60.

B. C. He is said to have travelled much, and to have been very sorrowfully impressed with the weaknesses of his fellow-creatures, whence, according to old traditions, he obtained the nickname of the weeping philosopher,' in contrast to Democritus, the laughing philosopher.' He died at the age of The result of H.'s researches and meditations was a work on the nature of things, said to have been entitled Peri Physeōs (On Nature). Such fragments of it as remain were collected and elucidated by Schleiermacher in Wolf and Buttmann's Museum der Alterthumswissenschaften (vol. i. part 3, Berlin, 1805). From these, it appears that he considered fire to be the first principle of all phenomena, and the original substance out of which they have all been evolved. H. was neither a very original nor a very coherent thinker, and his speculations deserve little attention.

HERA'CLIUS, a Byzantine emperor (610-641), of splendid but fitful genius, was descended from a line of brave ancestors, and was born in Cappadocia about 575 A. D. His father, also named Heraclius, was exarch or governor-general of Africa. Regarding H.'s youth we know almost nothing; but when upwards of thirty, he took part in a conspiracy (which proved successful) against the emperor Phocas, whose horrible cruelties had made him universally detested. In 610, H., at the head of a fleet, appeared at Constantinople: the citizens rose in rebellion, Phocas was beheaded, and H. saluted emperor in his stead. His fellow-conspirators were richly rewarded. The condition of the Byzantine empire at this time was deplorable. Factions within and the barbarians without had almost reduced it to ruin, so that years elapsed before H. could put forth any vigorous efforts for its reorganisation. His most powerful enemies in the north were the Avari, who, in 619, plundered the country to the very gates of Constantinople, nearly captured H. himself, and are said to have carried with them to their homes beyond the Danube 250,000 prisoners. The whole western empire had by this time been seized by the Slaves, Lombards, Visigoths, and other tribes; but by far the most alarming conquests were those made in the East by the Persian king, Chosroës II. In 615, Sarbar, the Persian general, stormed and plundered Jerusalem. The same fate befell Alexandria in the following year, after which all Egypt yielded to the victorious Sarbar, who penetrated as far as Abyssinia. By stopping the export of corn from Egypt to Constantinople, he likewise caused a severe famine in the latter city. In the same year (616), the Persians besieged and captured Chalcedon, opposite Constantinople. H. at first tried to negotiate with his enemies, but flushed with their triumphs, they refused, and even put his ambassadors to death. Probably, the emperor, who was now laying his plans for taking a magnificent revenge on the Persians, was not greatly displeased at their refusal. Having, after a whole year of laborious discipline, organised an army composed of Greeks and barbarians, he, in 622, shipped his troops at the Bosporus, and sailed for Cilicia. Having landed, he encamped in the plain of Issus, completely routed a Persian army despatched against him, and forced his way through the passes of the Taurus and Anti-Taurus, into the province of Pontus, where his soldiers wintered. In 624, he crossed Armenia, conquered several of the PersoCaucasian countries, and reached the Caspian Sea. Here he formed an alliance with the khan of the Khazars, who ruled over the sterile regions north of the Caucasus, as far as the river Ural. By the assistance of these and other barbarians, he attacked Media, and carried his arms as far south as Ispahan. Before going into winter-quarters, he again utterly

defeated the main body of the Persians, commanded by Chosroës himself. In 625, H. descended from the Caucasus into Mesopotamia, and thence proceeded into Cilicia, where a sanguinary engagement took place between him and Sarbar; the Persians were routed with immense slaughter, and Sarbar fled to Persia. During the next two years (626-628), the glory of H. culminated. He carried the war into the heart of the Persian empire, and in December 627, cut to pieces the forces of Rhazates, the Persian general, near the junction of the Little Zab and the Tigris. An immense booty fell into the hands of the victors. A few days after, H. took Artemita or Dastagerd, the favourite residence of Chosroës, and here the Arabic historians exhaust hyperbole in attempting to state the enormous treasure which the Byzantine emperor captured. Chosroës fled into the interior of Persia, and was soon afterwards seized, imprisoned, and starved to death by orders of his son and successor Siroes, who was glad to conclude a peace with H., by which the Persians gave up all their former conquests. The fame of H. now spread over the whole world, and ambassadors came to him from the remotest kingdoms of the East and West; but a new and terrible enemy suddenly arose in the South. The Arabs, filled with the ardour of a new and fierce faith, had just set out on their career of sanguinary proselytism. The war begun during the life of the Prophet himself, was continued by his successors, Abubekr and Omar. H. no longer commanded the Byzantine forces himself, but wasted his days in his palace at Constantinople, partly in sensual pleasures, and partly in wretched theological disputations. His mighty energies were quite relaxed; and before the close of his life, Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Egypt were in the hands of the califs. H. died in 641.

