Coats of arms of selected families

The Trie family

The TRIE family was a cadet of the maison Beaumont-sur-Oise from northern France, and was prominent during the 14th and 15th centuries before its extinction in the male line in 1487. The basic family coat-of-arms is well-known: Or a bend azure, and various family members differenced their arms in the usual way, but which member who used a certain coat is sometimes difficult to ascertain.

With the acquisition of the county of Dammartin-en-Goële, the ancient arms of the counts were also used by the head of the comital branch while a sub-cadet used it as a brisure on the bend.

The arms of family members are widely in armorials and on seals. The paper below is an attempt to clarify the use of differentiation by individuals and branches.


The Montfort l'Amaury

The members of the northern french family of Montfort-l'Aumery reportedly used two coats-of-arms simultaneously: 1) Gules a lion argent, and 2) Pily-barry argent-gules, with the latter claimed to be the eldest and representing a fief rather than being arms of the family. This short paper examines the evidence and claims.


Châtillon-sur-Marne

The Châtillon family group was not only very influential, which attained high rank and offices, but had many branches. Some branches had weakly defined links between sidelines and the main line. The family group has left many armorial imprints, which are not easy to allocate to members or branches of the group.

This paper makes a survey of 77 variants the the arms Gules 3 pales vair and chief or on 133 seals and 266 blazoned or painted coats of arms from 50 armorials. The reliability of the blazon and assignment to branches and individuals is discussed. The data are included in an appendix.


Beauchamp of Warwick

William Beauchamp of Elmley (d.1268) and Isabella Mauduit sired four sons each of which founded a branch. The most famous was that of the Earls of Warwick, who bore Gules a fess or between 6 crossed crosslets or. The three other founners were Walter of Powick, John of Holt and James. The brisures used by these four branches and their subbranches of Abergavenny, St.Amand and Kidderminster is examined from evidence in 44 seals and 151 entries in 74 armorials compiled between c.1250 and 1508, when the all the branches were extinct.


Early adoption of arms

Two tables providing background to papers discussing aspects of the origin of armory (or heraldry, if you prefer that term) are available for download here. The papers: "The proverbial banner - an axiom revisited", published in the proceedings of the 30th International Congress of Genealogy and Heraldry held in Maastricht in 2012; and "Early arms - as attributed, adopted or documented", The Coat of Arms, 2016, no. 232, pp.61-88, are available as off-prints on www.academia.edu - or below. The first table gives a list of 93 early seals, the second table a list of candidate families surveyed for the "Early arms" paper.

The Latimers held lands in Yorkshire and Northamptonshire from c.1260 to 1411, and bore Gules a cross patonce or, and the younger sons applied various brisures, often a label with surcharges.

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