The Bigot Roll of Arms, 1254
An Analysis

by Brian M. Scott

Copyright 1997 by Brian M. Scott.
All rights reserved.

The Bigot Roll is the earliest known French roll of arms. The original was once in the Bigot Collection (whence the name) and is now lost; the roll is known from a seventeenth-century copy, a thoroughly scholarly edition of which may be found in (Brault 1973, 16-30). According to a leading French scholar, Dr. Paul Adam-Even, the roll was composed on the occasion of the campaign led by Charles, Count of Anjou and brother to King Louis IX of France, against Count John of Avesnes and his allies in the summer of 1254 in the county of Hainault. Dr. Adam-Even was also of the opinion that the language of the roll was the Picard dialect of Old French.¹

Unfortunately, many of the proper names were badly garbled by the copyist, who in several places even offered multiple readings of words and names that he was unable to decipher with confidence. (The blazons obviously offered more redundancy in the mathematical sense and were therefore less subject to serious misreading.) Fortunately, this is of more importance to the genealogist and historian than to those of us who are interested primarily in early French armorial style.

Brault's edition of the Bigot Roll shows 295 numbered items. In this he follows (with one correction) the numbering of an earlier edition by Adam-Even. However, it appears that the French scholar erroneously conflated several fragmentary entries in the manuscript, so that Nr. 99 actually represents three entries, while Nrs. 177 and 179 represent two and five entries, respectively. The original roll, then, must have contained 295 + 2 + 1 + 4 = 302 entries. But it has evidently been slightly damaged over the years, since Nrs. 97-99 and 170-179 are no longer entirely legible. The names remain in Nrs. 97, 98, and the first entry of 99, but the blazons are unusable or wholly gone. The forename of the second entry of Nr. 99 remains, but otherwise the last two parts of Nr. 99 are almost entirely gone. In Nrs. 170-173 the names are wholly or partly gone, but the blazons appear to be complete, while in Nrs. 175-179 the names are wholly missing and the blazons are clearly too incomplete to be used. Nr. 174 may possibly contain a complete blazon, but since I cannot be sure of this, I have omitted the entry from my calculations. Thus, all of the blazons for items numbered 97-99 and 174-179 are missing or untrustworthy, leaving a total of 286 useful blazons, of which 23 are abbreviated by reference to the previous item. For example, Nr. 115 reads as follows: Hermans de Vilers, l'escu de geules a le bende d'or billeté d'or; we would blazon it Gules billety and a bend Or. Nr. 116 is: Guilliaumes de Vilers, ses fiex, le porte au lablel d'azur, that is, Guilliaumes de Vilers, his brother, bears it with a label azure, so Guilliaumes actually bore Gules billety and a bend Or and for difference a label azure. I shall have more to say about these abbreviated blazons when I discuss cadency.

The first step in studying the roll was to translate all of the blazons into English. Many, like Nr. 115 mentioned above, were easy to translate. Others would have been very easy to mistranslate without the aid of Brault's Early Blazon, since at this early date the usage of certain terms had not been entirely settled. Thus, Nr. 146 is l'escu blanc a deus bastons de geules au lablel d'azur besandé d'or, but Brault notes that the bastons are actually bars. Similarly, in Nr. 236, l'escu noir a une bende d'argent a deus listiax d'argent, the bende turns out in fact to be a fess. Only two words remained a bit obscure even with the help of the information in Early Blazon. In Nrs. 5 and 86 the primary charge is called a cuisse 'thigh'; I assume that this is the whole leg, but I cannot be certain. Finally, there was one word, songié, that defeated even Brault. From the context it is clearly a field division, and there is some reason to think that it is either quarterly or per pale, but the word remains obscure.

