Who Appeared in Visitations? *COMPLETED*

[supermoussi]

Thanks guys, but I am still not sure of the status of junior lines.

Say if someone had a valid arms in 1400 and by the time of visitation c.1600 the senior line of descent still bore the arms, would junior lines also bear the arms? I understand that junior sons could have versions of the arms with additional cadency marks but was this always the case or was it optional?

[GrahamSimons]

Arms belong to an individual, so a member of a junior line could not bear the same arms. The arms go from father to eldest son down a legitimate line of descent. And arms are unique to one man at a time.

[supermoussi]

Arms belong to an individual, so a member of a junior line could not bear the same arms.

If you read this article on Cadency up to the end of the England section that would appear not to be the case:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadency

In particular:-

"For example, the College of Arms website (as of June 2006), far from insisting on any doctrine of One man one coat suggested by some academic writers, says:

    … The arms of a man pass equally to all his legitimate children, irrespective of their order of birth."

But still I get the impression that it was inconsistant with regard to whether junior lines actually did claim arms, never mind whether they were differenced.

[Guy Etchells]

Arms belong to an individual, so a member of a junior line could not bear the same arms. The arms go from father to eldest son down a legitimate line of descent. And arms are unique to one man at a time.

Not quite accurate.
It is quite a complicated issue really.
Arms were not held by an individual but were in a sort of halfway house of being attached to the land the individual owned and the individual. All members of that individuals family could display the arms of their father (marks of cadency were optional in English heraldry).

Daughters display the arms of their father on a lozenge rather than a shield.

The position today is different as arms are not tied to the land as in the past.
Cheers
Guy

[supermoussi]

To put my original question another way:-

Can anyone name some families that can be proved beyond doubt to have been eligible to bear arms and yet weren't listed in the Visitations?

[KGarrad]

 

What is the question you are really trying to ask?

What is the name of the family/person?

[supermoussi]

What is the question you are really trying to ask?

Can anyone name some families that can be proved beyond doubt to have been eligible to bear arms and yet weren't listed in the Visitations?

[MaecW]

Hi supermousse,

Your question may be a bit hard for the members of this forum to answer unless somebody has personal knowledge of an example.
We are assuming that you are referring to English (or possibly Welsh) heraldry, not that of Scotland or Ireland.
We do not have access to the lists of Arms granted by the College of Arms, and the Visitations, which are available to us, took place over 350 years ago and varied considerably in their accuracy and coverage. Even that popular source Burke's General Armoury is known to contain many errors and flights of fancy.
Given that there has been no real oversight by the College of Arms for several centuries it is quite likely that many Arms in use today are not "approved" by visitation or grant. Whether that makes them "illegal" is a moot point, as they might well pass the test of a visitation if it were to be applied !

Maec



In the general sense, referring to your question about junior lines, the (male) children of an armiger (person entitled to have Arms) would also be considered armigerous and could therefore adopt their own arms, either by differencing their parent's arms or by adopting (assuming) new arms.

[Guy Etchells]

Every landowning family in England was, in the past, eligible to bear arms, not all appear in the Visitations.
Every Gentleman was eligible to bear arms, in the past, not all appear in the Visitations.

The problem is not finding the name of the person, though that could be an immense task but trolling through all the Visitations to see if they have been mentioned at any time.

Even if they were not it does not prove anything, they may for instance been out of the county when the herald held his Visitation. They may have been born after the last visitation or have died before a Visitation.
Some counties had many Visitations others few, Rutlandshire (as it used to be named) only had two, whereas Essex had five.

Are you trying to prove an armorial for a specific person?
If so who, where, when?
Cheers
Guy