Page 389 - J. C. Turner - History and Science of Knots

Heraldic Knots 383

authority to grant particular arms, such as the English College of Arms; other
countries have some sort of society that tries to control the assumption of
arms; in yet other countries it seems to be open to anyone to adopt what arms
he or she wishes, within the bounds of copyright or trademark law.
The earliest heraldic designs were simple geometric patterns [2], but rep-
resentations of beasts, birds, fishes, flowers and other common or mythological
objects soon made their appearance. Indeed, much variety was needed to al-
low each knight and other bearer of arms to have his own distinctive design.
There are now several hundreds of thousands, some say millions, of distinct
heraldic coats of arms.
The official design of a coat of arms is given by the blazon, the brief writ-
ten description. The exact interpretation of blazons has been subject to some
standardisation, but the heraldic artist has much freedom in depicting the var-
ious objects named in the blazon [26]. This freedom is particularly noticeable
with knots; a knot tier will find many different knots or entanglements of cord
used by the artists to depict a given blazon.
Knots can be seen in many places in heraldry (Fig. 1), but objectively
speaking they are rather rare. Probably less than 2% of arms show any kind
of knot or knotted object, whether the knot can be identified or not. Much
less than one in a thousand shields depicted in Rietstap's [24] massive set
of volumes bear an isolated knot tied in cordage. However, there are few
counts of the frequencies of any heraldic devices. Pastoureau [22] has tables
of frequencies of major elements (animals, plants etc) and Bolton [4] indexes
the individual charges on shields, but neither lists knots.
I now describe the various ways in which knots can be used in heraldry,
and the various knots that have been depicted. I begin by giving details of the
`shield', and then discuss designs that are displayed on shields and elsewhere.
In the course of this study I have scanned perhaps 150 000 shields and a much
smaller number of complete achievements of arms (see below); this seems to
be only a small fraction of all arms that have ever been compiled.

The Achievement of Arms

The achievement of arms comprises all the elements of armorial bearings of
an armiger, a person entitled to arms, usually in display, as in Fig. 1, though
sometimes only in writing or blazon. Fig. 1 is a display showing most of the
opportunities of using knots; such a collection of knots and knotted objects
has never been given to any one person.
The shield (14) is the most important element, and is sometimes called
the coat of arms, after the surcoat worn over armour and displaying the arms,
though that name is at other times given to the whole achievement. Some
armigers are entitled to a shield alone, with no other elements; no one is