[ANSTHRLD] marshaling question.

[tmcd at panix.com]

On Wed, 15 Oct 2008, Donnchadh Beag mac Griogair
<donnchadh at cornelius.norman.ok.us> wrote:
> Cisco Cividanes wrote:
> > Could four people marshal their arms (quartered, more likely than
> > not) to show common affiliation in single group?
>
> My understanding is that the arms of the HEIRS are marshaled to
> include the arms of both parents, not that spouses would marshal
> their arms once married.  Keep in mind that your arms are you.  As
> you are a product of both parents, you show that by marshaling their
> arms (assuming you inherit from both of them).  Quartered arms would
> tend to indicate inheritance from four grandparents to one
> grandchild.

If you substitute "quartered" for "marshalled" above and dropped the
spousal clause in the first sentence, I'd agree entirely.

Why the substitution?  Because there's marshalling and there's
marshalling.

Married couples could display their arms side-by-side on the same
shield.  Dimidiation was used a bit early: the dexter half of the
man's shield on the dexter half of the joint shield, the sinister half
of the woman's shield on the sinister half of the joint shield.  This
caused bizarre results visually (look up the arms of the Cinque
Ports).  Impalement became the common way: the man's entire arms on
the dexter half, the woman's entire arms on the sinister half, each
necessarily squoze horizontally to fit on one shield.

Both dimidiation and impalement are included in the definition of
"marshalling".

Quartering of arms, putting ancestral arms in panels of shield divided
in quarters (or maybe more panels if you want to honor more ancestors,
or sub-divided quarters for two generations back, or whatever), showed
inheritance of arms (note "ancestral" supra).

Quartering is also included in the definition of  "marshalling".

Danihel Lincolnia
-- 
Tim McDaniel; Reply-To: tmcd at panix.com