Women and heraldry
by Mike Oettle
arms of marriage / divorce / hatchments / Welgemoed
COATS OF ARMS arose among warriors, as a system of identification in battle. To begin with, the role of women was outside this sphere altogether.
But then arms came to be worn in civil life, too, and women were reckoned to be entitled to the devices of their fathers and their husbands. Moncreiffe[1] writes:
“Daughters were allowed by courtesy to use their fathers’ coats, which they conventionally depict on a diamond-shaped ‘lozenge’.
“When they marry, they place their own family coat beside their husband’s, on his shield. This is called ‘impaling’.
“If their father has no sons, they become heraldic heiresses when he dies. Then they may place their own family shield in the middle of their husband’s shield, and it was called an ‘escutcheon of pretence’.”
The expression “of pretence” refers to the fact that the husband then “pretended to” the estates of his father-in-law. This meant that he actually administered the estates and drew their revenues (in the name of his wife, the heiress), but was not himself the actual lord or owner of the lands.
In Germany, a marriage is symbolised by the placement of two shields towards, or “respecting”, each other. Fox-Davies states that this is not quite the same as acollé, but it is hard to see what difference there is. The principal difference is that in German heraldry, any animal charges – either in a shield of more than one field or where two shields are side by-side – face the centre, rather than the dexter side of the shield (their normal position).
Returning to the situation of the family where the husband has placed his wife’s arms in pretence, however, this position changed in the next generation, when the son born of the marriage succeeded to the estates of both father and maternal grandfather. To signify this, he adds his grandfather’s arms to his father’s by a method called quartering.
Quartering is in fact only one – but the most frequently used – of a number of possible ways of combining two or more different coats of arms. This discipline, called marshalling, is discussed here.
However, a different procedure sometimes applies when a man with no sons rules that his grandson may inherit his property, on condition that the grandson takes on his name and his coat of arms as well. This is referred to as a “name and arms clause” (a reference to the will in which it is stipulated).
The lozenge is the mark of the single woman, either as a spinster or as a widow. A spinster’s arms are traditionally shown with a true lover’s knot at the top of the lozenge, but this carries no official sanction.
A widow’s lozenge shows her husband’s arms impaling her father’s, as did the shield she used while married.
A divorced woman, until she remarries, is supposed to add to her father’s arms a mascle (a lozenge voided). It is described as a mark of distinction, rather than one of difference, but it is used in much the same way as a brisure in that it is small, can be of any colour and is placed wherever convenient. (For an explanation of the difference between a mark of difference and one of distinction, see here.)
This seems rather unfair on the divorced woman, that she has to bear a mark of distinction while her former husband does not. However, penalising men for unchivalrous behaviour has been attempted but has failed by and large, only one instance having been recorded of a man being forced to bear an “abatement of honour” for his adultery. This matter is discussed here.
The one drawback of the lozenge is its narrowness, which means that the contents of the (man’s) shield have to be constricted to fit into it. For this reason another format is also adopted (more frequently in Continental Europe than in Britain), placing the single woman’s arms in an oval-shaped cartouche. Shown here is the seal of Charlotte d’Orléans, widow of King Louis XIV’s brother Philippe, which shows the arms of her husband, Duke of Orléans, and her father, the Elector Palatine, in the form of two cartouches accollé.
The system of heraldry devised by the Emperor Napoleon I favoured the cartouche for women. It was widely used in his time, and continues in use among those ennobled during that period, but it is unlikely that many women still bear arms as prescribed under this system.
Other examples of the use of cartouches for the arms of women can be found here and here, while the Heraldry Society of Scotland features two women members’ arms on cartouches. The cartouche is, however, also used for the arms of priests. This is discussed on this page.
In life, a married woman uses an ordinary shield, impaled (as shown above) – that is, with her husband’s arms on the dexter side (right, as seen from behind the shield), and her father’s arms on the sinister.
A woman married more than once will ordinarily display only the arms of her father and her current husband. But a little more leeway is traditionally allowed in death.
