The Crest Quest - Chapter 2: Heralding the Past

The blazon of our Coat of Arms (at least within my branch of the family) describes our crest

as being an ibex’s head, erased, sable, eared, armed, collared and lined gold. Despite my

excitement at discovering this, many of these words had no meaning to me and I set about

learning their significance. Erased describes a head, forcibly ripped from the body, as

opposed to severed from it, leaving a jagged edge. Sable is an ancient word for the tincture

equivalent to black. Eared describes the ears. Armed describes the horns. Collared and lined

describes a collar round the neck and a chain leading from it. By having these elements

separated by commas and followed by the word Gold (or Or as it is known in heraldry) this

indicates that the ears, horns, collar and chain are all gold in colour.

This fascinated me immensely, but I had several issues with the description when following

the rules of heraldry. Firstly, the horns are decidedly erect, straight as an arrow, pointing

directly out of the head of our creature. In contrast, ibexes have the most incredibly curved

horns, sometimes reaching all the way to the back of the neck. After doing some research, it

turns out that many animals had never been seen by the early clerks and they often reverted to

common depictions in heraldry. So, for example, if a scribe didn’t know what an ibex looked

like, he would simply use a depiction of something he understood, like an heraldic antelope

and fill in the blanks. This irked me more than I can tell you (lazy clerks!) but I reluctantly

accepted the inconsistency. Secondly, the rugged jowls and tufted ears of the creature didn’t

seem to fit with the sleek silhouette of either the antelope or the ibex. Lastly, and most

significantly, a collar and chain is typically used to depict an animal that has been tamed. To

my knowledge, neither the ibex, nor the antelope had ever been tamed, now or in the past.

By this time, I had been introduced to the formidable Susan Tako and her many written works

on the Prowse family. Her research included many different branches of the family and their

relative crests, which vary by region and lineage. Within the pages of her work there were

references to the blazon as recorded by Arthur Banks Prowse (another fervent historian

within our descendancy) and his discovery of entries within the Miscellanea Genealogica et

Heraldica (1884). This he had copied out in full and four words had been underlined,

highlighting the confusion of my entire mission with beautiful simplicity.

...creast... ...a Rangiter’s head...

This was my family line but there was no mention of an ibex in this blazon. In fact, in place

of the word ibex, there was another word, one that I had never even heard of before:-

Rangiter. The swirling waters of my childhood memories grew murky and once again, I had

more questions than answers. My father, cousin and aunt had not been able to give me the

information that I was looking for so I decided that it was time to consult with the one person

who had the longest, deepest view into our history and the myriad of secrets that might lie

there - The Matriarch. As the head of our family at the time, my Grandmother had been

interested in our history for many years and I was certain that she would have some insight

into our crest and what it signifies. After a brief exchange, she explained that she had

contacted a man called T. Woodcock who was the Somerset Herald acting on behalf of The

College of Arms in London. Clearly, she had asked directly about this unusual word Rangiter

and, not knowing the meaning, Mr Woodcock assumed that it was an alternative word for

ibex.

The letter was dated November 1986.

Digging a little deeper, I discovered another letter (dated 1990) addressed to someone I did

not recognise but from the same Mr. Woodcock, with a lengthy explanation of various crests

from different lines of the family. I could sense the discord from the variety of answers in the

letter; someone was searching, all those years ago, for an answer to the question of the crest.

What did it mean? Why were we granted it? And what on earth was a Rangiter?

I decided that my Grandmother had been right to contact the College of Arms but that the

answer she had been given was ill-informed. Twenty-four years after our last piece of

tangible information, I was hopeful that we could reopen the line of enquiry and start anew. I

drafted a letter with all of my questions coupled with all the information we had so far and

sent it to the College of Arms. On 17 th December 2014, I received a reply from a Mr

Christopher Vane, Portcullis Pursuivant. This name refers simply to the badge of the

Beaufort family (a Portcullis Chained Or) but to me, it represented a carefully guarded

gateway, a threshold that I had to cross in order to find out the secrets of our family’s history.

Mr Vane’s letter was detailed and provided several answers to my questions. He referenced

the Miscellanea Genealogic et Heraldica and the document that officiates the granting of a

crest to one's Arms, The Letters Patent. These were issued to our family in 1573 but at the

time of the next visitation in 1672, no blazon was recorded – only an annotated copy of our

Coat of Arms and a hand drawn sketch of the crest rendered in ink. At some point this had

been annotated again, in pencil, with the words “Ibex or Indian Goat” written next to the

crest. However, I was told, the drawing beside it had antlers, not horns.

The Crest Quest continued...

NB. To give you a sense of how this next piece of the puzzle made me feel, listen to a song

called ‘A Better Beginning’ by John Paesano.

Coming Soon - Chapter 3