HE'RALD (derivation uncertain), an officer whose duty consists in the regulation of armorial bearings, the marshalling of processions, and the superintendence of public ceremonies. In the middle ages, heralds were highly honoured, and enjoyed important privileges; their functions also included the bearing of messages, whether of courtesy or defiance, between royal or knightly personages; the superintending and registering of trials by battle, tournaments, jousts, and all chivalric exercises; the computation of the slain after battle; and the recording of the valiant acts of the falling or surviving combatants. The office of herald is probably as old as the origin of coat-armour. The principal heraldic officers are designed kings-of-arms or kings-at-arms, and the novitiates or learners are styled pursuivants. Heralds were originally created with much ceremony; they are now appointed by the Earl Marshal in England, and by the Lyon King-of-Arms in Scotland. There are now in England three kingsat-arms, named by their offices Garter, Clarencieux, and Norroy; six heralds-Somerset, Chester, Windsor, Richmond, Lancaster, and York; and four pursuivants, called Rouge Dragon, Portcullis, Blue Mantle, and Rouge Croix. The heralds have no official connection with the districts from which they take their titles, and there have been at different periods other heralds, whose titles are now laid aside; heralds extraordinary have also sometimes been created, as Edmonson, by the title of Mowbray, in 1764. In Scotland, the principal heraldic officer is the Lyon King-at-arms; and there are six heralds -Snowdoun, Albany, Ross, Rothesay, Marchmont, and Ilay; and five pursuivants-Unicorn, Carrick, Kintyre, Ormond, and Bute. Ireland has one king. at-arms, Ulster; two heralds, Cork and Dublin; and two pursuivants, of whom the senior bears the title of Athlone, and the other is called the pursuivant of St Patrick.

The official costume of a herald consists of an embroidered satin tabard or surcoat of the royal arms, and a collar of SS. See KING-AT-ARMS, PURSUIVANT, HERALDS' COLLEGE.

HERALDRY is properly the knowledge of the whole multifarious duties devolving on a herald (see HERALD); in the more restricted sense, in which we shall here consider it, it is the science of armorial bearings. After occupying for ages the attention of the learned, and forming an important branch of a princely education, the study of heraldry fell, in later times, into neglect and disrepute, and was abandoned to coach-painters and undertakers, a degradation owing in part to the endless tissue of follies and mystifications that had been interwoven with it. Modern criticism has rescued heraldry from the pedantries and follies of the heralds, and imparted to it a new interest, as a valuable aid to historical investigations.

Though we have instances in remote times of nations and individuals distinguishing themselves by particular emblems or ensigns, nothing that can properly be called armorial bearings existed before the middle of the 12th century. The shields of the French knights in the first crusade presented a plain face of polished metal, nor is there any evidence of heraldic devices having been in use in the second crusade in 1147. But the Anglo-Norman poet Wace, who flourished in the latter part of the 12th c., mentions devices or cognizances as being in use among the Normans, that no Norman might perish by the hand of another, nor one Frenchman kill another;' and Wace is curiously corroborated by the Bayeux tapestry of the 12th c., where there are figures of animals on the shields of the invaders, while the Saxon shields have only borders or crosses. The rude devices on these shields have nothing approaching to an armorial form or disposition, yet it is probable that systematic heraldry sprang out of them, but it is difficult to say when they assumed that hereditary character which is essential to the idea of armorial bearings. Some sort of armorial insignia were depicted on the shields used in the third crusade, which took place in 1189; and in the same half century originated the fleurs-de-lis of France and the lions of England. The transmission of arms from father to son seems to have been fully recognised in the 13th c., and in the practice then introduced of embroidering the family insignia on the surcoat worn over the hauberk or coat of mail, originated the expression coat of arms. Arms were similarly embroidered on the jupon, cyclas, and tabard, which succeeded the surcoat, a practice which survived till the time of Henry VIII., when the tabard came to be entirely disused except by heralds, who still continue to wear on their tabards the royal arms.

