[antir-heralds] Married women arms and the Lozenge

[chrisact at qwickconnect.net]

Kelsy Warren wrote:
> so I got a few Heraldry books this week and I was reading about that  
> some women displayed their arms in a Lozenge. Where I am a but  
> confused is that, did married women display theirs in them in the late  
> 1500 England, which is where my person is based? I see for maidens and  
> widows, but I get differing info on when women are married.
> 
> Thanks everyone.
> Constance Wyatt

By 1500's married women displayed their arms impaled with their 
husbands'. I.e., take a standard shield shape and split palewise down 
the middle. The husband's arms are shown in their entirety on the dexter 
side, the wife's on the sinister. With one exception: bordures, orles, 
treasures and the like do not follow the palar line. If necessary, a 
wider than usual shield shape may be used, so as to keep the two arms 
from being distorted to fit.

Mind you, if one spouse is entitled to any sort of armorial insignia 
(other than an augmentation of arms), around or added to her/his arms, 
the impaled arms do not show it. Instead, a coat of arms of the entitled 
person is shown, with the insignia, next to the impaled coat of arms. 
The "solo" arms are on the dexter side if the husband, or the sinister 
side if the wife; the two coats were usually arranged in such a way as 
to clearly associate them (so as to make it obvious this was the 
achievement of a married couple). It was not unknown for *three* coats 
of arms to be used, if both spouses were entitled to insignia the other 
wasn't.

This whole megilla is called "baron-et-femme"---indeed, any form of 
marital armorial achievement is called baron-et-femme



BTW: By the late 1500's, some single women were displaying their arms on 
a cartouche (an oval with the long axis vertical) rather than a lozenge. 
Just FYI. ;-)


~~Basil Dragonstrike

-- 
The current Term of Multitude is:
A husk of hares -- from An Exaltation of Larks by James Lipton