In the past, when an armigerous person died, that person’s arms would be displayed on a hatchment (a large lozenge-shaped board) painted with the arms of the deceased. The background of the board would be coloured white to indicate a partner still living, and black to indicate a deceased partner.
A widow who had been married twice would then display her first husband’s arms on the upper dexter half of the shield, the second husband’s on the lower dexter. If it was the widow who had died, leaving a surviving spouse, her father’s half would be black, and the second husband’s quarter white. If the husband had died, the surviving widow would of course display her father’s side white, and if all the marital partners were dead, the entire hatchment would of course have a black background.
Shown above right is the hatchment of Charles Compton, 9th Earl and 1st Marquess of Northampton. Since his wife, Maria Smith of Erle Stoke Park, Wiltshire, survived him, her side of the board is shown in white. Since she was an heiress, her arms are shown in pretence (although the limner who painted the board showed them incorrectly, since they ought to have a gold scallop shell at the centre of the saltire).
All this seems rather morbid, but it was a widely used (and colourful) form of display. The board would appear outside the home of the deceased for the period of mourning, and would then be deposited in the local church. Churches across Western Europe have examples of such hatchments (where they have not been destroyed in outbursts of radical fervour, whether religious or anti-religious), and the Groote Kerk in Cape Town is a repository of hatchments dating back to the Dutch colonial period. Shown below at left is the Groote Kerk hatchment of Johannes Fischer, a major of artillery, whose family used a canting whale (walvis or Walfisch) for arms.
On the rare occasion that a person died who was the last of his (or her) line, the hatchment is said to have borne, instead of a crest, a death’s head.
In the 20th century a different approach towards women and coat-armour came to be adopted, where a woman could be seen as an armiger in her own right, and not merely as a reflection of her father’s and husband’s armory, or a transmitter of her father’s arms to her offspring.
When Scottish laws were changed to allow female heirs to inherit titles or clan chieftancies, the Lord Lyon began recognising women as armigers in their own right. Early in 1995, Garter King of Arms (principal officer of the College of Arms in London) extended this usage to England, too. Women who hold office as mayor, lord mayor or sheriff are especially expected to avail themselves of this privilege.
A man or woman holding an office which carries its own coat of arms may include these arms with his or her own on the same shield. The British usage is to impale, as with arms of marriage, but on the Continent quartering or the use of an inescutcheon (a small inner shield) is sometimes practised. See this article for more on arms of office.
The complication with arms of office for a woman is that the impression can be created that she is a widow (should she display her official arms on a lozenge) or that the office whose arms are displayed belongs to her husband. The solution proposed for this is for her to display two separate shields acollé, the arms of her marriage on the dexter side, and those of her office (the official arms impaling her father’s coat) on the sinister. Unfortunately, this does not provide a solution for the unmarried woman.
A further development came in 1999 when the Canadian Heraldic Authority produced a set of cadency marks for women. Marks of cadency have been used for centuries to mark the shields of younger sons in a family (as discussed in this article), but cadency marks or brisures for women are altogether a new departure.
The Heraldry Society of Canada has produced a list of the marks proposed, but I have not yet seen any examples of them actually in use in Canadian arms.
However, Christo Welgemoed, a Port Elizabeth man who in 2001 registered his own coat of arms, produced a set of illustrations in 2003, shortly before his death for the arms of his children which incorporate these marks.
They are not entirely correct, since his daughters’ arms are shown solely on lozenges, whereas at the time one of them was married (two are now) and ought to display her arms impaled with her husband’s.
The shields and lozenges shown here reflect the arms of Mr Welgemoed himself; his son, Christo Jacobus Welgemoed (with a red label of three points, indicating an heir); his daughter Chriselda Welgemoed (now Botha; with a heart, indicating the eldest daughter); his daughter Elisabeth Greyling (with an ermine spot, the mark of the second daughter); and his youngest daughter Juanita Welgemoed (with a snowflake, the mark of the third daughter).
While ownership of the plain arms has now passed to Christo jnr, his sisters are still entitled to display their father’s arms. However, whether it is entirely proper for women who have a brother living to bear arms themselves, with their own brisures, is a matter that has not yet been resolved. I await further developments.
