Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/22

10 brought forward in the Glossary of Heraldry published by Mr. Parker, but however much a future edition of that useful book may be improved, a work of a different kind, and in another form, is required. The writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from whom most of the modern notions of heraldry are derived, particularly the earlier of them, were extremely fanciful, and are very little to be relied on as to the past usages even when they profess to state facts. A considerable amount of traditional knowledge might have been expected to have come down to them through the heralds, who, though not incorporated till the first year of Richard III., were acting as a society upwards of sixty years before, and had been in constant intercourse from the first; yet little of such information can be traced in the writings referred to, nor can much be gathered either from the Boke of St. Alban's, or from Upton De Studio Militare, to which the monk of St. Alban's seems to have been largely indebted. Several of the ancient rules are by no means well understood. That they were materially different from the modern is manifest, but the limits of them, and the circumstances in which they were applicable, have not yet been made out. It may nevertheless be hoped, that by the co-operation of some of those who are best acquainted with these matters, and by collecting, arranging, and comparing existing examples, much may be effected towards determining them. Having often wished that in this manner something might be attempted, I was much gratified on learning that the Central Committee of the Archæological Institute had proposed to prepare for publication a Manual of Heraldry; which I presume is intended to supply to some extent the void that has hitherto so long existed, and will treat principally of medieval heraldry, or heraldry in relation to archæology, and be chiefly based on existing examples and other contemporary evidence.

There will, however, still be a work much wanted, to which I beg leave to call the attention of the members of the Institute in general, and that of the Central Committee in particular. I mean an improved Ordinary of arms. Few persons, possessing any acquaintance with heraldry, can have occupied themselves in the study of the remains of medieval art, without having felt the need of a volume convenient in size, that might enable them to ascertain by what families the arms they meet with were borne. Such a work as I suggest would