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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The period of heraldic visitation and the 2nd amendment
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
I'm reading a biography of Thomas Wyatt (Graven with Diamonds by Nicola Shulman), and came across this interesting passage:
quote:
Coats of arms had become very important in the 1530s -- perhaps even more so than in the high period of English chivalry -- for this was the era of the forgotten undertaking known as the 'Period of Heraldic Visitation.' Its operations, unique to England, lasted from 1530 to 1686, and meant that all grants of arms became conditional upon their use. That is to say, if a gentleman of England wished to keep his right to bear arms, he had to show his appreciation of that honour by displaying them widely -- in windows, lintels, on buildings, on banners, on shields, tombstones, plate, seals, armour and so on -- or else it would be repealed. Heralds went out in a county by county programme of 'visitations', or inspections of property, to satisfy themselves that the bearers of arms were assiduous in this matter. They may not have needed much persuasion, but still, it was a case of 'use it or lose it' -- a fact perhaps too little considered in the general lamentation for the way that parish church interiors, in the post-Reformation years, exchanged their saints and candles for the banners and shields of the local gentry.
I found that intriguing, so I did a bit of Googling. As best I understand it, under the Catholic King James, it wasn't uncommon for a Protestant who had previously had the right to bear arms to have that right taken away on various pretexts,including, perhaps, that they had not been fervent enough in their display of their coats of arms. As far as I can tell, there wasn't a fixed standard as to what was "enough," so it was a handy way to remove guns from folks the king didn't like.
As a result, in 1689, under the Protestant King William, a new Bill of Rights was drawn up that included this:
quote:
That the Subjects which are Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law.
Because there was no police force at the time, it appears that the thinking was, if your neighbors wanted to kill you because you had the wrong religion, the only way to protect yourself was to bear arms against your neighbors. And the King wasn't to suppress that right for gentlemen and aristocrats.
This clearly influenced the development of the 2nd amendment of the US constitution:
quote:
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
While this right applied to "the people," at the time, that meant free white men, so it wasn't much different from the English right, which applied to those of a suitable "condition" or rank.
But why the "well regulated militia"? Was that because, under the period of heraldic visitation, arbitrary removals of the right to bear arms had made local defense impossible? You'd never know who would have weapons, who could rally to the defense of the area against foreign invaders or local thugs? Or is the introduction of the idea of the militia to this right a novelty?
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
Umm... are we talking about 'arms' as in offensive weaponry or 'arms' as in emblems with heraldic decorations on. Up until you talked about Protestants having their arms confiscated under James I thought we were talking about the heraldic decorations, but then you move on to the US Second Amendment, which I believe is about offensive weapons.
(Although it could be that everyone has misinterpreted the Second Amendment for the past two hundred years.)
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Umm... are we talking about 'arms' as in offensive weaponry or 'arms' as in emblems with heraldic decorations on.
The latter was, as I understand it, a way to indicate to all and sundry your right to the former.
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
Not at all. Arms were granted to people who
- could prove their right to them from time immemorial. Creative genealogy flourished.
- Arms could and were granted to people who paid whacking big sums (bribes) to the King's Majesty
- Arms could be granted to prominent citizens along with a peerage. Or in the case of Charles II's sons by accident of birth. This persisted until the reign of William IV
- In the middle ages arms were granted to earls and barons who led their own armies in the King's wars or the Crusades. This assisted in making sure you didn't fight your own side and provided ransom information if said peer were captured. It also allowed people who switched to the other side for profit or preferment.
More complicated than that, of course, but any relation to the US Constitution is marginal- almost off the page.
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
My dream in life is now to become a Supreme Court justice and troll all the conservatives on the Court by arguing that the "right to bear arms" in the Second Amendment meant heraldic arms. That would be the best thing ever.
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
the last point is incomplete. To it add the words "to be identified. The Stanleys and some other families were particularly adept at picking their times".
[ 15. April 2014, 14:33: Message edited by: PeteC ]
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moron
Shipmate
# 206
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
That is to say, if a gentleman of England wished to keep his right to bear arms, he had to show his appreciation of that honour by displaying them widely -- in windows, lintels, on buildings, on banners, on shields, tombstones, plate, seals, armour and so on -- or else it would be repealed.
The State dictated he/she should do that?
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by moron:
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
That is to say, if a gentleman of England wished to keep his right to bear arms, he had to show his appreciation of that honour by displaying them widely -- in windows, lintels, on buildings, on banners, on shields, tombstones, plate, seals, armour and so on -- or else it would be repealed.
The State dictated he/she should do that?
No - the King did.
Of course he WAS "The State" (in quotes because I'm not sure that was defined in our legalistic way until the 18th Century).
It is a fascinating subject. Surely a Coat of Arms must be tied in someway to the Arms of armies. I reckon that being granted a coat of arms was a form of licence to raise and equip an army. But only if it fought for the King of course!
Ah, these are what I call the Good Old Days.
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
The Visitation was also to sort out armigerous families with dodgy genealogy, or people who just appropriated arms without any official sanction.
Both of these cases could be remedied by large sums donated to the King or his government.
Indeed payment for honours has persisted to this day.
