heraldry. Borde’ means border in French and in heraldry it is used to distinguish different families within the same family that may have the same shield like for a brother/cousin etc.. The Border gave additional meaning to the individual who had the coat of arms and this gold border represents generosity and elevation of the mind. Boucle’d in French means loop, which can also be translated to ring. This is also one of the things that I did not find any meaning behind. From the way it looks the ring is just a decoration on the collar and this last part of the phrase is just describing it. There are meanings for rings in a coat of arms, but they are all for rings with gems.
There are also some things that are on the coat of arms that are not mentioned in the blazon.

First is the Helm. It is steal and is closed which means that the person this belonged to was a commoner (or not of royal decent) and also a closed helm is representative of a gentleman and and esquire with gentleman denoting a well-educated man of good family and distinction and esquire (depending on the time period) meaning an apprentice to a knight. Also on the helm in the picture is a small cross which can mean anything from faith and Christianity to service in the crusades.

Second, As I mentioned earlier, above the helm is the actual “crest” of the coat of arms. Some armigers (persons entitled to a coat of arms) used their crest as a personal badge, leading to the erroneous use of the word "crest" to describe a shield or full coat of arms. So the fact that the crest is a greyhound means that symbol of loyalty and courage was extremely important to the person who this was chartered for.

Third is the mantling. In heraldry, mantling or is drapery tied to the helmet above the shield and It forms a backdrop for the shield. In paper heraldry it is a depiction of the protective cloth covering (often of linen) worn by knights from their helmets to stave off the elements, and, secondarily, to decrease the effects of sword-blows against the helmet in battle, from which it is usually shown tattered or cut to shreds. So because the mantling in this coat of arms is shredded it means that this person did see battle. Often times the mantling on one side is shaded with the main colors of the shield, or else in the livery colors that symbolize the entity bearing the arms and the other side representing a metal from the shield or helm such as gold or silver (gold representing royalty or generosity) . So I imagine the mantling in this case would be red on one side and white/silver or possibly gold on the other since the shield has a gold border.

With that in mind… I did find this picture on the internet and eerily enough it matched the French description that you had given me. The blazon was a way to preserve the coat of arms so that it could always be recreated if need be. The only difference in the pictures is the picture that I found has a torse. This is a twisted roll of fabric laid about the top of the helm and the base of the crest, from which the mantling hangs. It was originally a protective pad worn under a knight's coif and helmet, covered by a pair of ribbons, of the principal tinctures of the shield, twisted together and extended far enough down the back to be seen beneath the helmet from the rear.


So after what started out as just looking at the coat of arms turned into 10 hours of research. So, In short what these crests mean is that our ancestor to whom it was commissioned to was a gentleman, a person of decent social standing and believed that the most important things in life were loyalty and courage. He treasured faith and Christianity and even though had seen war or battle being involved with some sort of military organization, he valued peace and sincerity. If you knew all this already, thanks for letting me ramble!!! But if you didn’t I hope that you found this as interesting as I did.

Lots of love,

Justin