The illustrations in Early Blazon were also occasionally helpful, as with Nr. 284, l'escu de geules a un lion rampant d'argent coroné d'or a le langhe d'or a une manche vairie en le geule du lyon a une espee d'azur au pong d'or et au heurt d'or quy trenche le lion par my; a fairly literal translation of the blazon would be 'the shield gules with a lion rampant argent crowned Or and langued or with a maunch vair in the lion's gullet with a sword azure with pommel and hilt or that cuts the lion in half', but the illustration clearly shows that the coat is simply Gules a lion rampant argent crowned and langued or holding in its mouth a maunch vair and transfixed by a sword bendwise azure pommelled and hilted or. A few blazons that could be translated in their entirety nevertheless remained somewhat ambiguous. It is possible that a better understanding of early blazon conventions would eliminate some of the ambiguity, but I suspect that most of it is inherent in the looser syntax of thirteenth-century blazon. Nr. 78, for example, is Checky or and azure a bordure gules and a canton ermine, while Nr. 141 is Bendy or and azure on a canton argent a mullet sable and a bordure indented gules (where in each case I have pretty much followed the word-order of the French). Do these indicate a different arrangement of the canton and border in the two coats? I have no idea. A similar problem arises with Nr. 148, l'escu de geules au kief d'or au lablel d'azur 'the shield gules with the chief or with the label azure'; the tinctures suggest that the label is on the chief, but against this must be set Nr. 158, l'escu d'azur a un lion d'argent rampant coroné d'or au lablel de geule 'the shield azure with a lion argent rampant crowned or with the label gules', wherein the label clearly breaks tincture.

Finally, I should mention that either the copyist or the original compiler of the roll seems to have omitted a few tinctures.

Blazon

In almost every case² the full blazon is introduced by l'escu 'the shield', and charges, including the primary charge, are regularly introduced by the preposition a 'with'. The first of these practices is also found in the Camden Roll, whose blazons are probably from c. 1280, but I have seen it nowhere else.³ The latter was already beginning to disappear by the end of the thirteenth century. The prepositional phrase u kief is used for 'in chief', as in Nr. 46, l'escu d'or a une faisse d'azur a trois cokilles d'argent en le faisse a trois oiselés de geules u kief, i.e., Or on a fess azure three escallops argent and in chief three martlets gules. Similarly, u quartier is 'in canton'. There is no equivalent to between; evidently there were already 'default arrangements' that the reader was expected to supply for himself. However, the default placement of three charges is spelled out in Nr. 47, l'escu de geules a trois sautoirs d'argent deus deseur et un desox.

Instead of bretessees, Nr. 84 describes the treatment as encastelees desox et deseure 'encastled below and above'. Similar, in Nr. 100 a fess cotised is une faisse a deus listiax un desox et l'autre deseure. However, in other cases the fess or bend is simply a deus listiax. Strewn charges, including crosses crosslet, are generally described as semees (e.g., Nr. 41), but the specific word croisetté is also used (Nr. 130). A curious variation is found in the use of the term vair, which is applied only to charges; the five coats (Nrs. 87, 149, 150, 151, and 196) with vair fields have the fields described as vairié d'argent et d'azur. The word sable is never used; instead the tincture is blazoned noir 'black'. Both argent and blanc 'white' are used, but there is a pattern to their usage. Plain fields are usually blazoned blanc (35 times out of 45); when a field or a charge is of a divided tincture, however, argent is always used. Charges, on the other hand, are usually argent (70 times out of 84).

The modern French distinction between bezants, i.e., roundels tinctured of a metal, and torteaux, those tinctured of a color, is maintained in the Bigot Roll. One interesting word that has completely disappeared from modern blazon, both French and English, is estakié 'paly'.

A final noteworthy feature of the blazonry of the Bigot Roll is the manner of describing 'half-powdered fields'. By this I mean multiply-parted fields with a powdering of charges on only one of the two field tinctures. For example, Nr. 157 is l'escu bendé de geules et de vair a molettes d'or en le geules, literally 'the shield gules and vair with mullets or on the gules', which we might blazon Bendy gules mullety Or and vair. This is also the usual locution, not only for half-powdered fields, but also for describing the placement of tertiary charges, as in Nr. 39, l'escu d'or a une bende de geules a trois koquilles d'argent en le bende, Or on a bend gules three escallops argent. There is, however, another possibility for blazoning half-powdered fields; it is seen in Nr. 103, l'escu bendé d'or et de noir as quintefeuelles d'argent u noirs a un cokes de gueules u quartier devant, literally 'the shield or and black with cinquefoils argent in [the] black with a cock gules in canton'.

