Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 09:20:24 +0000
From: Zenobia
Subject: Re: A query on Scottish or Irish heraldry

> However my persona is D 13th century Scotch/Irish. I don't
> know what the Scottish or Irish heraldry D was like during that
> time frame. Would it be a possibility to have a period D Scotch/Irish
> device with a Peregrine Falcon's head on it?

13th c. Scots armory doesn't seem to be all that different from the bulk of contemporary Anglo-Norman stuff. I believe it is largely known through seals, heraldic decoration, etc. rather than through actual rolls of arms, so sometimes the colors aren't known for certain but the outlines are. (Often the colors are surmised from later heraldry where the same family is using the same outline with some tinctures.)

I would hazard a guess that some of the trends in Scots charge use which we can demonstrate from the late 14th c. on would have already begun to manifest themselves.

So, concerning a falcon's head _proper_ I'd have to say "I REALLY don't think so." The only proper that Electrum and I were able to find from the late 14th c. on in Scotland is stuff like brown trees proper and a couple of brown animals proper -- and they are really really really uncommon. A naturalistic proper does not seem in keeping with the armorial style at all, and (as a general trend) naturalistic proper is more common later than earlier. Between the nationality and the time period I would go for a heraldic color.

For the hawk's bells, I can't recall seeing any in Scots but if they were to show up it would be in a canting reference (like the hawk's lures in the arms of Falconer, cited by David Lindsay of the Mount c. 1542.) Ditto, I think, the hawk's head at all. Does her surname refer to the falconry profession?

As for Irish heraldry, heraldry came into use in Ireland later than it did in (at least lowland) Scotland. I don't know if there was indigenous Irish heraldry in the 13th c. or just borrowed in stuff from imported families, nor am I sure where to find this out.

Again this advice is specifically oriented towards someone trying to recreate Scots heraldry of the 13th c. Not someone 'just trying to get something registered': the proposed arms (Or a peregrine falcon's head proper within an orle of hawk's bells vert) is probably stylistically fine for SCA use. (Designating the particular type of falcon in this case ought to work because it was a very popular falcon for falconry all over Europe -- I suspect it would have a "well understood proper coloration.")

Zenobia Naphtali