heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

INTRODUCTION. 29
inanimate, which were recognised as symbolical or identified therewith, as
an expressive device for himself. His son would feel a natural pride in
preserving the memorial of his father's reputation by assuming and also
transmitting this device. Thus a system of Heraldry would arise and
become firmly established.
And such, indeed, has obtained in all countries and all ages. The Red
Indian has from time immemorial delineated upon his person or property the
"totem" of his people.* The Oriental has always revelled, and revels still,
in symbolical blazonry. In the relics of the wonderful races which once
peopled the Nile, and of the ancient Assyrians, this is
everywhere present.
The Israelites had, we know, their divinely-appointed standards, under
which each tribe had to march ;
and as regards the pitching of their tents,
it was ordered in Numbers ii., verse 2 :
" Every man of the children of
" Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensign of their father's
"house."
Six hundred years before the Christian era, ^Eschylus described the
heraldic blazonry of the chieftains who united their
forces for the siege of Thebes. The well-known
Roman eagle may be said to illustrate the Heraldry
of Rome, and the dragon of China to shew that a
similar custom has obtained from remote antiquity
amongst
the Chinese.
It is difficult, perhaps, to quote any definite
heraldic charge earlier than 1 1 64, when the device
of a lion rampant was found on the seal of Philip
Count of Flanders, or a figure resembling a fleurde-lys
on that of Stephen, Earl of Richmond, 1137.
In England the earliest is that assigned to Edward the Confessor, viz., a
cross patoncee surrounded by five martlets ;
and a shield so emblazoned
is found on the tomb of Henry III. in Westminster Abbey. But this
may possibly be taken from a coin struck by him ;
and the cross was
possibly simply to indicate where it might be cut to provide small change,
half-pennies and /our-things being the current portions of real pennies.
These arms were afterwards impaled by Richard II. when he made his
expedition against the Irish, because Edward the Confessor was traditionally
held in great esteem by them. They are carved in stone on the south
side of the choir, near the organ, and also in the spandrels of the
tower. The work of the former being completed, the latter probably
commenced, in his reign.
* " And they painted on the graveposts
Each his own ancestral Totem,
Each the symbol of his household."
Song of Himaatha, xiv.