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Umm... are we talking about 'arms' as in offensive weaponry or 'arms' as in emblems with heraldic decorations on.
The latter was, as I understand it, a way to indicate to all and sundry your right to the former.
Coats of arms were originally a way of identifying your own side on the battlefield in the days before uniforms. They later became symbols for aristocratic families to use to show how rich and/or important they were.
In effect, they were analagous to corporate logos today - and, indeed, many corporate logos are designed to look like coats of arms. The "Heraldic Visitation" stuff was more along the lines of ensuring that only the "copyright holder" could use a particular "logo" than anything to do with taking away their weapons.
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Hail Gallaxhar
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PeteC:
Indeed payment for honours has persisted to this day.
These days one may acquire arms by having some modest accomplishment, and by writing a cheque to the College of Heraldry. Apparently, "having a degree" is considered sufficient accomplishment.
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moonlitdoor
Shipmate
# 11707
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by Josephine
While this right applied to "the people," at the time, that meant free white men, so it wasn't much different from the English right, which applied to those of a suitable "condition" or rank.
I don't think that's right. The English right to have arms in the weapons sense was a common law right applying to all, not just those of a particular rank. That was still the case at the time of American independence and for many years after it until the start of the 20th century.
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
Indeed! Archery practice was compulsory; hence the presence in nearly every English village of a street called 'The Butts'(Statute of Henry VIII, 1515). Edward IV had tried to bann football because it got in the way of target practice.
[ 16. April 2014, 05:56: Message edited by: Amos ]
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
And all this was in aid of the fact that until the late 17th century, England had no standing army in the sense used today.
The villagers who practised at the archery butts were keeping their eyes in, in case they were called to military service by their lords, who owed their grant of land from the king, and were called upon to supply knights and men-at-arms for the King's causes.
The American Rebellion of 1776 was countered by the British government hiring foreign mercenaries from the King's German holdings and their neighbours to supplement the very small standing army of the Great Britain.
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
I like the idea that when the Middletons were given a grant of arms (their daughter married up, you know), it was the green light for them to go out and get tooled up.
While 'aristocracy' tends to descend from the circumstance of being a more successful armed thug than the competition, it's been a while since this was the main spring.
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
I think I can give an answer on this.
In England, the right to bear arms means having a heraldic coat of arms and being entitled to display it. It has lost all connection with who is entitled to carry swords, pikes, firearms etc. It had already done so by the reign of Charles I. The right to bear arms in that sense gave a person social status and until the Civil War, would have protected the bearer from the risk of being classed as unfree, a status that was never restored after 1662. Unfree was not about slavery, but was a relic of serfdom, being a sort of human equivalent of copyhold (not abolished until 1925).
Coats of arms etc are administered by courts of chivalry, which still exist. However, the blitz on them in the early 17 century was not really about status and gentility. It was one of the ways Charles I used to raise money without having to call Parliament. The guff about exhorting people of quality to display their blazons is hot air to sugar the pill that this was really about raising money, as meaningless as the stuff in the charter for Eton College about its being to provide education for poor scholars.
Until quite recently (I think the 1940s) there was still a residual tax to pay for displaying one's coat of arms on one's carriage or car. I don't know whether municipalities, railway companies etc. were let off paying for each bus, locomotive or whatever, or whether it was a single payment which covered as many displays as one wanted, in which case it was a small price to pay.
I don't think there's any meaningful connection between heraldic visitations and the second amendment.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
What others said. These "arms" are badges of honour. In the era of bastard feudalism they became the equivalent of corporate logos, trademarks. If you worked for the Spencers or the Percys or whoever you got branded bling. And the best bling was the kings.
Nothing at all to do with weapons. There was no general restriction on private ownership of firearms in early modern England. Not by age, class, sex, or race. That whole business was American, not British - they kept slaves, slaves weren't supposed to be armed, so firearms became the mark of a free man. In America. Never happened here. Not a big deal in Britain. We mostly didn't care.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
Okay, if this, from the English Bill of Rights:
quote:
That the Subjects which are Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law.
is referring to heraldic devices and not to weapons, then what does "defence" mean in this context? How, and from what, do heraldic devices allow Protestants to defend themselves?
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
By "defending" their identity?
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Okay, if this, from the English Bill of Rights:
quote:
That the Subjects which are Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law.
is referring to heraldic devices and not to weapons, then what does "defence" mean in this context? How, and from what, do heraldic devices allow Protestants to defend themselves?
As far as I know, that one is about weapons. It's the old English language problem of having one word mean two completely different things at the same time.
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Hail Gallaxhar
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
What is the relationship, then, between arms as heraldry and arms as weaponry? Are the two words totally unrelated, and it's an accident of the language that we use the two words for the same thing?
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
Josephine, I think you are confusing the right to display heraldic coats of arms (one meaning of "the right to bear arms") with the right to carry weapons (another meaning of "the right to bear arms"). This is understandable since the same words describe two quite different things.
The former (with which heraldic visitations were associated), was about social status, and may also have served as a royal revenue raising ploy. It is well described in this Wikipedai page.
