[ANSTHRLD] further mandrake info

Alden Drake alden_drake at sbcglobal.net
Tue Nov 1 11:26:35 PST 2005


I did a little more digging on mandrake and found these two precedents:

The Tenure of Alisoun MacCoul of Elphane (September 1986 - June 1990)
http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/precedents/alisoun/AMEM.html

There is no fixed form for the mandrake in heraldry (the citations from Dennys’ Heraldic
Imagination provided by the submittor only reinforce this). (LoAR 27 Sep 87, p. 10)


The Tenure of Bruce Draconarius of Mistholme (June 1992 - October 1993)
http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/precedents/bruce/pile.html

PLANT -- Mandrake
The mandrake is a plant of the genus Mandragora and is native to Southern Europe and the East. It
is characterized by very short stems, thick fleshy, often forked, roots, and by fetid lance-shaped
leaves (OED). Of the two examples cited in Parker, p. 390, one (de Champs) blazons them as plantes
de mandragore (plants of mandrake). The other cited example, the only one in English armory, is
actually shown in Rodney Dennys' The Heraldic Imagination, p.130, as more humanoid. Dennys states
that "the Mandrake is not, of course, a monster or chimerical creature in the strict sense of the
term, but in heraldic art it has acquired such anthropomorphic characteristics that it can be
rated as one of the more fanciful of the fabulous creatures of heraldry" (p. 129). We feel there
is a CD between a mandrake and human figures as there is between other fanciful heraldic creatures
(e.g. angels) and human figures. (Leandra Plumieg, September, 1993, pg. 12)



So if there is no fixed form, I'm guessing the two images would not have a CD between them?

Alden




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