The history of the origin and development of Origins of coat armor is an important division of the history Heraldry. of civilization. It appears to have taken its start in the middle ages from the flags and standards of the military service and gradually transferred itself to the weapons of war. Emblems, which at first were the common rallying point of an army or a

Shield from the Tomb of the Habsburgs in Wittingen. Primitive heraldic design (Ganz).

division, came to be personal to single warriors, and eventually every knight was identified by the adornments of his shield and helmet. Eventually also the personal emblems, like the feudal possessions, became hereditary, and thereupon the coats of arms entered the domain of privilege and legal protection.

Privileges.

In course of time this privilege extended itself over broader ranges of personalities. From the higher nobility it pursued its way through the lower ranks of that order into the artificial classes established for royal ministers, judges, and other high functionaries, with whom came also the princes of the church and eventually important citizens of towns, who perhaps harked back to a noble descent. Provinces and territories developed legal rights in their coats of arms from their particular feudal relationships to empire and kingdom. City corporations ordinarily carried in their seals along with some architectural emblem the arms of their feudal superior, who might be of princely or of imperial rank. Bishoprics, monasteries, and other ecclesiastical foundations were subdivisions of the feudal system from which military services or taxes were due, and their seals bear first the arms of the person who might be at the time in charge, but eventually here also there developed a corporation heraldry. The great military orders, like the Templars and Knights of St. John, naturally bore distinctive coat armor, because the members were taken from the noble classes and the order itself possessed territorial rights. Eventually the monastic orders as such, the Benedictines, Dominicans, and others, also maintained the exclusive right to the use of chosen emblems. Finally, gilds, as purely secular trade associations, as soon as their right to representation in city councils had been recognized obtained the legal right to heraldic seals, but the development in law was less pronounced in this field.

From the point of view of historical criticism the Heraldry and history of heraldry is important because the investi- History.

gator must know when the rights and privileges of the blazonry of the given seal begin and expire. With this information he is armed with one more defense against forged or misplaced documents. Sometimes other factors in the document are defaced or missing while the heraldic design may furnish the clue to the contracting parties. For the ordinary investigator the services of the experts in heraldry may be required for difficult cases, but the elements of the art form a convenient possession for any student who expects to come in contact with documents.

The technical language employed in the descrip- Technical Detion of a coat of arms is a highly artificial vocabulary scription. which developed during the flourishing period of the system at the hands of professional heralds. The terms used in English are mostly of French origin and some of the words have become obsolete in other connections, but with one obvious advantage, that the terminology is similar for all of Western Europe. The different nations developed various tastes in employment of emblems and in the application of ornamentation, but the heraldic use of colors, the divisions of the shield, and other principles of the art are common to all. To indicate colors in engravings by the use of lines, either vertical, horizontal or crossed, there has been a uniform system since the eighteenth century, but to treat of the principles of heraldry even in outline is beyond the intention of this chapter. It must suffice to point out that the

historical significance of the institution is very great. Practically, it is not difficult for the investigator to be prepared to interpret a description of a coat of arms, or to appreciate the historical and artistic value of its pictorial representation, whether impressed on a seal, painted in a miniature, or carved upon a tomb.

CHAPTER VIII

THE TIME AND ORIGIN OF SOURCES

In the problems of external criticism it frequently occurs that a chronicle or a document makes no reference to its origin, and the investigator is obliged to employ indirect means to establish the date, the place, or the author. The procedure is a part of the general test of materials, and the processes of finding the author, the time, or the locality usually take place concurrently. The search for one item reveals points about the others, and the solving of one question may depend on the results of another. Here also the mental processes of the investigator are closely interlocked, but for the purposes of analysis and discussion the three questions may be taken up separately.

The reasons for wanting to know who the author The Search for may be, or for determining when and where the the Author document originated, should be constantly held in mind. The search is not mere curiosity to establish a name by which the paper may be known, nor, on the other hand, is it an absolutely essential duty that any author's name should be attached to historical writings. We are merely looking for means by which to establish the credibility of the witness in hand. A name is a means of identification from which we may proceed to look into the qualifications of the