ANST - Purple, Black, & History

[Tim McDaniel]

Talen expounded:
] And on the subject of purple, why is it that since it
] was "rare" in period to see this on a shield that SCA
] heralds insist it's bad form and shouldn't be used?

1.  "SCA heralds insist"?  Please, amend it to "a few SCA
heralds suggest"!  I can't even get SCA heralds to agree
that M&Ms are Good Things!  The only three heralds I know of
in this kingdom that *recommend against* vert and purpure
are Conor, Tadhg Liath, and me.  Most heralds don't mention
it or think it's fine.

*But even we three don't insist*.

It's far too easy to see Them (for various values of Them)
as a Monolithic Bloc -- the Marshallate is all ... the
Laurels all think ...

You *can* talk about "insist" in the context of rules: the
Rules of the List, the Rules for Submission, Kingdom Law,
whatever.  That should be tempered by remembering that, for
any rule, you can often find officers out there that think
it's a Bad Thing.  It's not the officer that's insisting, in
that case -- the rules insist, and the officer has to follow
the rules.  There is no rule against vert or purpure.

2.  There are (at least) two models of period re-creation.
They were tagged "the terrarium model" and "the museum [or
pizza] model".  (The major heraldic proponents were Tadhg
Liath and Erasimierz Waspanieski, but you probably don't
care.)  Briefly and probably inaccurately:

Terrarium: SCA heraldic practices as a whole should reflect
period practices in rough proportion to medieval and
renaissance practice.

Museum: it's OK to use items that are documentable, even if
they were rare or unique, and your combination of them is
improbable.

Most people don't even do period re-creation, preferring
recreation.  Those that do, often do the museum model.  As
an SCA herald, I have to enforce museum, but I try to
counsel terrarium -- I simply *would* like to see SCA armory
look unexceptional in a period context.

*There are plenty of heralds, some senior and/or more
knowledgable than I am, who disagree with me.  In fact, I'd
bet most do.*

If a principality wanted to submit purpure or vert, I'd let
it through.  I'd personally try to counsel against it,
though -- "have you considered ...?".

] Considering how little has survived through history,

The book _Anglo-Norman Armory II_ is a compilation of 24
English armorials, all but two dating from c. 1255-1312, six
dating from 1300-1310.  The book has about 3000 coats of
arms.

Remember that coats of arms were quite important on the
tourney circuit (after heraldry was invented in the late
12th century).  Tourneys were a major part of noble culture.

Also note that coats of arms were often preserved.  They'd
be handed down to descendants.  They'd be in manuscript
illuminations and paintings.  They'd be on seals.  They'd be
carved in stone on the church, on the cathedral, on the
tomb, over the fireplace.  They'd be put into stained-glass
windows.  They'd be in brass on tomb monuments.

(Also, coats of arms show up in literature.  Often invented,
I should note, as in the Arthurian legends.)

I think that there are enough coats known from the 13th
century to be a reasonable statistical universe.  We may not
know the details of the 5 knights in Eastbumfuckegyptshire,
but there's enough to be able to say that certain practices
are common and some are rare in such-and-so times and
such-and-so places.

On Sat, 28 Feb 1998, John Ruble <jruble at urocor.com> wrote:
> "Common Knowledge" insists that purple was rare in period.
...
> While this has nothing to do with heraldry, you were
> talking about purple and I thought I'd throw this in.

Thanks for the info.

For the reasons above I can say that purpure was indeed rare
in early armory in England.  In ANA2, the first occurrance
of "vert" I see is on page 54.  (Robert Mortimer, Barry or
and vert, semy-de-lys counterchanged.  Not the famous
Mortimers -- they do things of the form Azure, three bars
or, a chief paly of the same the corners gyronned and over
all an eschutcheon argent charged with a saltire gules -- in
various tinctures and maybe with an overall charge).

The first purpure is on page 61 (William Bocksworth, Or, a
lion rampant purpure collared argent, in 1308).

The book has 556 pages of coats of arms.  Unless there's a
cluster later on in the book, in this time in England
purpure and vert are sub-1%.

Now, regional styles differ.  Zenobia Naphtali, a long-time
researching herald, wrote "Scots arms in our sample, and in
selected other period armory we have been able to find,
didn't use purpure at ALL." (Academy of S. Gabriel private
list, 27 Jan 98, message ID <959_9801271711 at hubert.rain.com>).

On the other hand, the same message has "If you want
cauldrons and purpure I would direct you to the Iberian
peninsula."  With the Kingdom of Leon's arms (see below)
having purpure, I'm not surprised.  For example, Brittany's
arms were "Ermine." (just "Ermine.") as of one time, and the
incidence of ermine in Brittany is higher than elsewhere. --
But I gather that, even in Iberia, purpure wasn't one of the
Big Three colors (blue, red, and black).


There's a further problem: heraldic purpure wasn't purple
until later on.  (Non-heraldic purple?  I dunno.)  Zenobia
wrote (S. Gabriel private list, 7 Feb 98,
<de1_9802070943 at hubert.rain.com>):

    On the matter of purple, it is an interesting note that
    Godinho draws his purpure charges (of which there are a
    fair amount, this being Portugal in 16th c.) as an
    indigo color, a purplish-blue.  (His blue is towards the
    green a bit and quite distinct. The blazons provided by
    the editors distinguish by saying 'indigo in place of
    purpure.'  Since some of the armory using the indigo is
    stuff known to be purpure in period (e.g. the lion of
    Leon, before it went red) this seems pretty clear...)

Talan Gwynek posted text from Pastoureau, a noted modern
heraldic writer, Talan summarizing it as "grey-mauve":

    Here's a quick synopsis of what Pastoureau has to say
    about purple in armory.

    It's rarer than green, and in some regions (Germany,
    Switzerland, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia) it wasn't used
    until the 18th c.  Some writers have held that it's not
    found in any authentically old arms, but this is an
    error.  The arms of the kingdom of Leon were blazoned in
    the mid-13th c. by Matthew Paris as 'Campus ... albus,
    leo de purpurea', and the tincture is found in several
    French and English armorials of the second half of the
    13th c., e.g., 'Henry de Lacy ... porte d'or ou ung
    leoun rampaund de purpure' (Falkirk Roll) and 'Sir
    Nicolas Malmains port d'argent ou la bend de purpure'
    (Nativity Roll).  The tincture is also found in numerous
    armories of the Knights of the Round Table in the 14th
    and 15th c.

    The tincture has existed from an early date, but it
    wasn't always the modern violet or purple.  Until the
    beginning of the 15th c. it was most often represented
    by a color intermediate between grey and brown.  This
    was later mistaken for oxydized argent or gules that had
    'turned'.  The Prinsault treatise (2nd half of the 15th
    c.)  describes 'pourpre' as a color obtained by 'taking
    equal portions of the four other colors and mixing them
    together'.  The Argentaye Tract agrees.  This would have
    given a more or less grey tincture, which is described
    in some early literary sources (e.g., Chrestien de
    Troyes) as 'bis'.  This term disappears from the
    heraldic vocabulary c. 1260-70 just as 'pourpre'
    appears.  The change in meaning of this term (from
    'grey' to 'purple') exhibited in the armory of the 15th
    and 16th c. is probably to be explained as the result of
    a rediscovery of the Latin etymology of the word and
    consequent restoration of the Latin sense.

Daniel de Lincolia
-- 
Tim McDaniel; Reply-To: tmcd at crl.com; if that fail, tmcd at austin.ibm.com
is work address.  tmcd at tmcd.austin.tx.us is wrong tool.  Never use this.
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