Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 345

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 345

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/345

Some of the Academy's early reports contain errors that we haven't yet corrected. Please use it with caution.

Greetings,

Here's the information we found about your proposed badge, which involved fire-flies.

We want to warn you that we look at what was done in the Middle Ages, not what can pass. It's possible to register arms which would not have been used by medieval people. Our advice deals only with what medieval people would have done.

We found no evidence that fire-flies were used in medieval heraldry. Few insects were used at all, and some of them were used only for canting. We had a long discussion about whether fire-flies would be used in medieval heraldry, and there wasn't a consensus. Some people said that it would be likely (assuming that fire-flies are found in Europe), and others said that it wouldn't. One of the biggest problems we had was trying to figure out what a "heraldic fire-fly" would look like. However, we came up with a solution which should solve all the problems.

In late-period heraldry, some charges are "irradiated," drawn as if they were emitting beams of light. The beams of light were depicted in the same way as the rays of a heraldic sun, which you can find in any heraldic text. It would be quite reasonable to use a "fly irradiated" (that is, a fly emitting beams of light) to show a fire-fly. Flies are found in medieval heraldry, and a "fly irradiated" would obviously be a fire-fly to anyone who looked at it. Generally, the fly was a different color from the rays--you want to use a black fly with gold or silver rays. Any combination which isn't color-on-color should be fine.

So for a heraldic fire-fly, we recommend a "fly irradiated." The next question is how you might use one in a badge. Period badges weren't like other armory. Usually they consisted of a single object, with no background. In this case, your badge would be just "a fly sable irradiated Or" (or whatever colors you choose).

One of the nice things about badges is that they can be displayed in many ways, including in semy. It would be perfectly appropriate to put fireflies all over something of yours, so you can get the semy effect even though your badge is just a single charge. And since badges have no field, you can put them on any background color you want.

If you're interested in suggestions for your arms, we'd be happy to include them--we didn't since you didn't ask for them. But if you would like information on bringing your arms closer to medieval style, we can send it to you.

Arval D'Espas Nord, Zenobia Naphtali, Talan Gwynek, Walraven van Nijmege, Daniel de Lincoln, Christian de Holacombe, Evan da Collaureo, Rouland Carre, Alison MacDermot, and Tangwystl verch Morgant Glasvryn contributed to this letter.

We hope this has been helpful, and that we can continu to assist you.

In service,
Alan Fairfax
Academy of S. Gabriel