The latter begins with an expectation that citizens will be able and prepared to join in warfare at the command of their lord, or of the monarch. Commissions of Array to raise shire levies (i.e. local bands of armed men for warfare) persist into the English Civil War period.
In the context of the civil war and the period following, both the Commonwealth government under Cromwell, and the restored monarchy of Charles II and later James II sought to increase their control by raising standing military forces and disarming the populace (or at least those portions hostile to them). When William and Mary come to the throne in 1688, the 1689 Bill of Rights (against the background of recent royal attempts to exert control by disarming the populace) assert "That the Subjects which are Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law." I think 'suitable to their conditions' meant appropriate to their station in life/social status. (Thus, for example, it was permissible for a gentleman to have a sword.)
The right to have weapons was unrelated to the right to a 'coat of arms'
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
What is the relationship, then, between arms as heraldry and arms as weaponry? Are the two words totally unrelated, and it's an accident of the language that we use the two words for the same thing?
Originally the 'coat' in coat of arms was a surcoat worn over armour. It was a coat of arms because it was worn by its bearer when he was "in arms" or "at arms" i.e. equipped with weapons and armour.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Once upon a time, when most peasants were too poor to afford a new shirt, never mind a sword, when a man swore to serve another he might be given ("granted") clothes and weapons and armour. Way back in ancient history. Still happens when you join the army, except you get them from the stores, not directly from the commander.
In the "high" Middle Ages in Western Europe this developed into the codes of knighthood. A sufficiently important (or violent) warrior would be knighted, which if they were a commoner put them in a sort of of intermediate state between a peasant and an aristocrat. They would perhaps be given a sword - both the weapon of a knight and a symbol of knighthood - and armour. And they would get granted the right to bear their "own" arms, that is the heraldic symbols on coat and shield.
But not only knights bore arms in the sense of weapons. There were common soldiers, "men at arms" (the name is a giveaway), constables, hunters, whatever. And rural people would often go armed quite routinely, if they could afford it. But unfree serfs were not meant to be armed. It varied from country to country, or even county to county - in England there were some counties where almost all farmers were tied to e land, others where there was no serfdom at all. (Serfdom was not technically slavery, but it must have been hard to tell the difference sometimes). Swords were symbols of knighthood, so at least in some times and places commoners carrying swords about might be fined or otherwise punished. But that is not because they were carrying weapons - farm labourers used axes and sickles and billhooks and what is a halberd but a billhook on a stick? - but because they were pretending to be what they weren't. Like impersonating a police officer today.
After the Black Death this developed into what modern historians sometimes call "bastard feudalism" (the term is contentious) in which everyone was supposed to be free but some swore allegiance to others as a sort of long-term contract job. Big men and local bosses had whole private armies dressed in their gear. QV the Wars of the Roses.
You got to wear the heraldry or badge of your lord. And all sorts of clothes. Called "livery". This is perhaps the origin of modern military uniform, and certainly the origin of the fancy costumes some servants wore in the 18th and 19th centuries. Tradesmen might also wear the livery of their guild - and still do in some places on special occasions. There were "sumptuary laws" supposed to force people to dress appropriately for their station in life. They never worked very well. They also governed who could carry swords - but that was less a deal than you might think because anyone with enough money to buy a decent sword could get into the class that was allowed to, and anyway the chief war fighting weapons of the English army were bows, pikes, and halberds, all slowly being replaced by firearms.
But by that time it was increasingly disconnected from the military. That became increasingly professionalised and mercenary from the 14th to the 16th century. By the time of the Civil Wars here, or the Thirty Years War on the continent, soldiering was nothing to do with knighthood for anyone who wasn't a senior officer. And not all of them. Far from banning commoners from bearing arms most European states were becoming desperate to get more of them.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
What is the relationship, then, between arms as heraldry and arms as weaponry? Are the two words totally unrelated, and it's an accident of the language that we use the two words for the same thing?
The OED says that arms as heraldry are originally the decoration on armour to allow knights to identify each other. They quickly become separate words: it gives an example of Chaucer using the word in what is clearly the heraldry sense and not the weaponry sense.
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
What BroJames, Ken and Dafyd have just said.
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Hedgehog
Ship's Shortstop
# 14125
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
My dream in life is now to become a Supreme Court justice and troll all the conservatives on the Court by arguing that the "right to bear arms" in the Second Amendment meant heraldic arms. That would be the best thing ever.
I was thinking much the same thing. Even though I'd lose big time in the courts, it would be so much fun to make the argument--if only to watch my opposition's blood pressure shoot up. Especially if I were to argue that "strict construction" of the Constitution meant the right to bear heraldic arms. If it meant "weapons" it would have said so! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
It already says "militia" and "well-regulated," and see where that's got us. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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Sighthound
Shipmate
# 15185
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Posted
In England,in the Middle Ages, not only did everyone have the right to bear weapons, it was compulsory. At least if you were a man, you were supposed to own weapons appropriate to your social class. There was no standing army and no police force, and so weaponry was needed not only to deal with foreign enemies, but also internal enemies and downright criminals. You could be fined if the powers that be deemed you inadequately equipped, the richer you were the more kit they would expect you to have.
Arms, as in the sense of coats of arms, is another matter entirely.
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