heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

3 6 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
as the arms of Bryan, and gives the following amongst the pennons and
pennoncelles of Percy : " Bryan Rosset, gold and tawny, the bugle-horn
" as before."
Henry Percy, third Earl of Northumberland, married Eleanor, granddaughter
and heir of Richard Poynings, Lord Poynings, Fitz-Payne, and
Bryan, so he may have inherited the badge
from him and the office also.
It therefore by no means follows that the horn, being
so common a
badge, should necessarily be the horn of Ulphus. My own opinion at
present is that the horn and arms together represent either Plantagenet
and the royal supremacy over the northern forests generally, or the royal
rangership of the forest of Galtres, by which York was nearly surrounded ;
or, it may be, the arms of Savage, and the horn, as it is at Ripon now, the
civic badge before the mace was given by Richard II.
From the position of the shield and horn in the Choir, they would
seem to have been
placed there at the completion of the building, which,
is known, was commenced by Archbishop Thoresby, at the east end. And
we may, therefore, assume that the shield and arms in the Nave mark the
completion of that portion of the Church. These dates, about 1345 and
1400, tally with the official existence of William and Robert Savage. The
last Baron Leyborne died in 1309, which would prevent these shields being
attributed to them.
But no doubt the great impetus to this ingrained taste for distinctive
devices was given by the Crusades, which commenced in 1095 when the
;
Council of Clermont, having determined to recover the Holy Land from the
Saracens, Peter the Hermit, animated by religious enthusiasm, roused
the sovereigns and nobles throughout Europe to take up arms against
the Moslem.
In the following year an immense army was collected from every
corner of Europe, under the magnanimous Godfrey de Bouillon, since immortalized
by Tasso and
; being composed of so many nationalities, it was
necessary to adopt certain distinctive insignia.
Thus the English had a white cross sewn or embroidered on the right
shoulder of their surcoats ;
the French were distinguished in a similar
manner by a red cross ;
the Flemings adopted a green cross ;
and the
Crusaders from the Roman States bore two keys in saltire. The French
bore also the banner of St. Dennis, viz., a square flag of a red or flaming
colour, which was called the oriflamme, and was carried at the head of
the French armies from the i2th to the isth century.
The English on their side had also their distinctive flag, according to
Tasso, thus translated by Fairfax*
* This was Edward Fairfax, born 1568, who may have been a son of the great-grandfather of that
famous Parliamentary General, Thomas Fairfax, who lived in York, whose son Henry restored the horn
of Ulphus to us, which had been "taken away," says Drake, at the time of the Reformation.