COAT OF ARMS 

AND ENGLISH CLASSES

"The connection between armorial bearings and nobility derived from the fact that heraldry as a system was developed for and by the knights in the twelfth century to distinguish one from another when armed in war and tournaments.  . . . in thirteenth century France the use of a seal was at first a priviledge of knights so closely guarded that even a knight's son, if only an esquire and not yet knighted, might no use one.  The next stage would be for esquires to use non-heraldic seals, bearing only non-armorial devices not charged on shields."[1]

"In England, heraldry was soon adapted for civilian use on seals and in other ways, and heraldic devices began to adopted for these purposes by others than knights; first in the twelfth century by ladies; them occasionally, in the thirteenth by merchants and artisans; and in the fourteenth by bishops, abbeys, cities and boroughs."[2]

By the fourteenth century, there were two well defined schools of thought.  One held that arms were ensigns of nobility, which would be granted on enoblement, but might not be adopted at will.  The other argued that ny man might adopt arms provided that the device in question was not already borne by another."[3]

One difficulty in forming a conclusion is the variation in law and practice.  Another is to distinguish the theories of heralds and jurists from actual practice and from the law as laid down by statue or decided in the courts.  The confusions and cross purposes which may arise from aneglect of these distinctions are exemplified in the controversial exchanges of 1900-4 . . . on the subject of the Right to Bear Arms, in the course of which the argument oscillated unobserved between such different questions as, 'What is the law of arms now?', 'What ought it to be?', 'What was it in the middle ages? and 'What was then the practice?'"[4]

By the fifteenth century , the grants of arms had been delegated by the English crown to kings of arms.  In 1530 the Garter king of arms Wriothesley stated that those 'not vile born or rebels might be admitted to be ennobled to have arms havinglands and possession of free tenure to the yearly value of ten pounds sterling or in moveable goods three hundred pounds sterling.[5]  About that time, the Earl Marshall established fees for grants of arms which varied with the wealth of the grantee.[6]   At the end of the fifteenth century and again at the third mark of the sixteenth century, the crown granted license to the kings of arms to control the use of arms and to use proper visitations by the heralds to end the abuses and misuses of armorial bearings.  These processes of heraldic visitations permitted the maintenance of class distinctions of hierarchy and regulated entry to the class which governed.

A right to bear arms had come by the sixteenth century to be looked on as decisive evidence of gentility.

In 1640 the gentlemen of Kent numbered between 800 and 1000.[7]

Sydnor Coat of Arms

Richard Sydnor's arms were given as "argent, a fess* nebulee* azure* between three crescents sable, issuant from each fleur-de-lis."[8]  The use of a griffin* segreant* was noted as a crest, although many of the clergy were denied the use of a crest.[9] 

Members of the clergy were, for the most part, denied  the right to a motto,  e.g. a battle cry.[10]

The same coat of arms continued in the family and was recorded as belonging to Richard's grandnephew Paul [E???] and his great-grandnephew William [E???].  The great-grandnephew, William of Blundeston, also inherited the Jenour arms (azure*, a cross florry* between four fluer-de-lis) from his mother and acquired the Jernegan arms (argent, three buckles lozengy* gules*) through his wife.[11]