Cadency

The Bigot Roll contains a number of clear-cut examples of arms related by cadency. We have already seen one such example in Nrs. 115 and 116, giving the arms of Hermans de Vilers and of Guilliaumes de Vilers, ses fiex, who le porte au lablel d'azur. It is probably safe to assume that whenever one coat is explicitly described as being the same as another with the addition of a label, baston, or canton, and the surnames are the same, the individuals involved are actually related in some way. I am less sure of the cases in which one coat is explicitly described as a modification of another, but the surnames are different. Nrs. 23-25, for instance, are Le comte de Vilers, l'escu d'or au lion noir rampant a le keu forqie, Vualerans, ses freres, de Vilers le porte a un baston de geules en beslive, and Li conte de Viane le porte autretel; probably the count of Viane is a member of the family, but I do not have the kind of biographical information that would be needed to demonstrate this. It seems likely too that Nr. 165, Vuistasses de Heripont, l'escu blanc a trois lionchiax noirs au lablel de geules, and Nr. 166, Vuistasses de Crepilly, l'escu d'argent a trois lionchiax noirs au lablel de geules besandé d'argent, are related. There are also a number of instances of probable cadency involving coats that are not adjacent in the roll. It seems nearly certain that cadency is involved in the case of Nr. 66, Le senescax de Rostelers, l'escu blanc a trois fleurs de lis de geules, and Nrs. 125 and 126, Ernox de Rostelers and Robers de Rostelers, who add to this coat a label azure bezanty and a label azure, respectively. A relationship between Nr. 81, Guinemens d'Aquimegny, l'escu d'azur a le croix d'argent endentee, and Nr. 80, Henris de Guimegny li Soulas, who bears the same cross on a red field and adds a label azure, also seems likely, given the copyist's difficulty with the names in the roll: probably d'Aquimegny and de Guimegny are merely different realizations of the same locative. Certainly Nr. 75, Henris de Gumgniegny, l'escu de geules a une croix d'argent endentee, belongs with Nr. 80.

Altogether there appear to be somewhere between 37 and 60 or so coats that are with reasonabe probability related to others in the roll. It is however probable that many more are in fact cadenced, since 81, or about 28%, include a label, bendlet, canton, or bordure. By far the most common means of differencing is the addition of a label. In some cases it appears that the coat has been further differenced by the addition of strewn charges (generally roundels, though there is one example with the addition of fretty) on the label, though it is of course conceivable that the powdered label was added directly to the base coat. Other charges that seems to have been used for cadency are the baston, canton, and border. In some cases cadency was indicated by the addition of charges to a base coat consisting solely of a complex field. Nrs. 269-271 are apparently all differenced versions of what is usually given in English works as the Chaworth arms, Barruly argent and gules.⁴ The first adds a double-headed eagle sable; the second, an orle of martlets sable; and the third adds the martlets and a canton sable. I suspect that Nrs. 146 (Argent, two bars gules and a label azure bezanty) and 147 (Argent two bars gules and a mullet sable) are also 'parallel' coats, i.e., both differenced versions of an underlying Argent two bars gules. Thus, I hesitate to include 'change of charge type' as a category of cadency difference in this roll. There is no doubt, however, that 'change of tincture' is such a category. For example, Nr. 209 is Haimeris L'Enfant, l'escu d'or a trois batons de geules de travers u kief (Or in chief three bars gules), while Nr. 229 is Fouques L'Anfant, l'escu d'ermine a trois batons de geules u kief de travers; the only change is from a gold to an ermine field. Another good example is found in Nrs. 123 and 124, Glidoup d'Olfendop, Vert a chief paly or and gules fretty argent, and Lidoup d'Olfendop, his son, Vert a chief paly argent and gules. But other apparent examples of such differencing may actually be 'parallel' coats, as in Nrs. 93 and 94, Fastres de Harvaing and Juames de Harvaing, who bore Or a bend between six martlets gules and a label azure and The same with a label vert, respectively; it seems quite likely that these are both differenced versions of Or a bend between six martlets gules.

