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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Heraldry — that is the systematic use of hereditary charges based upon the shield — had not come into being by 1095, the year of the Council of Clermont, but by 1300 the new science of Armory, as it is more correctly called, was in use throughout most of Christendom. The authors of the Chansons de Geste and historians such as Ambroise certainly mention heraldic devices on the banners and shields of both Western knights and Saracen amīrs, but their confused statements, although extremely illuminating as to Western views of Muslims, do not add a great deal to our study of contemporary heraldic practice. Their lowly position in the Crusading armies did not offer them many chances for really accurate observation. However, Jean, Sire de Joinville, who is dictating in about 1305/6 his account of events he had not only witnessed but in which he had played an important part in his youth, had been very close to the King and lived during the very period when Heraldry in the West became formalized on strictly controlled principles. He is a reliable historical observer, and it may well be that by examining specific statements he makes about both Western, and more importantly Muslim, heraldic practice we can further our knowledge of developments in the two systems.
1 See my article in PEQ, CXV, 61–74, “Developments in the system of armorial insignia during the Ayyūbid and Mamlūk periods”.Google Scholar
2 Throughout I have used the edition of de Wailly, N., Histoire de Saint Louis, Paris, 1867.Google Scholar
3 Subḥ al-a‘shā, IV, 61, Section 21–62, Section 5, Cairo, 1914–1928.Google Scholar
4 Jean d'Ibelin, seigneur de Baruth et comte de Japhe, son of Balian d'belin and Eschiva de Montbeliard who was allied through the female line with the house of Joinville. Later in 1252 the comte de Jaffa prepares his castle for invasion and at each opening in the battlements he sets a shield with his arms and a pennon … d'or à une croix de gueles (sic) patée, 348.Google Scholar
5 At a tournament in the autumn of 1174 Johan de Soleingi (Soligny) says:
L'Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal, edited by Meyer, Paul, I, Paris, 1891, lines 1474 ff.Google Scholar
6 The wearing of a surcoat over one's armour seems not to have been a general rule, for in the Memoirs of Usāmah ibn-Munqidh, translated by Hitti, P., New York, 1929, 90,Google Scholar Usāmah, seeing one of their horsemen hastening towards him displaying his colours in a green and yellow silk tunic, thinks that he is not wearing mail, charges him and is surprised that his surcoat covers his armour.
7 Leaf, W., art. cit., 63–7.Google Scholar
8 Meinecke, M., Notes to lectures given at the Faculty of Archaeology, Cairo University, 1974–1975 (English translation), unpublished, 19;Google ScholarMayer, L. A., Saracenic heraldry, Oxford, 1933Google Scholar (from which all Saracenic blazons are taken unless otherwise specified), Pl I, 7 of the perfume sprinkler which is bendy sinister, a lion on the chief.
9 “While amīr he carried this coat of arms 
while king yellow banners”, al-Dhahabī, al-Muntaqā min ta'rīkh al-islām, VII, MS. Library of Zeki Pasha, Cairo, quoted by Mayer, 144. In view of the Joinville quotation, I disagree with Mayer's conclusion that Kitbughā as Sultan did not bear plain yellow but merely changed the field of his amiral banner to yellow.
10 See Meinecke, M., “Zur mamlukischen Heraldik”, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo, XXVIII, 2, 258 ff.,Google Scholar in which he discusses fully the development of amiral tripartite insignia.
11 Sharaf al-dīn Yūnus al-Naurūzī, mamlūk of Jurjī al-Naurūzī, dawadār to Sultan Barqūq (reigned 1382–9 and 1390–8), grand dawadār 1382, d. 1389, bore: 1 a penbox, 2 a cup, 3 a cup.
Sayf al-dīn Shādbak, amīr of Sultan Barsbay (reigned 1422–38), d.1450, bore: 1 a pen-box, 2 a cup charged with a napkin, 3 a fleur-de-lys.
Blazon of the amīrs of Sultan Qā'itbay (reigned 1468–95). This blazon appears eight times in the imaginary architectural façade of the Louvre painting of The reception of the Venetian ambassador, coloured as follows: 1 gules a napkin or, 2 or a cup azure, knop gules, charged with a penbox argent, between two horns vert, openings gules, 3 sable a cup or. See Pacha, Y. Artin, “Les armes de l'Egypte aux XVe et XVIe Siècles”, Bulletin de l'Institut Egyptien, IV, 7, 1906, PI. I and II;Google ScholarMayer, L. A., Mamluk costume, Geneve, 1952, PI. I;Google ScholarRaby, Julian, Venice, Durer and the Oriental mode, Hans Huth memorial papers, I, London, 1983,Google Scholarpassim.
The amīr Barqūq, mamlūk of Sultan Jaqmaq (reigned 1438–53), Superintendent of the Cellar 1468, viceroy of Syria, d.1473, bore: 1 a napkin argent, 2 or a cup sable charged with a penbox argent, between two horns sable, openings argent, 3 sable a cup argent.
12 Kantorowicz, E., Frederick II, English translation by Lorimer, E. O., London, 1931, 189.Google Scholar
13 Possibly gules, a bend cheeky argent and azure, the arms of the Hauteville kings of Sicily and dukes of Apulia (originally as in the Cathedral of Monreale, azure the bend argent and gules). Litta, Pompeo, Famiglie celebri Italiane, VI, Milano, 1843,Google Scholar s.v. Hauteville.
14 Genealogy of the dei Conti di Segni to show the relationship of Bohemond VI of Antioch to Pope Gregory IX, drawn up from information in Galbreath's, Papal Heraldry, revised by Briggs, G., London, 1972, 72;Google ScholarLuchaire, Achille, Innocent III, Paris, 1907, s.v.,Google Scholar and L'Art de Vérifier les Dates, I, Paris, 1783, 292–6.Google Scholar
