Heraldic painting is, like most if not all other forms of art,
subject to changes in fashion so that the somewhat florid
style of the Sidney arms in the College of Arms depiction is
of its age. It looks to me as if the porcupine’s spines are
depicted in gold on a black animal but I don’t know if this
part of the blazon — ie specified in the heraldic description
— or whether it was meant to be a porcupine ‘proper’ — in
its supposedly natural colours. I presume that the porcupine
is a relevant beast in that it puns on the phaeton or dart
shown in the quartering at the top left hand corner of the
shield. I believe that this was the charge on the Sidney arms
per se. Some one on the list will no doubt be able to cite
authority for my dimly recollected memory that the porcupine
was popularly believed to be able to shoot its quills, like
arrows.
Best regards from relatively nonbooked Argyll, but where I
have the company of wife, greyhounds, buzzards, the
occasional eagle, loads of sheep and a 30 inch high
Shetland stallion,
Richard R
Law Department
Oxford Brookes University
> That clinches it, and it's hilarious! I read the entire website
and it's
> like stepping back 500 years into the past; students in
Literature of
> Chivalry courses should be directed to this. It includes
several
> Renaissance paintings of chivalric events. There are
several coats of arms
> crowned with equally absurd animals. There is a coat of
arms crowned with a
> dragon like Arthur's helmet.I particularly liked the black
and gold coat of
> arms in the left-hand column;it's crowned with two cats all
splayed out as
> if they are being electrocuted, one pirouetting on one foot.
At 07:38 PM
> 8/21/2002 -0400, you wrote:
> >Some months ago someone enquired on the list
about a peculiar-looking
> >beast with spikes coming out of it, and after much
to-ing and fro-ing we
> >concluded this must be the Sidney porcupine. Quite
by accident I just
> >discovered, on the College of Arms web site, an
excellent picture of a
> >"full achievement" of the arms of Robert Sidney,
painted in 1616, and
> >the porcupine at the top is exactly as described above.
It bears little
> >resemblance to any denizen of the forest, but then
that's heraldry for
> >you. See the URL below. Best to all, Germaine.
> >http://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/about\14.htm
> >--
>
>*************************************************************
**********
> >Germaine Warkentin // English (Emeritus)
> >VC 205, Victoria College (University of Toronto),
> >73 Queen's Park Crescent East, Toronto, Ont. M5S
1K7, CANADA
> >[log in to unmask] (fax number on request)
>
>*************************************************************
**********
>
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