Finally, there are (at least) three instances of two individuals bearing the same arms. Nr. 25, Li conte de Viane, is said to bear the same arms as Nr. 24, Vualerans de Vilers, who is the brother of Nr. 23, Le comte de Vilers, and who bears the same arms as the latter with the addition of a baston gules. (Or perhaps de Viane bears the same arms as de Vilers; the referent of autretel is not entirely clear.) Nr. 78, Vuinemans d'Esguiemes, bore Checky or and azure a bordure gules and a canton ermine, and Vuinant, his eldest brother, bore the same undifferenced. (According to H. Stanford London in Aspilogia II, pg. 110 n. 3, the family was actually von Schinnen, and the Germans rarely differenced for cadency.) Finally, Nr. 96, Gilles de Busengnies, and Nr. 157, Gherars de Busingnies, both bore Bendy gules mullety or and vair.

Because of the difficulty in determining exactly which of these coats are cadenced, and because in many cases the mark of cadency may itself have been inherited anyway, I have chosen to count all 286 usable coats separately in compiling the statistics that appear below.

The Field

Fully 229 (80.1%) of the 286 usable coats in the Bigot Roll have fields of a plain metal, color, or fur. (I am including here powdered and fretty fields.) Of these 229 coats, 120 (52.4%) have metal fields; 96 (41.9%) have color fields; and the remaining 13 (5.7%) fields are fur. The complete figures for the single-tincture fields are shown in Table 1. The order of popularity is about what one would expect: or, argent, gules, azure, sable, and vert for the tinctures, with ermine and vair(y) fairly rare but roughly equally popular. Purpure is not found at all as a tincture, and neither are the ermine variants or the vair variants that differ in shape or arrangement of the tinctures.

The remaining 57 (19.9%) fields are parted in some way. Partitions into multiple parallel stripes are much the most popular, accounting for 34, or 59.6%, of these coats. Indeed, 20 (35.1%) of the divided coats have either a barry or a barruly field; that is fully 7% of the total of 286 coats. The full details of these striped fields are in Table 2.

Checks of various sorts are also found in 9 coats. In particular, there are 6 checky fields; 2 are argent and azure, 3 are or and azure, and the remaining one is or and gules. This last combination of tintcures is found in both of the lozengy fields, while the single paly bendy (or lozengy bendwise) coat is argent and gules. The 3 gyronny coats (Nrs. 71-73) are related, so it is not really surprising that each is half-powdered; 2 are gyronny argent and sable crusily or, and the other is gyronny or and gules crusily or. (This is a nice example of cadency by change of tincture: Nr. 71 is Gyronny argent and sable crusily or; Nr. 72, his son, adds a label; and Nr. 73, his brother, changes the tinctures.)

There are only 6 instances of fields parted into just two pieces; one of them is paly azure and gules, and the other 5 are all paly indented. (In three cases the tinctures are argent and sable; the others are or and gules and or and azure.) Note that no fields are per fess or per bend (sinister); these partitions seem to have remained rare in French armory at least into the sixteenth century. There are 2 quarterly coats, Quarterly gules and sable in dexter chief a mullet or and Quarterly or and azure a label gules. There is the obscure field songié argent and sable already mentioned in the section on Blazon. And finally there are two coats, one a cadenced version of the other, with the compound field division per pale and barry or and azure. This is a little misleading, however, since the full blazon is Per pale and barry or and azure an inescutcheon argent and a chief paly and gyronny in the corners [or and azure]: this is the Mortimer arrangement, notorious as a test of a herald's ability to blazon complex coats.

Types of Primary Charges

Ignoring heraldic reality, I have taken a charge or group of charges to be primary whenever it was the only charge or charge group on the shield. In particular, an orle of charges is here considered primary if there is no central charge. I have not included powdered fields that are otherwise uncharged, however.

