Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 00:14:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: Teceangl
Subject: Re: heraldry texts

There is no one book. We all wish there was, but there isn't. Fox-Davies' A Complete Guide to Heraldry comes as close as possible, but he was a scholar of Victorian heraldry and therefor his blazonry is sometimes quite different from the SCA norm, and some of his stuff lacks for our purposes. However, it's a dashedly useful book. I also heavily recommend An Heraldic Alphabet by J.P. Brooke-Little if you can find it.

The following is indespensible: A Pictorial Dictionary of Heraldry as Used in the Society for Creative Anachronism by Bruce Draconarius & Akagawa Yoshio (aka "The PicDic") Privately published, you can find info from the SCA Heraldry webpage http://www.sca.org/heraldry

Boutell's Heraldry is a must-grab if you can find one.

Heraldry: Customs, Rules and Style by Neubecker is available from Barnes & Noble currently and is a lovely book.

A Glossary of Terms Used in Heraldry by B. Parker is nearly as good as Brooke-Little's book mentioned above.

And of course A Dictionary of Heraldry by Joseph Foster has just been reprinted in a great big *coloured* version and is as useful for consulting as it gets (Anglo-Norman heraldry, that is).

- Teceangl

Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 07:19:09 -0700
From: Elisabeth
Subject: Re: heraldry texts

If no one has mentioned it already,

Stephen Friar's Dictionary of Heraldry is a good one to have, again if you can get hold of it.

Elisabeth

Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 08:59:42 +0000
From: Zenobia
Subject: Re: heraldry texts

> The ONE book that no herald should be without is most definitally
> 'Complete guide to Heraldry' by A. C. Fox-Davies.

Which is very useful and my first book too -- but it's a "Completely Victorian" guide to heraldry. The stuff on charges and postures and tinctures is quite useful to us. Beware the tips on blazon though.

I second the suggestions of Friar's "Dictionary of Heraldry" (he has a "Basic Heraldry" with Ferguson which isn't bad either and structured more like "A Complete Guide") as well as the suggestion of Brooke-Little's "An Heraldic Alphabet."

If you can find it, grab Woodward and Burnett's "A Treatise on Heraldry, British and Foreign." Not only does this give you the basic postures and tinctures and charges _but_ it discusses them in light of not-just-English heraldry, and in the English language (not a lot of resources do this.) Ditto Parker's book whose title has just gone out of my mind (I think it has "Glossary" in it.) Still mostly English but gives dated examples of use of the items. It's in dictionary format.

Zenobia Couronne Rouge