heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

52 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
Doubtless this is not "a language understanded of the people;" a dead
language very likely, but a genuine language nevertheless a language as
true as that which in cuneiform characters or quaint hieroglyphics adorns
the cliffs of Sinai, or the walls of Thebes and Nineveh ;
a language as true
as that in the pages of Thucydides or ^schylus, Cicero or Horace ; a
language not speaking, perhaps, nineteenth century
truths in nineteenth
century phraseology, but that which men, then as now, were trying to
understand and to communicate, and which then, perhaps, they comprehended
as much as men do now, or will at any future time.
But there is all the difference between these coats-of-arms and
the arms which adorn the monuments which cumber our aisles, or which
are painted on the panels of carriages, or engraved on plate,
present day.
at the
Just the difference between the Latin of Cicero and the Latin of the
chemist or the botanist the one the natural expression, the other the
pedantic adaptation.
Now you can no more learn this language in one chapter than you
can learn
any other language, or even the grammar thereof.
I can but satisfy you that it is a language which perhaps you have
never realized before, and very briefly set before you some of the characters
thereof written on our Minster walls and windows, and mention one or two
incidents connected therewith as illustrations. I must leave you
to decide
for yourselves whether you think it worth your while to pursue the subject
any further.
What should I get by so doing r you may ask. Well, I answer, a
mine of interest, full of the sweetest poetry and romance, and a more
thorough knowledge of English history, of the motives and causes which
underlie that history, and of the principles of a philosophy founded on,
developing, and in harmony with the principles of God's Word a philosophy
which was not altogether fatuous, which had its
day (though like everything
else its
day was very brief), and which has been succeeded by numberless
similar efforts, which may, perhaps, have been more pretentious, but I
doubt whether more successful.
Heraldic charges or devices were originally emblazoned upon the
shield only, which was made of wood and covered with hide in Latin,
scutum;
hence the word " escutcheon."
In the thirteenth century they were also displayed upon the surcoat,
a long white garment of linen or silk, without sleeves, intended to protect
the wearer from the great heat of the sun upon his armour ;
hence " cotearmure
" or " coat-of-arms." So Chaucer speaks in his Book of Fame