In Sir William Dugdale’s Visitation of Yorkshire 1665-1666 we have a valuable indication as to the thoroughness of the Heraldic inspections, and as to the members of families who were not at home when the Heralds called. Nearly one-third of the gentry required by Dugdale to produce proof of Coats of Arms and pedigree failed even to respond. Two years after the Visitation, Dugdale issued a list of these persons, with a warning that they were not to use the arms and titles under pain of penalties from the Earl Marshal. As the editor of the Visitations justly remarked, the descendents of many of these families would have rejoiced had they then placed their pedigrees on record. In the case...
The period of prescription is the length of time that a family could prove their right to bear a particular Coat of Arms. This period varied according to the strictness of the particular Herald, but it was rarely less than 60 years or 2 generations at the time of the Heralds’ Visitations 1530 – 1688. The most interesting point about this recognition of arms borne by prescription is that the period runs for 60 or 80 years before the time of making the claim. It might have been thought that the time should have run for 60 years before the foundation of the College of Arms in 1484, or before the commencement of the Visitations in 1530. At either of...
There is considerable evidence in the Visitations of Rutland as to how reasonable the Heralds were in dealing with persons who had some claim to gentility. The Busbys of Barlithorpe used arms which had been described and entered in the Visitation in 1618. they are entered again in the Visitation of 1681 with a note to the effect that they were so very near the arms of Sir John Busby of Addington in Buckinghamshire that there was hardly “ a sufficient difference between them, especially no relation appearing between the families.” In the case of the Matthews of Oakham only a red wax seal was produced by the family as proof of the Coat of Arms and the Herald was...
In some of the early Visitation records the narrative form of pedigree is used, but this soon gave way to the more familiar tabular style. In the Visitations of Berkshire, that of 1623 contains tabular pedigrees, but the earlier Visitations of 1532 and 1566 give the pedigrees in narrative form. A look through the records of the Visitations reveal a growth in the number of families who applied for Coats of Arms or had a confirmation of arms where some doubt had arisen. In the days of slow travel and difficult communication many families would never have visited London to apply for a grant of arms, the arrival of the Heralds in their district gave them the opportunity to register...
In the period of the Visitations from 1530 to 1688 the visiting Herald upon arriving in the county would take up residence at the home of the principal gentleman of the area. His presence was proclaimed to the locals and all local gentry were requested or required to come to the residence for registration. This task took a long time to carry out correctly and the process was sometimes not carried out correctly and some details were skimped on. Following this the next step was registration and this also presented difficulties. All recording was done by hand and in recording the pedigrees the heralds experienced the same issues facing a modern editor when he asks for exact dates of birth,...
