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Question Date : Friday 19th November 2004 18:18
Question:
What is the symbolism behind Salisbury’s coat of arms?
Answer:
The arms of Salisbury are eight horizontal stripes across the shield, blue then yellow (or gold, on a monument), finishing with yellow at the bottom end of the shield. The ‘supporters’ – which can be any sort of animal, bird or human figure which can hold the shield upright – are, for Salisbury, two double-headed eagles, yellow (or gold), with blue duke’s crowns around their necks. In some heraldic descriptions the eagles also have blue claws and beaks. In 1565 there was a visitation of Wiltshire, undertaken under the direction of William Harvey, the senior herald, with the title of Clarenceux King of Arms. These heraldic visitations were carried out from time to time to establish entitlements to coats of arms, and at the next such visitation, of September 1623, there were found to be 52 individuals in Wiltshire claiming to have coats of arms and who were not entitled to them.
Salisbury’s arms were recorded in 1565, in heraldic terminology, as: arms : barry of eight azure and or; supporters : two eagles displayed or, ducally crowned, beaked and legged azure. Harvey commented; ‘These Arms, w’th the two Egles supporting the same, are the Auntient Armes belonging and appertaining to the Maior, his bretheren, and comonalitie of New Sarum, the w’ch I have regestered and recorded in the Regester of my Visitation nowe made within the Com. [i.e. county] of Wilts .... These are not the arms as presently borne by the city, as, since at least the 1623 Visitation, the eagle supporters have been double-headed, and with the blue ducal crown around their necks, and their legs and beaks are yellow/gold. From time to time the number of bars or stripes has been shown as six, or the shield more obviously a blue one with yellow/gold stripes, and the supporters having blue beaks. The supporters with their crowns round their necks have to be drawn with some care if they are not to look like turkeys outside an old-fashioned poulterers.
What does it all mean? People and institutions nowadays choose what appears on their arms to reflect their interests, achievements and where appropriate their family connections, and that is probably what happened in the past rather than heraldic motifs simply being plucked out of thin air. The usual explanation is that the blue stripes represent the four rivers which come together at Salisbury, and the yellow stripes the fields of golden corn. The problem with that idea is that the Wylye flows into the Nadder at Wilton, and the Bourne flows into the Avon in Milford – historically well to the east of the city. And, heraldically, the variant of the shield has a blue background, not a yellow one. As for the eagles, they have been supposed to be a reference to the earls of Radnor, who have been among the city’s greatest benefactors, and MPs for the City. The Radnor arms have for their supporters ravens with ducal crowns round their necks, and a double-headed eagle on their shield; but in 1565 when the city’s arms are recorded, the Bouveries, who became the Radnors, were recently-arrived Huguenot refugees living in Canterbury. The eagle, a symbol of power, and, when double-headed, one of imperial power (as of the Roman and Holy Roman empires) has been enormously popular throughout the history of heraldry, and Papworth records hundreds of grants of arms featuring these birds.
Bibliography:
Buckeridge, D.: Heraldry in Wiltshire, vol. 1: civic authorities (the author, 1995), pp. 16-17.
College of Arms: The visitation of Wiltshire, 1565; ed. by W.C. Metcalfe (Exeter: pr. Pollard, 1897), p.40
College of Arms: The visitation of Wiltshire, 1623; ed. by G.W. Marshall (Bell, 1882), frontispiece, pp.103-4
Papworth, J.W.: Papworth’s ordinary of British armorials ... 1874 (repr. Tabard Publications, 1961), pp. 307-310.
Scott-Giles, C.W.: Civic heraldry of England and Wales (Dent, 1933), p. 256.
VCH Wiltshire, vol. 6 (Oxford UP, 1962), pp 179-180.»