Lions, including leopards, are definitely the kings of the early French armorial jungle: they appear as primary charges in 60 (20.8%) coats. Lions usually appear singly, but 3 lions appear in 12 coats, and there are 6 other coats with 2 lions each. Two lions are never combattant, but in one case (Nr. 154) they are apparently rampant addorsed. Leopards, on the other hand, always come in pairs. In 8 coats the lion has a forked tail, and in fully 19 he is crowned. Oddly enough, however, the two modifications never appear together. One pair of leopards is crowned. The crowns are predominantly or (9) and argent (7), but in 2 cases each they are gules and azure. The tincture rule is not strictly followed by the crowns. In 4 coats there is an argent crown on an or field; in 2 more a gules crown appears on an azure field. In 52 of 54 coats the lions are rampant, though the fact is blazoned in only 27 of them; the 2 coats containing lions passant both have two lions crowned. No other beast occurs as a primary charge. One lion, it will be recalled, is being cleft in twain by a sword, and one (Nr. 128) is charged on the shoulder with a fleur-de-lis.

There is a single coat featuring fish, specifically bars (barbels or sea-perch): Nr. 156, Gerars de Fornewil, de geules a deus bars d'or sinans, Gules two barbels haurient addorsed or. Otherwise the animal world is represented entirely by birds. The eagle is of course the favorite: among the primary charges there are 10 eagles, of which 3 are double-headed. An orle of martlets appears without a central charge in 4 coats, though in two of them (Nrs. 270 and 271) it is known to have originated as a cadency difference. Cocks appear twice in the related canting coats Nrs. 103 and 104 for the brothers de Cokerel.

Fesses, bars, and bars gemelles make up the largest group of charges after the lions and leopards, with a total of 47 coats. 24 of these contain a fess; 20 of the fesses are plain, and 4 are fusily (engrailed, of lozenges, etc.; the term used is endentee), and 5 of the fesses are charged, with either 3 escallops or 3 mullets. Of the coats with bars, 13 have them plain, 8 have bars gemelles, and there is one coat each with two bars dancetty and two bars bretessed. Other ordinaries are also among the more popular charges. There are 13 coats with bends as primary charge; one each has the bend dancetty (une danche en beslive), or cotised, and the others are plain. (Nr. 226 is Per pale argent and sable a bendlet gules bezanty; the bendlet may be a primary charge in our sense, but the blazon suggests that it is a mark of cadency.) Two bends are charged, one with 3 escallops, the other with a single mullet. (In only one of these coats does the baston seem to be for cadency.) There are 11 crosses, 5 plain, 5 fusily (engrailed, of lozenges, etc.; the term used is again endentee save in Nr. 133, l'escu d'azur a sis lozenges d'or en le crois), and 1 formy throughout (Nr. 251, eslaisie a box). One cross is charged with 5 escallops. There are also 4 crosses moline, blazoned fers de moline, though I prefer not to count these with the ordinaries. Chevrons (4) and chevronels (5) account for another 9 coats; all are plain, though there is one coat (Nr. 183) with three chevronels gemelles. The saltire appears in 6 coats, and there are 2 with saltorels (though as with crosses moline I am inclined not to treat these as ordinaries).

Other primary charges appearing in at least 3 coats are the label (9), the inescutcheon (7), the fleur-de-lis (6), the annulet (5), the crescent, and hamades. Of course, most if not all of the 'primary' labels are probably just cadency marks on complex fields. There are also 7 coats in which the primary 'charge' is fretty. (Two of them also have a chief.) There are no frets, but this is hardly surprising in view of H. Stanford London's statement that the pattern that we blazon a fret only dates from Tudor days.⁵

A number of charges appear as primary charges in 2 coats each. The cock has already been mentioned; others are the cuisse 'thigh', lozenges (10 of them in both cases), mascles, the mullet (probably of 6 points), which in Nr. 82 is explicitly blazoned pierced (perchie), roses, roundels (3 torteaux and 10 plates), and stirrups. Charges not yet mentioned that are primary in one coat each are the crown, escallops (5 in cross), gloves, hunting-horns, lime-blossom leaves, the maunch, pillars, trefoils, and the tower.