It was by slow degrees that the usage of arms grew up into the systematised form which it assumes in the works of the established writers on heraldry. The principal existing data for tracing its progress are English rolls of arms yet extant of the times of Henry III., Edward I., and Edward III. The earliest formal treatises date no further back than the end of the 14th c., before which time the whole historical part of the subject had been obscured by a tissue of gratuitous fictions, which has misled most subsequent writers up to a very recent period. The professors of the science represent the heraldry of the 10th and 11th centuries as equally sharply defined with that of the 15th and 16th. The arms of William the Conqueror and his sons are described with all their differences; arms are ascribed to the Saxon kings of England, to Charlemagne, and even to half-mythical persons and heroes of classical times. It is rather surprising to find this fictitious

heraldry understood and systematised early in the 14th century. The arms traditionally considered to be those of Edward the Confessor were sculptured in Westminster Abbey in the reign of Edward II.

In the infancy of heraldry, every knight assumed what arms he pleased, without consulting sovereign or king-at-arms. Animals, plants, imaginary monsters, things artificial, and objects familiar to pilgrims, were all fixed on; and whenever it was possible, the object chosen was one whose name bore sufficient resemblance in sound to suggest the name or title of the bearer of it. There is reason to believe that early arms were generally armes parlantes, though the allusion has in many cases ceased to be intelligible from the old name of the object being forgotten. The charge fixed on was used with great latitude, singly or repeated, or in any way which the bearer chose, or the form of his shield suggested. But as coats of arms became more numerous, confusion often arose from different knights adopting the same symbol; and this confusion was increased by a practice which crept in of sovereigns or feudal chiefs allowing their arms, or part of them, to be borne as a mark of honour by their favourite followers in battle. Hence different coats of arms came in many instances so closely to resemble each other, that it was imperative, for distinction's sake, that the fancy of the bearer should be restrained, and regulations laid down regarding the number and position of the charges, and the attitudes of the animals represented. This necessity led, in the course of time, to the systematising of heraldry, a process which the rolls alluded to shew us was going on gradually throughout the 13th and 14th centuries. By the time that heraldry was consolidated into a science, its true origin had been lost sight of, and the credulity and fertility of imagination of the heralds led them to invest the most common charges with mystical meanings, and to trace their original adoption to the desire of commemorating the adventures or achievements of the founders of the families who bore them. The legends ascribing an origin of this sort to the early armorial bearings have, in nearly all instances where it has been possible to investigate them, turned out to be fabrications. It was only when heraldry began to assume the dignity of a science, that augmentations of a commemorative character were granted, one of the earliest known instances being the heart added to the coat of Douglas on his carrying the heart of Robert the Bruce to Palestine. After the science became thoroughly systematised, augmentations and new coats were often granted with a reference to the supposed symbolical meanings of the charges.

In England, the assumption of arms by private persons was first restrained by a proclamation of Henry V., which prohibited every one who had not borne arms at Agincourt to assume them, except in virtue of inheritance or a grant from the crown. To enforce the observance of this rule, heralds' visitations or processions through the counties were instituted, and continued from time to time till the reign of William and Mary. See VISITATION OF ARMS.

Jurisdiction in questions of arms is executed by the Heralds' College in England, the Lyon Court in Scotland, and the College of Arms in Ireland. No one within the United Kingdom is entitled to bear arms without a hereditary claim by descent, or a grant from the competent authority; and the wrongful assumption of arms is an act for which the assumer may be subjected to penalties. See HERALDS' COLLEGE, and LYON COURT. of arms, whether rightfully or wrongfully, subjects the bearer of them to an annual tax. It is illegal to use without authority not only a coat of arms,

The use

but even a crest. Any figure or device placed on a heraldic wreath (see WREATH) is considered a crest in questions with the Heralds' College or Lyon Court, as well as in questions with the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. It shews how deeply the passion for outward distinction is implanted in human nature, when we find people in countries such as the United States, where all differences of rank are theoretically repudiated, assuming heraldic devices, each man at his own hand.

