Women's heraldry in France - Archaeology and history

This book focuses on women's coats of arms in France from their origins to the 16th century. An extensive iconographic study reveals the sources, uses and functions of women's heraldry. This knowledge is part of a perennial trend in the history of societies. Carefully collected data has enabled us to compile a vast corpus of 1,450 women's coats of arms. The archaeological and textual sources come from various inventories of French seals, books of tomb, stained-glass and tapestry drawings by Roger de Gaignières, the armorials of Clermont en Beauvaisis and Le Breton, and treatises on blazon, including that of Jérôme de Bara (1581). An analysis of the use of women's coats of arms in the Middle Ages was carried out following the examination of these sources. The corpus shows that there is a single heraldry used by both men and women. The heraldic elements used are therefore commonplace. In practice - in contrast to imaginary coats of arms drawn from the treatises of heralds - the rules of heraldic codification are the same, regardless of gender. Their function is administrative, social and legal. Heraldry serves as an ornament and, above all, as a reminder. Where they originated in the 12th century, coats of arms on battlefields had the function of making the combatant recognizable. For women, the need to designate themselves in the socio-legal sphere is the objective of both the bearer of the coat of arms and the medieval society that set up this referential system. Like a script, coats of arms write the identity of the woman and the kinship groups affiliated with her. Heraldry gives us extraordinary access to the symbols used to identify women.