Finally, there are 20 coats whose only charges are peripheral ordinaries. These include the chief, the bordure, and the canton or quarter. In 14 of them the only charge on the field is a chief, which may be plain (11) or indented (endenté) (3), charged (6) or uncharged (8). All of the indented chiefs are uncharged. There are also two plain, uncharged chiefs on fretty fields. Nr. 264, Li quens de Vendosme, l'escu blanc au kief de geules a un lion rampant, poses a bit of a problem, inasmuch as the lion is known to be overall (and azure). I have included this lion among the primary charges. Finally, there is one coat (Nr. 53) with both a chief and a border, blazoned in that order. There are just 2 coats, Nrs. 14 and 87, whose only charge is a border; and since the fields are argent and vair, it seems possible that these borders are integral to the coats. In a third coat (the identical Nrs. 78 and 79, borne by brothers) the charges are a border and a canton, blazoned in that order. Finally, one coat (Nr. 141) has a charged canton and a border in that order.

Tinctures of Primary Charges

(For this section I have counted as primary the first or only peripheral ordinary if the coat has no other charge.)

Since metal fields outnumber color fields in this roll, it is not at all surprising that the majority of these primary charges are tinctured of a color. Indeed, more are gules than any other two tinctures combined. In 244 coats the primary charge(s) is of a single tincture (counting furs as such); in 12 more the primary charge(s) is of some more complex, divided tincture. The details are in Table 3. (For the few complexly-tinctured charges I have noted the type of charge involved; the consistent relationship between type of complex tincture and type of charge is noteworthy, though the sample is too small and contains too many related coats to be significant.)

It may also be of interest to see the frequencies of different combinations of field and charge tincture; these are tabulated in Table 4. Perhaps the most curious observation has to do with vair. As a field tincture it patterns primarily as a metal, though it is found once with a gold charge; but as a charge tincture it patterns as a color, appearing only on gold fields in this roll. (Of course all three of the coats with vair charges are related, so the observation may not be significant.)

Secondary Charges

There are 41 coats in which a label is in SCA terms the secondary charge, though most if not all of these must surely be marks of cadency. Similarly, at least some of the 6 secondary chiefs and 5 each secondary cantons and bordures must be (or have been) for cadency. One of the cantons is charged with a mullet, and one of the borders is bezanty; the other secondary peripheral charges are uncharged. Apart from two indented borders, these charges have plain lines of division. Apart from these major brisures we find that martlets are by far the most common secondary charge, occurring as such in 16 coats. In these arms they appear as three martlets in chief, as six martlets around a bend, and in one case as four around a saltire. There is also one secondary orle of martlets and even an orle of eaglets (Nr. 255). Eaglets themselves occur as a secondary charge in only one coat, Nr. 242, in which 16 of them canton a cross. To complete the aviary we have one hen statant upon a mount in the canting arms of Henneberg (here conflated with the arms of Thuringia to form Nr. 64), and one lion in canton completes the entire zoo.

Two fesses and a bend are cotised, the latter in a different tincture. Finally, there are 2 secondary mullets; in one coat 3 mullets canton a saltire, and in the other the single mullet, probably in chief, appears to be for cadency.

I have not made a complete tabulation of the tinctures of the secondary charges, but it appears that gules is again the overwhelming favorite, followed by argent and -- at a great distance -- sable. Several of these chiefs are paly. The orle of martlets is or; the eaglets and the orle of eaglets are azure, one of the bordures is vert, and two of the cantons are ermine.

Powder on the Field

The charges used to powder all of a field are: billets (6), fleurs-de-lis (4), crosses crosslet (3), roses (2), mullets (2), and escallops (1). Of these the crosses crosslet (3) and the mullets (2) are also used to powder half-fields, as are cinquefoils (2), roundels (1), and saltorels (1). (In the last case Brault suggests that the visual effect may actually be of fretty.) In 13 of the 14 coats with both powder and a primary charge, both are of the same tincture.

Tertiary Charges

Escallops and mullets are much the commonest tertiary charges in these coats; each appears in 5 coats. In 2 coats each we find hammers and fleurs-de-lis as tertiary charges, and both the dance and the bar are used to charge chiefs. There is a demi-lion issuant from the line of division of a chief. And finally, there is one coat in which the tinctures imply that a label is located on a chief. The charges are found on the chief (6), fess (5), bend (2), canton (2), lion (2), and cross (1). There appears to be nothing particularly interesting to say about the tinctures of these tertiary charges save that in only one case is a tertiary charge tinctured of the field: Nr. 205, Argent on a chief gules a dance argent.

