Abatements of Honour

[HvR]

Abatements of Honour: Charges (i.e., designs and figures) placed on coats of arms to show that the bearer had been guilty of some unknightly or dishonourable action. This is the origin of the term still in ues today, "a blot on the 'scutcheon' (escutheon or shield). Few actual examples are known, probably because men would rather not display arms at all than show their disgrace; and also because the 'blots' were regarded as only temporary and could be erased by some compensating deed of honour. Augmentation of Honour is the oppositive.

I found these links for examples, however, I am unable to find any of the few actual examples. Does anybody know of any actual examples that they could share?

http://www.heraldica.org/topics/abatemt.htm

http://pages.ripco.net/~clevin/abate.html

http://cunnan.sca.org.au/wiki/Abatement

http://www.btinternet.com/~paul.j.grant ... u_s1c8.htm

http://thescriptorium.co.uk/datafacts.php?select=104

http://pages.ripco.net/~clevin/tristram.html

http://cunnan.sca.org.au/wiki/Stains


Helmut

[Cap'n Atli]

As I understand (and this is hazy, from many years ago) abatements were the sort of things that the heralds mostly talked about, but were seldom, if ever, employed. There was also talk in Scadia for certain disgraced parties, but as I remember, nothing ever came of it, or if it was ever imposed, it was subsequently ignored by the recipient.

Your sources seem to take a similar view. I've seen people wear their bronze and silver star, and plenty of purple hearts, but I've never seen anyone display a dishonerable discharge.

Simple things, like inversions, come naturally; but the more obscure (and elaborate) it gets, the more unlikely it is.

You know those heralds, get a few pitchers of ale in them, and they think they're running the world!

[Kilkenny]

As I understand (and this is hazy, from many years ago) abatements were the sort of things that the heralds mostly talked about, but were seldom, if ever, employed. There was also talk in Scadia for certain disgraced parties, but as I remember, nothing ever came of it, or if it was ever imposed, it was subsequently ignored by the recipient.

Your sources seem to take a similar view. I've seen people wear their bronze and silver star, and plenty of purple hearts, but I've never seen anyone display a dishonerable discharge.

Simple things, like inversions, come naturally; but the more obscure (and elaborate) it gets, the more unlikely it is.

You know those heralds, get a few pitchers of ale in them, and they think they're running the world!

In the SCA context I'm aware of one abatement of arms having been put into effect. The arms were born, with the abatement, on at least one occasion that I witnessed personally. After the term of the abatement, the individual involved changed his arms entirely, feeling that his previous device was forever marred.

Historically, sorry, I'm of no help there at all.

Gavin

[Ziad]

I believe that Fox-Davies mentions this in passing; he could only cite one specific instance, a municipality in (IIRC) Portugal, that was required to display its arms reversed - upside down over all the gates into the town for a specific length of time.


Z