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Archiver > HERBARZ > 2003-08 > 1060188030


From: "David Zincavage" <>
Subject: Re: Peacock Feathers
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2003 09:40:30 -0700
References: <2409A35B3E1C8D4D929583798DF5AA78D7D19E@whmail01.walterhav.com>


I think a number of Polish heraldic scholars, including Mr. Stevens, take an
excessively reductionist view of things. If no contemporary written account
exists, no later tradition can possibly be accepted. Absent written
confirmatory evidence, the application of reason is not permissible.

Nonetheless, absent written evidence, archaelogists develop theories and
form conclusions on the basis of fragmentary evidence all the time.
Paleontologists undertake to produce a speculative model of the entire
animal based on a single bone fragment. These scholars are probably not
always right, but the methodologies of those two fields demonstrates that
the application of reason and common sense to fragmentary evidence and later
traditions is not irresponsible.

Exotic plumage was a valuable luxury used as a fashion accessory, much like
jewelry, until the era of the turn of the last century when conservation
laws banning the trade in feathers were adopted by all major European
countries and the United States. Peacock plumes are more colorful than
ostrich, and came from India and Southeast Asia, while Ostrich could be
obtained from North Africa, so peacock plumes in the Middle Ages were
clearly more expensive. The use of plumes in the crest instead of some
representational object was a common practice in Central Europe, in not only
Poland, but also in Germany and Bohemia. Readers familiar with the Hundred
Years War and the heraldry of the British Royal family will recall
Froissart's story of the fatal charge at Crecy of Blind King John of
Bohemia, and the adoption of the three ostrich plumes found in his crest by
the then Prince of Wales in tribute to the bravery of the former. Three
ostrich plumes, of course, remains the emblem of the Prince of Wales today.
When we contemplate the fact that Polish armorial clans mostly use three
white ostrich plumes as a kind of default crest, but that a significant
number of other clans use peacock plumes instead, I do not think it is
unreasonable to suppose that anyone who chose peacock over ostrich was
making a more ostentatious choice, and was probably expressing a greater
consciousness of affluence. Knights of the Teutonic Order are often
described as sporting expensive peacock plume crests, in a manner
reproachful of the incongruity of that crest's expression of luxury and
opulence with that knighthood's vows of poverty. Since we know that public
and private combats between Polish knights and members of the Order took
place in the period when Polish heraldry was taking shape, I fail to see why
the speculation that some Polish knight sometime may have adopted in his
crest the same bush of peacock plumes he captured from a member of the
Teutonic Order would seem impossible or unlikely.


What I do believe is impossible and unlikely is the extreme reductionist
model Mr. Stevens continually points to which contends that heraldry never
really was practiced in Poland or Lithuania. Learning of the use of
heraldry in Germany and Western Europe, the nearly naked barbarians of
Sarmatia crawled out of their caves one day and began scribbling duplicates
of their cattle-brands. No prince or king ever awarded arms to anyone.
All Polish armigers descend from cattle-brand-possessing herdsmen of
prehistoric times, or simply usurped the meaningless, nonsensical, or
possibly solar, symbol they happened to prefer. This random noise was
imperfectly recorded by the unreliable and mendacious Paprocki, and
subsequently repeated with further falsehoods added by a later series of
lunatics.





----- Original Message -----
From: "Leon Stevens" <>
To: <>
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 8:40 AM
Subject: RE: Peacock Feathers


> > in case he didn't know the original crest <
>
> In most cases there weren't any original crests to be known. A few were
> imported from the west. A few ancient totems were adapted as crests,
> but these were infrequent. Poland was slow in acquiring heraldic
> devices and never quite reached the evolutionary stage of supporters,
> mottoes etc. The reason most Polish arms at first lacked crests is the
> same as why colors were unimportant. They mostly began as simple
> property markings. Crests were late in arriving because 12th, 13th, and
> even some 14th century Slavs didn't attach peacock or ostrich feathers
> to their pots, pans and cows. In many cases even seals predate heraldry,
> containing only the property marking surrounded by not so much as even a
> shield.
>
>
>

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