Page:Sussex Archaeological Collections, volume 6.djvu/95



The origin of the armorial bearings of a family is not only a most interesting and curious inquiry in itself, but never fails considerably to illustrate family and territorial history. It is amazing what difficulties are cleared up, what unexpected relations appear, what clues to further discovery or conjecture are afforded, by successful researches of this kind ; and what speculation, and often a bold application of general rules, working on but few materials, will lead to, in the shape of results equally unlooked for and gratifying.

The occasions of the assumption of armorial bearings have been such as to invest them with circumstances of honour and poetical interest. The associations connected with them are many and diversified. When one had been displayed for the first time in the Holy Land, and its owner had earned the rewards of valour and prowess, this symbol of renown would be transmitted to posterity as a cherished family emblem ; and when we find thousands of them thus or equally honourably acquired, we need not wonder at the reverence with which they were considered, that by succeeding generations they were locked upon proudly, and guarded with jealousy. They are accordingly commemorated in various ways. They garnish in beautiful emblazonry the vellum page of the mediaeval chronicler; engraven on stone and on brass, in the "long drawn aisle and fretted vault," they are often the only memorials left of warrior-knights and valiant squires, whose names and whose deeds have perished : they are symbols so high in honour, as to be placed by the crown on the tomb of the monarch ; and on the sepulchral monuments of archbishops and lordly abbots, they appear beside the mitre and the crosier.