Sources – Medieval paintings and miniatures

Gawain riding to a hermitage on a hill

Some of the Arthurian romances written during the medieval period were lavishly illustrated. These pictures provide another earlier source for Arthurian heraldry. Again many of these manuscripts have been digitally copied so that they can be viewed online. The British Library for example has several including a beautiful version of the Lancelot-Grail (The Prose Vulgate Cycle).

Lancelot kills one of the four Knights of the Pavilions

A fantastic resource for finding these illustrations is the manuscript miniatures database and image collection. This is a searchable database showing medieval miniatures depicting armoured figures. Miniatures are sourced from manuscripts created before 1450 in countries across Europe. A useful adjunct to this are David Nicolle’s books on “Arms and Armour of the Crusading Era1050-1350”, which contains line drawings of the miniatures, but also includes much more information in the accompanying text.

Over time the attributed arms for many of the major knights from the Arthurian cycle became more or less established. As many of the miniatures were painted before the armorials containing Arthurian heraldry were published, the arms for some, but not all of the knights are different from those presented in the armorials.

This early Arthurian heraldry from manuscript and artistic references is discussed in more detail by Michel Pastoureau in “Armorial des chevaliers dela Table ronde - étude sur l'héraldique imaginaire à la fin du Moyen âge”, but probably the best book on this subject is Gerard J. Brault’s  “Early Blazon:Heraldic Terminlogy in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries with SpecialReference to Arthurian Heraldry”

For some knights, such as Sir Lancelot, the arms are similar in the armorial, literary and miniature traditions.

 

For others, such as Sir Gawain and his brothers, the early and late versions of the arms are very different.

Heraldry for the Orkney clan, from illustrations on medieval manuscripts

Heraldry for the Orkney clan, from the Armorial in the Morgan Library

The imaginary arms of Arthurian heraldry as codified in various armorials are thought to have been compiled ca. 1440-50 for, and possibly even by Jacques d'Armagnac, duc de Nemours (Sandoz, Edouard. "Tourneys in the Arthurian Tradition." Speculum 19 (1944)). A possible reason for the radical change in the arms of the Orkney clan could be that the compiler of the "Armagnac" armorial might have been offended by the fact that in the older tradition the arms of the "bad guy" Agravaine were a variation of: Argent, a lion gules. Thus they happened to be similar to the family arms of Armagnac (Nickel, Helmut "Notes on Arthurian Heraldry: The retroactive system in the "Armagnac" Armorial" Quondam et Futurus, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Fall 1993)).