Besides individuals, communities and states are entitled to the use of arms, and heralds have classified arms, in respect of the right to bear them, under the following ten heads: 1. Arms of dominion; the arms borne by sovereigns as annexed to their territories. 2. Arms of pretension, which sovereigns have borne, who, though not in possession, claim a right to the territories to which the arms belong. Thus, England bore the arms of France from the time of Edward III. till 1801. 3. Arms of community; the arms of bishops' sees, abbeys, universities, towns, and corporations. 4. Arms of assumption; arms which one has a right to assume with the approba tion of the sovereign. Thus, it is said, the arms of a prisoner at war may be borne by his captor, and transmitted by him to his heirs. 5. Arms of patronage; added by governors of provinces, lords of the manor, patrons of benefices, &c., to their family arms, as a token of superiority, right, or jurisdiction. 6. Arms of succession, borne quartered with the family arms by those who inherit fiefs or manors, either by will, entail, or donation. Thus, the Dukes of Athole, as having been lords of the Isle of Man, quarter the arms of that island, and the Duke of Argyle quarters the arms of the lordship of Lorn. 7. Arms of alliance, taken up by the issue of heiresses, to shew their maternal descent. 8. Arms of adoption, borne by a stranger in blood, to fulfil the will of a testator. The last of a family may adopt a stranger to bear his name and arms and possess his estate. Arms of adoption can only be borne with permission of a sovereign or king-at-arms. 9. Arms of concession; augmentations granted by a sovereign of part of his royal arms, as a mark of distinction, a usage which, we already observed, obtained in the earliest days of heraldry; and hence the prevalence among armorial bearings of the lion, the fleur-de-lis, and the eagle, the bearings of the sovereigns of England and Scotland, of France, and of Germany. 10. Paternal or hereditary arms, transmitted by the first possessor to his descendants.

A

B

C

A coat of arms is composed of charges depicted on an escutcheon representing the old knightly shield. The word escutcheon is derived from the French écusson, which signified a shield with armorial bearings, in contradistinction from écu, a shield generally. The shields in use in England and France in the 11th and 12th centuries were in shape not unlike a boy's kite, a form which seems to have been borrowed from the Sicilians; but when they became the recipients of armorial bearings, they were gradually flattened and shortened. From the time of Henry III., the escutcheon has been most frequently represented on seals as of something approaching to a triangular form, with the point downwards, the chief exceptions being that the shield of a lady is lozengeshaped, and of a knight-banneret Fig. 1. square. To facilitate description, the surface or field of the escutcheon has been divided into nine points (fig. 1), technically distinguished by the following names: A, the dexter chief point; B, the middle chief; C,

G

BDEFH

Н

the sinister chief; D, the honour or collar point; E, the fess point; F, the nombril or navel point; G, the dexter base point; H, the middle base; and I, the sinister base point. It will be observed that the dexter and sinister sides of the shield are so called from their position in relation not to the eye of the spectator, but of the supposed bearer of the shield.

Coats of arms are distinguished from one another, not only by the charges or objects borne on them, but by the colour of these charges, and of the field on which they are placed. The field may be of one colour, or of more than one, divided by a partition line or lines varying in form. The first thing, then, to be mentioned in blazoning a shield-that is, describing it in technical language-is the colour, or, as it is heraldically called, tincture of the field. Tinctures are either of metal, colour strictly so called, or fur. The metals used in heraldry are two gold, termed or, and silver, argent-represented in painting by yellow and white. The colours are five red, blue, black, green, and purple, known as gules, azure, sable, vert, and purpure. Metals and colours are indicated in uncoloured heraldic engravings by points and hatched lines, an invention ascribed to Father Silvestro di Petrasancta, an Italian herald of the 17th century. Or (fig. 2) is represented by points;

for argent, the field is left plain. Gules is denoted by perpendicular, and azure, by horizontal lines; sable, by lines perpendicular and horizontal crossing each other; vert, by diagonal lines from dexter chief to sinister base; purpure, by diagonal lines from sinister chief to dexter base. The furs were originally but two, ermine and vair. The former is represented by black spots resembling those of the fur of the animal called the ermine, on a white ground. Vair, said to have been taken from the fur of a squirrel, bluish-gray on the back, and white on the belly, is expressed by blue and white shields, or bells in horizontal rows, the bases of the white resting on the bases of the blue. If the vair is of any other colours than white and blue, they must be specified. Various modifications of these furs were afterwards introduced, among others, ermines, or ermine with the field sable and the spots argent; erminites, with a red hair on each side of the black spot; pean, with the field sable, and the spots or; counter-vair, or vair with the bells of one tincture placed base to base; and potent counter-potent, vair with crutch-shaped figures instead of bells.