There are also several instances of tertiary powder and half-powder. Specifically, 4 fesses and 1 label are fretty; 9 labels and 1 baston are semy of roundels; and one chief is paly or and gules fretty argent.

Labels and Bendlets

These charges, used almost exclusively as differences for cadency, appear to follow rules of their own. This is especially true of the label, which appears in 55 coats. In 12 of these the label is the sole charge, and in 42 it accompanies at least one more significant charge. In Nr. 148, Phelippes de Velques, l'escu de geules au kief d'or au lablel d'azur, the placement of the label is ambiguous. The tinctures suggest that it is a tertiary charge on the chief; but since 15 of the 55 labels (27%) break tincture, the inference cannot be considered certain. Azure (23) and gules (19) are overwhelmingly the most common tinctures for labels; of the remaining 13, 4 each are or and vert, 3 are argent, and 2 are sable. (For this tabulation I have ignored any powdered charges on the labels.) Thus, only about one label in eight is tinctured of a metal, though slightly over a third of the fields are tinctured of a color. It is therefore not particularly surprising that, as previously remarked, a substantial number of labels break tincture. The following table gives the details.

From this it is evident that the combination of azure and gules was much the most popular among those normally excluded by the Tincture Rule, with gules and sable a very distant second.

It is perhaps a little surprising that 9 of the labels are themselves charged. One is azure fretty argent. In each of the other 8 cases the label is either platy (twice each on azure and gules labels) or bezanty (twice on azure and once each on gules and sable). In 6 of these cases, however, the same coat appears with the corresponding plain-tinctured label in circumstances strongly suggesting some kind of cadency relationship. It therefore seems likely that labels with powdered charges were rarely if ever used at this early date to indicate primary cadency.

Bendlets (by which term I translate ba(s)ton) show a rather different pattern of tinctures, 9 out 11 being gules. Of the other two, one is sable, and the other is compony of unknown tincures. Only one breaks tincture: one of the gules bendlets lies on a sable field. The sable bendlet is unusual in being fusily, and one of the gules bendlets is bezanty.

Complexity

About half of the coats in this roll use only two tinctures. The proportion rises to about three-quarters if obvious cadency brisures and minor details like crowns are ignored. The great majority of coats have (again apart from obvious marks of cadency) either no charge or a single group of uncharged primary charges.

Canting Arms

I have noticed 10 probable examples of canting arms in the Bigot Roll. (I am least confident of Nr. 212.)

Survival

Out of curiosity I compared the Bigot Roll with the lists of surnames associated with the coats in several other period rolls, especially the Gelre Armorial of almost 150 years later. I found roughly two dozen matches of both coat and name, and another dozen and a half or so cases in which the names matched and the coats seemed clearly to be related. Taken at face value, this is a survival rate of less than 15%. On the other hand, there were also quite a few cases of matching names with completely dissimilar armory or the reverse. Probably a number of the latter could be identified as true matches with the aid of better biographical information than I had available. Certainly Nr. 242, Guis de Lanane, l'escu d'or a une croix de geules a cinc cokilles d'argent en le croix a seize aigles d'azur (Or, on a cross gules between sixteen eagles azure five escallops argent) must be Montmorency with the escallops added for difference. Doubtless too there are coats in the Bigot Roll that survived for at least 150 years but simply did not happen to be recorded in any of the rolls for which I have surname indices. On the whole I prefer not to draw any conclusions about the survival rate of these early coats.

Table 1: Plain Field Tinctures

Table 2: Complex Field Tinctures

Table 3: Tinctures of Primary Charges

Table 4: Combinations of Field and Primary Charge Tincture

Footnotes

1 Brault, Gerard J. Eight Thirteenth-Century Rolls of Arms in French and Anglo-Norman Blazon. University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1973; pp. 6-7.

2 I have not looked carefully, but the only exception that I have noted is Nr. 254: Landris de le Tor, d'or a une tor de geules.

3 Brault, pp. 8-9.

4 Aspilogia II, p. 125.

5 Aspilogia II, p. 93.

6 All divided charge tinctures except those of the form <tincture> fretty <tincture> are included in this category.

7 This includes the one field azure papelony or.