In December 1954 there occurred in England an event of Heraldic importance that is unlikely to have occurred anywhere but England. This was the revival of the Court of Chivalry which had not sat for 219 years. The nature of the Court of Chivalry has been very misunderstood. Its name has been given as that of a Court Military or Court Martial and from this it was assumed that the Court of Chivalry was the origin of the courts martial. This is incorrect and is based on an erroneous translation of the Latin name of the old court, Curia Militaris ( where Miles means knight), and so the correct translation is Court of Knighthood i.e. Court of Chivalry. The Court...
Olavinlinna (The Castle of St. Olaf) was founded in 1475. It originally had five towers, but only three of them remain today. The castle stands on a small rocky island in lake Saimaa, the largest lake in Finland.In the beginning of the 14th century a peace treaty was signed between Sweden and Novgorod (Russia), according to which the eastern border of Sweden passed through the Savonlinna region. At this time Finland was part of Sweden. However, the border constantly changed and caused continuing disturbances between these two nations. In the 15th century Grand Duchy of Moscow became more powerful and used this strength to flex it's political muscle in this region.There was only one castle, situated in Wyborg further down to the south-east, to protect the...
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...