It is an established rule of heraldry that metal should not be placed on metal, nor colour on colour; a rule more rigidly adhered to in English than in foreign heraldry. We have one remarkable transgression of it in the arms of the kingdom of Jerusalem founded by the Crusaders, which are argent, a cross potent between four crosses or. A recognised exception exists wherever a charge lies over a field partly of metal and partly of colour, or where an animal is (see infra) attired, armed, unguled, crowned, or chained with a tincture different from that of his body. Marks of cadency, chiefs, cantons, and bordures are also exempted from the general

W DANCETTE

The Subordinaries, or subordinate ordinaries, are, generally, enumerated as the following, though there is no very broad line of demarcation between them and the common charges.

a

1. The Gyron.-When shield is at Fig. 23. once quartered and party per saltire, as in fig. 24, the division is called Gyronny of eight (from gyrus, a circle), and one of the triangles, or at least the triangle in dexter chief, is a gyron. Gyronny of six, ten, or twelve also occasionally occur, so called according to the number of the triangles.

2. The Fret (fig. 25) is a cognizance derived from the banding or ornamenting of the shield, and a shield covered with this lattice-work decoration (fig. 26) is said to be Fretty.

3. The Bordure, or border (fig. 27), is a stripe encircling the shield. It is much used to distinguish different branches of a family, and is often

charged with small devices, on which account it has sometimes been reckoned an honourable ordinary. 4. The Orle (fig. 28) differs from a bordure in not touching the extremity of the shield.

5. The Tressure, regarded as a diminutive of the orle, is generally borne double, and flory counterflory, as in the arms of Scotland, or, a lion rampant within a tressure flory counterflory gules (fig. 29). 6. The Pall (fig. 30), the archiepiscopal ornament of that name, sent from Rome to metropolitans, and resembling in form the letter Y.

7. The Flanches (fig. 31), the dexter and sinister sides of the shield cut off by a curved line. Flanches are always borne in pairs, and sometimes charged.

8. The Lozenge, a figure of four equal sides, with

the upper and lower angles acute, and the others obtuse.

9. The Fusil (fig. 32), longer and more acute than the lozenge.

10. The Rustre (fig. 33), a lozenge pierced round in the centre.

11. The Mascle (fig. 34), a lozenge perforated, and shewing a narrow border. Mascles were probably originally links of chain-armour.

A field is said to be Lozengy (fig. 35), Fusilly or Mascally, when divided by diagonal lines in the direction of these subordinaries. A field divided by horizontal and perpendicular lines into squares of different tinctures, is said to be Checky; in the case of a Fess checky there are three such rows of squares.

Among subordinaries are sometimes reckoned certain circular charges called Roundels or Roundlets, distinguished in English heraldry by different names according to their tinctures. When of or, they are called Bezants; of argent, Plates; of gules, Torteaux; of azure, Hurts; of purpure, Golpes; and of sable, Ogresses or Pellets.

We now come to the third class of figures occurring in armorial bearings. We have seen that the ordinaries and subordinaries are for the most part purely heraldic figures, connected in their origin with the shield itself; the common charges, on the other hand, are representations more or less conventional of familiar objects, which have no necessary relation to the shield; but are in some way emblematic as concerns family or individual history and character. The knights, in the early days of heraldry, ransacked the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral kingdom, as well as the range of things natural and artificial, for cognizances which would be distinctive, and at the same time suggestive, of the name or title of the bearer of them. We can only enumerate a few of the charges of most frequent occurrence.

a

Of beasts, the lion requires special mention. The king of beasts is one of the most frequent of heraldic devices, and is made to assume great variety of attitudes, for which see LION. Lions and other beasts of prey are said to be armed or langued of any tincture when their teeth and claws, or their tongue, is of that tincture." With some change of colour or position, the royal beast came to be used by all who could claim kindred, however remote, with royalty, and lions were further multiplied by augmentations granted by the sovereign to favourite followers. The heraldic leopard, which has been the subject of much controversy, was originally but another designation for the lion passant-gardant. Bears, boars, bulls, stags, are favourite heraldic beasts. A stag walking is said to be trippant; he is at gaze when a lion would be statant-gardant; he is attired of any tincture when his horns are of that tincture. The animals that possess horns and hoofs are said to be armed and unguled in respect of them. The heads and limbs of animals are often borne as charges, and they may be either couped, cut off in a straight line, or erased, cut off with a jagged edge.

Of birds, we have first the eagle. The sovereign of birds, and symbol of imperial Jove, was, next to the lion, the most favourite cognizance of royal personages, and was adopted by the German emperors, who claimed to be successors of the Cæsars of Rome. The imperial eagle had at first but one head; the monstrosity of a second head seems to have arisen from a dimidiation of two eagles, to represent the eastern and western empire (see MARSHALLING OF ARMS). The eagle of heraldry is most generally displayed, i. e., its wings are expanded; sometimes it is preying, or standing devouring its prey. The alerion, the cognizance of