A Short Essay on Heraldry and the Bateman Coat of Arms

by Russell Bateman Heraldry deals with ancestral lines especially as they have implications for lineage, titles, crests and coats of arms. Indeed, heraldry is complicated enough that there actually exist professional heraldists. Except for a very tiny number of official heraldists, the majority make a living by selling heraldry services, such as researching family coats of arms for individuals, schools, communities, etc. Herald, the term, comes from French, héraut d’armes, a public officer whose function was to carry messages, particularly of declaration of war, or to announce the arrival of high persons such as the king. John the Baptist was, in effect and in symbolism, the herald of Jesus Christ.

Record: 30533 Middleton by Youlgrave, Derby- shire, England, descended from William Bateman, of South Winfield, living in 1298. Arms: Or, three crescents, each surmounted by an estoile gules. Crest: A crescent and estoile as in the arms between two eaglešs wings or. Motto: Sidus adsit amicum (let a friendly star be present).

Coats of arms are a delightful panache for family genealogists, a sort of icing on the family cake. A family may gather together pedigrees, photos and histories, but inevitably will seek some concise seal upon or banner over their family history work. A coat of arms is a graphic representation that lends a special cachet to a family’s work and so it is highly desirable to use one on the cover of a book, family stationery, or the family webpage.

Disclaimer

I am a new-comer to this field. What I have written here is all I have been able so far to learn in casual research over the last two or three years. If you know something I don’t, please do not hesitate to share it with me, Russell Bateman.

The Coat of Arms in History

We have to wonder what the history of the family coat of arms is. What legitimacy does a coat have? How can it be determined what a family’s coat is? What if there is more than one coat for a given name?

In some countries there are even laws, largely ignored as near as I can tell, that insist that only the direct line of male heirs can use the coat of arms granted to an ancestor. The United States of America has no such laws. The ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity that have grown out of the American, French and other revolutions make it unthinkable that any person or family be undeserving of respect, dignity and the right to think of himself or itself as special. This feeling is all the more acute on the part of the individual for his own family.

Most Americans of European descent probably have a family name for which there is already a coat of arms even if, strictly speaking, they have no official or formal right to display that coat.

The coats of arms originated in the Middle Ages as a way of distinguishing individual combattants, particularly wealthy knights, on the field of battle. You had to be wealthy to be able to afford the necessary armor of a knight and wealthier still to have it decorated and maintained in a distinctive way by which others could recognize you—including others who knew your coat of arms, but did not know you personally. There are tales according to which combattants were mistaken in the field. William the Conqueror reportedly lifted his helmet at one point in the battle of Hastings in order to rally his troups among whom the rumor of his death had begun to spread.

Authentic or historic coats of arms contain a graphic representation of the deeds or "gests" (an ancient French word for the deeds of a knight) of the originating ancestor. As a knight became experienced (mostly, as he survived), he gained recognition for acts of valor in the service of his lord and that lord granted him honor, which honor might be reflected in his coat of arms much as a military officer or soldier today receives ribbons and medals to display upon his person for services rendered to his country.

Historic or official coats of arms and their elements are recorded in long-established and reverenced documents such as Burke’s General Armory and Reitstap’s Armorial General. These are are two of the resources that heraldists use in researching a family’s coat of arms. Sometimes coats of arms already have surviving graphical representations, but most of the time, the heraldist recreates the coat of arms from a description written in a strange language mix of French, English and German terms. Reputable heraldists will offer your coat of arms in some graphic medium after careful research including interpreting the description of your authentic coat if extant.

The Coat of Arms in Our Day

What if my family has no coat or several coats? This the case of the Bateman family. Why? I communicated to David Humphreys, a Welsh heraldist whose services I’ve used a couple of times before, the coat that some of our family had been using (reproduced here on the right) and he created a heraldic description from it. An authentic description is called a "blazon" so named because when a knight appeared in a tourney, a blast was given on trumpets and a herald named aloud and described the arms on the knight’s shield and the surcoat worn over his armor.

The Bateman coat of arms is described in the following heraldic language:

In English we would say, "A shield of gold with three crescents, each with a red star atop. The crest consists of a torse supporting a crescent and star in the arms of eagle’s wings." (or is French for gold; gules means red.) Anything else is optional and left to the imagination or artistic talent of the heraldist.

With the disappearance of warfare the way it was done on the medieval battlefield, the coat of arms has long been a largely decorative phenomenon.

The Elements of a Coat of Arms

The coat of arms consists of the following elements (refer to the Bateman coat of arms below):

• shield which displays the symbols or charges that signify the knight;
• helm, different in style and position according to rank;
• crest, which in old times actually adorned (or may have) the helmet for purposes of identification. Some coats of arms, often instutional ones like municipalities, universities, businesses, do not have a crest. The crest may include a crown;
• torse which consists of six bands of silk in alternating colors from the shield and which hold the crest in place. The newer Bateman crest is not affixed with a torse; the torse on the old one is visible;
• motto, a war cry or family slogan. Not all coats of arms have them. These have been lost or forgotten. Ours is Sidus adsit amicus;
• mantling, which represents a garment attached to the helmet as a protection against the elements is now shredded into a ragged, flowing design that is become a backdrop for the shield and helmet;
• supporters, or animal or human figures, on either side of the shield holding it up. Supporters are used more frequently on civic or institutional coats of arms. Our coat has none of this.

The Bateman Coat of Arms

Let’s be frank. The depth of our coat of arms may or may not be that of medieval landed gentry. While the origin of the coat we use now is not entirely known, it is ours if we want to keep it. I chose the new one after going back and forth with David Humphreys who offered me two different existing Bateman coats, neither of which seems satisfactory because they didn’t have the elements that the coat my grandfather Alfred Hess Bateman had on his wall nor b) they didn’t jive with another coat I got, presumably of the same heritage as my grandfather’s, which also displayed certain elements. I sent him an indication as the to the desired elements and he created the new one you see at the top of this page. Modern coats are whatever the family decides to adopt. They serve as ornement and as a rallying symbol for the family.

Let’s examine the elements of our coat of arms including their significance.

Shield charge, ordinary and colors

What is upon the shield is known as "the charge," usually an animal, but sometimes something else like a hand, arm, foot, sceptre, millstone, harp, etc.

The main charges upon our shield are three crescents which usually stand for an ancestor having received honor by a sovereign. The six-pointed (wavy) star indicates celestial goodness and nobility. Red (gules) is the color of strong, but magnanimous military strength. Our older coat contained also scallops (shells) indicative of travel to far away places.

Perhaps the Bateman coat of arms is as much a symbol to live up to as the expression of ancestral laurels.