Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/132

 NOTES' AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. IX. FEB. 15, 1902.

ranean Sea. No where, not even in those parts of America where the tobacco plant grows wild, is the use of it, and that only for smoking, either general, or frequent."

It seems that there is yet something more to be learnt about tobacco. Perhaps the knowledge is coming, as witness my final extract from the Daily Mail of 11 Oct., 1901 :

"AN ETYMOLOGICAL DISCOVERY.

"Ottawa, Sept. 27.

" Intelligence was received here to-day from the Yukon of a strange discovery that the language of the Nulato Indians who live within the Arctic Circle and that of the Apaches of New Mexico and Arizona are the same.

"The facts have come to light through the return to Dawson City of Father John Rene, Prefect Apostolic of the Roman Catholic Church in Alaska, from a journey to the fathers working among the aboriginal tribes of the Lower Yukon.

"The reverend father says: 'It is one of the most peculiar facts ascertained in connexion with the inhabitants and their origin that has ever been discovered, and one for deep study and research. It indicates, if anything, that the theory that the people of New Mexico and Arizona must have travelled southward from the Arctic regions is correct, and lends colour to the belief that the inhabitants of America came from Asia by the way of Behring Straits."

G. J. S.

HERALDRY BEFORE THE CONQUEST.

WHEN referring to early Saxon and other coats of arms I have more than once been pulled up by friends who are heraldic enthusiasts by being told that heraldry did not exist prior to 1066. Let me premise all that follows by stating I do not pro- fess any knowledge of the subject, being led to make these few observations from unskilled reading. If gentlemen versed, in matters heraldic, when making the assertion named, qualified it by some such remark as that the present system of heraldry was not in existence before William's time, a novice might be better able to understand what is meant ; but the bald statement that heraldry did not exist before 1066 has so worried me that I am obliged to unburden myself in these columns, feeling sure that I shall, by their aid, find solid ground upon which I can in future stand when heraldic authorities may perchance fling at me a similar retort.

I do not feel competent, nor is there any reason, to enter upon the subject " What is or was heraldry ? " except in the sense these observations clearly convey. I suppose it is called a science (which personally I demur to) of recording genealogies and blazoning coats of arms. Well, then, did heraldry exist prior to 1066 ? I venture to think it did, in

that genealogies are recorded and coats of arms were in use, for argument' sake, say, seven hundred years before William I.'s time. We have genealogies recorded in the .Bible, and for coats of arms I will not go further back than 3928 A.M.

Was there any system observed ? buppose we have not any trace of a system which existed in the early days, so far as written rules and regulations go, with respect to heraldry. If it can be demonstrated that the arms of any one family or person were promiscuously used by another and totally distinct family or person, it would clearly prove to a certain extent that there was not any recognized system. If, on the other hand, we can show that the arms of one par- ticular family were handed down or carried by succeeding generations, this^ would surely prove the existence of " system."

That there were in the early days un- written laws of habit and custom, use and wont, as now, which were quite as binding as any by law established, may be accepted without any great pleading. Did arms pass through families? From Caesar I., 3928, to A.D. 304, the coat of arms of each emperor was the same, and from Claudius, 43, to Con- stantinus III., 401 (with one slight difference in Constantinus Mag. in 308).

Take Egbert, first King of England, 800 ; his arms were Quarterly azure and or, a cross patonce counterchanged of the same. Ethelwolph and Ethelbald had Azure, a cross potent fitched or, as their arms. Ethel bert succeeded in 858, and we find his coat of arms was the same as his grandfather's, while the former's brother Ethelred carried the same.

If we turn to Edward the Elder, in the year 900, and trace the kings' arms to the year 1016, we find very certain evidence of a continuity which cannot be mistaken for chance, or put down to a lack of " system." This Edward's arms were Azure, a cross patonce between four martlets or. Edgar's in 959 were the same ; Edward the Martyr, son of Edgar, had the arms of his father, but four crowns take the place of the martlets. Ethelred succeeded to the throne, and his coat of arms in 978 was the same as Edward's in 900. That of Edmund Ironside in 1016 was Egbert's in 800.

Glancing at the Danish monarchs' arms, we find Eric III. in 950 had the same as Eric in 905 ; that Anlaff III. in 980 carried the same arms as his namesake in 946 ; that Hardicanute in 1041 had, I think, the same coat of arms as Knute in 1017. Edward the Confessor, 1042, had the same coat of arms as