Month: February 2020

Traceable Art Winter Update

Over the last three months, I’ve added more than two hundred new items to the Traceable Heraldic Art collection, bringing the current total to just over three thousand distinct charges, divisions, treatments, and lines.

Some of the new illustrations were taken from period manuscripts such as the Wappenbuch der Arlberg-Bruderschaft, while others were drawn from modern sources such as the Viking Answer Lady SVG files and the creations of the Pennsic Heralds’ Point art tent team from last summer. Continue reading “Traceable Art Winter Update”

A Catalogue Of Period Devices

I often encourage people who are beginning the process of designing a personal coat of arms to start by looking at period rolls of arms. Doing so can help to set expectations and provide inspiration that contribute to creating a device that is plausibly medieval — especially if you focus on rolls from the particular time and place that you want to evoke for your persona.

Without this context, it’s easy to fall into the trap of recycling SCA armorial tropes, such as “per bend sinister, an X and a Y counterchanged,” which is almost never found in period coats. Continue reading “A Catalogue Of Period Devices”

Downloading the Wappenbuch der Arlberg-Bruderschaft

Having had some success with the Gelre armorial, I thought I’d take a stab at extracting another renaissance-era armorial that is only available through a “click to pan and zoom” web interface: the Wappenbuch der Arlberg-Bruderschaft, painted by Vigil (sometimes spelled Virgil) Raber around 1550 in Tyrol, on the border between northern Italy and western Austria. Continue reading “Downloading the Wappenbuch der Arlberg-Bruderschaft”

The Mystery of the Maunch Maltale

Today, I received an inquiry by email that sent me down an interesting research rabbit hole, and (with the permission of my correspondent) I thought I would share that question and my answer here:

Sir,

The arms of my Achym family of Pelynt in Cornwall, England, are recorded several slightly different ways:

  • Arg., a maunch within a bordure Sa. charged with eight cinquefoils of the field.
  • Arg., a maunch within a bordure Sa. charged with nine cinquefoils of the field.
  • Arg. a maunch maltayle S. within a border of the first charged with cinquefoils of the second (Harl. MS. 1956).

The arms as tricked on an ancient monument in the Pelynt church (ca. 1560) displays nine cinquefoils and the maunch that is shown in Maunch (2) of your online book. Both the maunch and the cinquefoils are displayed in gules.

I have searched to no avail to learn what “maltayle” means. Perhaps it is the rendering of the maunch shown as maunch (2).

Any advice or wisdom will be appreciated.

Ron Hill in Star, Idaho

Continue reading “The Mystery of the Maunch Maltale”