Heraldry choice

[Sir Humphrey]

I'll be painting a shield soon and making a surcoat.  I see many folks here design their own heraldry devices.  Is there any ethical reason I can't use one of my ancestrial coat of arms as a basis for my sheild design?  This is will be for living history purposes, I'm not in the SCA or similar organization.  I thinking Beaumont, Courtenay or de Bohun.

[Ian]

Only thing to be careful of living history-wise, would be to make sure the coat of arms is appropriate for the time period.  Later period heraldry has expanded rules and can be in some instances more complicated than would have been allowed by earlier rules of heraldry.

[Timothy]

So de Bohun,  Courtenay or

 Which Beaumont?

[Sir Brian]

The first one really catches the eye but the second one would certainly be easier to paint on a shield. I suppose whatever mad 'Pablo Picasso' skills you have should also be taken into consideration.

[Sir Humphrey]

Cousin Timothy,

Sir Henry Beaumont. 

I'm shooting for the time of the Scottish Wars.  All three of the men I have in mind were contemporaries.  Sir Henry Beaumont, Sir Humphrey de Bohun and Sir Hugh Courtenay.  Beaumont was the most successful soldier of the three.  Courtenay's family did not rise to prominance until the time of Edward III.  De Bohun was the most colorful and celebrated (usually because of his particularly gory death).   De Bohun was one of several knights honored on a set of china back in the 1970s.  "Great knights of England" or some such.   Plates, mugs, teacups etc. I was able to snag one of the mugs off Ebay.

[Sir Edward]

I'll be painting a shield soon and making a surcoat.  I see many folks here design their own heraldry devices.  Is there any ethical reason I can't use one of my ancestrial coat of arms as a basis for my sheild design?  This is will be for living history purposes, I'm not in the SCA or similar organization.  I thinking Beaumont, Courtenay or de Bohun.

The only ethical concern is if you attempt to use it in a modern context. That is, claiming that you have a hereditary right to it, when the likelihood is that you don't (the rules about this can be very complicated, and just having a blood-tie isn't necessarily enough). For this, you'd have to get the appropriate institution to give you documentation supporting it.

Most of the members here have invented their own from scratch, and some have used ancestral arms as a basis for it. For our purposes you can pretty much do what you want.  

As Ian said though, sometimes the arms can be out of period for the impression you're doing. For instance, 12th/13th century arms tended to be rather simple, with mostly geometric charges rather than complex beasts, or just a single complex charge. There was an explosion of complexity in the 14th century, just like the armor.

[Don Jorge]

What type of canvas and paint are you using to paint your shield? I just got a heater shield made out of wood for SCA and the wife and I are excited to come up with my 14th century heraldry, get it approved and paint it!

[Sir Humphrey]

Belemrys,

I bought one of these used.  I'll be repainting it.

http://www.kultofathena.com/product.asp?item=801570&name=Templar+Shield

[Timothy]

Hi,

Always thought the de Bohun was very beautiful  but I have always wondered why the white, blue and gold strip wasn't made a little narrower so that the three lions on each side could like up side by side in the same manner as the three on the bottom.

[Sir Edward]

Hi,

Always thought the de Bohun was very beautiful  but I have always wondered why the white, blue and gold strip wasn't made a little narrower so that the three lions on each side could like up side by side in the same manner as the three on the bottom.

That's a good question. My best guess is that since the "bend" is usually rather wide in standard practice, they just accommodated the space left over. The blazon probably just mentions three lions on each side, but the positioning is just an artifact of the escutcheon shape. But like I said, it's just a "best guess".

[Sir James A]

As Sir Edward said, there's the "legal" entitlement to heraldry, and the "using it in honor of" sort of thing. I based mine off historical surname heraldry, but I claim no direct tie or historicity to it. Bloodlines doesn't show first born, second born, etc, and there was rules with first-born son inheriting the father's heraldry, but not the second son, and such.

[Sir Humphrey]

The strip is not as wide in every version that I've seen.  Here is one off of a tomb, although I don't know if it is contemporary with the de Bohun tomb occupant.

[Sir Wolf]

woah cool

[Sir Edward]

Yeah, even with the thinner bend, it still looks like they're accommodating the escutcheon (heater shape). I'd love to see the official blazon, if there is one, to see if it specifically describes the layout of the lions, other than just 3 to either side.

[Sir Rodney]

Azure, a bend per bend indented argent and gules plain cotised of the second, between six lyonceux rampant or

This blazon is for the Sir Edmund de Bohun version (with the red "bendlets" flanking the white bend).

edited to add:

Typically the blazon would not state the exact placement or division of the charges unless unusual.  In this case it would be redundant to say “between six lions rampant gold, three and three”.  It’s assumed that three lions will be above the bend and three below.  Their exact placement is the artists attempt to best fill the oddly shaped available space.