Category: Heraldry

Swedish Heraldic Society

Swedish Heraldic Society

by Justin Durand

I’m a sometime member of the Swedish Heraldic Society (Svenska Heraldiska Föreningen). I sort of rolled into it, from years ago when Magnus Bäckmark included my grandfather Harry Swanstrom’s coat of arms in his armorial roll at Gröna stubben. Probably about 1998, or a bit earlier. At this point I feel like I’ve known Magnus most of my adult life. I’m hoping to meet him some day.

Last summer, we traveled to San Diego to meet cousin Jonas Hildebrand from Sweden, and spend a few days getting know him and Hanna. He gave us a bottle of his homemade aquavit, with his coat of arms on it. It turns out he’s also a member of the Swedish Heraldic Society, and I’d never noticed.

The other day I was thinking it should be about time to renew my own membership. Poking around their website I came across a re-formatted page for the arms of members. I found my own listing, then also the listing for Cousin Jonas, and then, and then, and then.

  • “Arms of Members“,  Svenska Heraldiska Föreningen. Retrieved Nov. 10, 2019.
More on Gallop

More on Gallop

by Justin Durand

A few months ago Stephen Plowman wrote about the Gallop coat of arms as recorded in the 1677 Visitation of Dorset.  It’s an interesting topic for me because I’m a descendant of immigrant Capt. John Gallop (c1593-1650) — like so many other Americans.

Now Plowman is back with more on the Gallops. This time the question is where they got the quartering with the white bear (Azure a bear passant Argent).

Greenland arms
Arms of Greenland

No one knows the origin of these arms. Under English heraldic rules these should be the arms of a heraldic heiress, a woman who transmits her father’s arms to her descendants because she has no brother.

There are two heiresses recorded in the Gallop pedigree at the Visitations. They are Alice, daughter of William Temple, of Templecombe; and Elizabeth daughter of Thomas Thorne, of Caundle Marsh. These arms aren’t known to match to either family. So the mystery remains.

I can’t help but see this figure as a polar bear. It reminds me of the arms of Greenland (Azure a polar bear rampant Argent). Not that Greenland makes any sense in this context, but I love polar bears so I’m always going to see the polar bear connection if there’s one anywhere in the vicinity. (Totally off-topic, but I have a polar bear charm with snow flake obsidian that used to hang from the rear-view mirror of my car.)

Plowman notes the arms quartered with Gallop in this instance match those on record for Aresen (Denmark), in Rietstap’s Armorial Général. An unlikely lead, but it’s the best anyone has so far. Now that I know, I’ll be watching for other instances of a white bear on a blue background.

More Information

Gollop, of Strode

Gollop, of Strode

by Justin Durand

I was pleased and surprised tonight to check Feedly and discover an article by Stephen Plowman. Now there’s a familiar name.

The article is Armorial Bearings of Gollop of Strode. Another familiar name.

Like many Americans with ancestry in Colonial New England, I’m descended from Capt. John Gallop (c1593-1650), an early settler at Boston.

His ancestry is not certain but he is widely believed to been been the son of John and Mary (Crabbe) Gallop, and probably a grandson of Thomas Gollop, of Strode and North Bowood.

One thing is certain — his Internet genealogies are nearly always mangled beyond recognition, and Geni seems to be no exception, although there was a joke among Geni’s curators in the early days that the fastest way to become a curator was to be be a Gallop descendant.

John Gallop is a favorite of researchers because we have a touching glimpse into his personal life. Gallop’s wife did not come with him to America, and that was a problem. Gov. John Winthrop in Massachusetts wrote to Rev. John White in England:

I have much difficultye to keep John Gallop here by reason of his wife will not come. I marvayle at the woman’s weaknesse. I pray pursuade her and further her coming by all means. If she will come, let her have the remainder of his wages; if not, let it be bestowed to bring over his children, if so he desires. It would be about £40 losse to him to come for her. Your assured in the Lord’s worke, J. Winthrop, Massachusetts, Jul 4 1632’”

(Winthrop Papers)

Rev. White seems to have succeeded. Christobel Gallop and her children came over the following year. Capt. John piloted the ship into Boston Harbor through a new channel he had discovered, the channel running by Lovell’s Island, a quarter of a mile east of Gallop‘s Island.

I’ll be very pleased if someday we get a documented genealogy for these Gallops. There is a review of sources in The Great Migration Begins, 725-28, and a good research summary at Wikitree.

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Heraldry is vanity

Heraldry is vanity

by Justin Durand

This title really caught my eye. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a heraldry aficionado willing to give time to anything that implies a criticism of heraldry, particularly an outright moral failing.

“Medieval churches still abound in coats of arms depicted on tombs, epitaphs, windows, altarpieces and other commemorative devices. And of course it was not just knights, nobles, princes and kings that tried to preserve their memory by means of heraldry. Medieval townspeople, too, left behind heraldic reminders in the churches in England and Germany, for instance. The Nuremberg patrician Sebald Schreyer (d. 1520) noted a stained-glass window embellished with the Schreyer arms given to a local church as a ‘remembrance’ (gedechtnus) of his late father,1 just as York alderman and merchant Richard Wartere (d. 1465) commissioned a liturgical garment whilst revealingly requesting ‘that my executors add a shield of my arms to said vestment, in the same way as it is made above the sarcophagus of my tomb, […] with the intention that the people may pray especially for my soul.’”

When I look at personal heraldry in churches abroad, I think about what the Episcopalian ministers I know would say about putting something like that in their churches. I don’t think it would be an easy sell. Times have changed. The modern church is more sensitive to the existence and inappropriate use of power structures.

Heraldic Lore

Heraldic Lore

by Justin Durand

“Swan, (lat. cygnus, fr. cygne): this graceful bird has for various reasons been a favourite charge in armorial bearings. Swans are generally blazoned as proper, i.e. white, else they are described as argent, but they are frequently beaked and legged of other tinctures. The bird is generally borne with expanded wings, and it seems desirable that the position should be noticed, though as a fact it is only seldom so. Sometimes they are drawn swimming towards each other, and for this the word ‘respectant’ or ‘incontrant’ seems to have been used by some heraldic writers.”

“The Cygnet sometimes occur; and a cygnet royal implies a swan gorged with a ducal coronet, having a chain affixed thereunto and reflexed over its back. It should rather be blazoned a swan proper, ducally gorged and chained or, a cygnet being properly a young swan. It was one of the badges of Henry V. The term, however, may properly be used when there are two or more swans in one coat, like lioncel.”

Source: Swan in Parker’s Heraldry (1894)