The Heraldry Society - coat of arms

No. 187 Autumn 1999

The Lozenge and the Roundel

We are, by now, quite used to the received wisdom and long-standing custom that male arms are depicted on a shield, and female on a lozenge or roundel.

A fine plate in the 1983 edition of Boutell's Heraldry illustrates various styles of ladies arms - a peeress in her own right, a spinster, a widow, a widow who is an heiress and, an heraldic solecism, those of a corporation whose members are all women. All the foregoing are shown on lozenges. For the use of a roundel or oval, the pages of Debrett (1963) reveal several instances, of which that of the Barony of Audley (currently in abeyance) is a good example.

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there were no such pedantic niceties. Evidence drawn from seal impressions show that both lozenges and roundels were employed to contain the arms of men, and it is likely that they were the invention of matrix engravers, introduced to give variety to their creations and more conveniently to conform to prevailing sigillistic fashion. The circular seal of Edward of Caernarvon as Prince of Wales (c1301) had the whole of the reverse devoted to the lions of England, and two seals of John of Gaunt (c1372) were treated similarly.

One of the earliest known examples of the use of a lozenge on a man's seal dates from a little before 1279, the item belonging to Thomas Furnival. Another, illustrated here, and originating in 1282 or a little later, was that of William de Braose, or Brewys, attached to a deed at Magdalen College, Oxford. A third, from 1301, was depended from the Baron's Letter, and showed the arms of John Paynell (not William as some texts assert) who had been summoned to Parliament in 1299.

Sir William de Braose (Brewys) (1282)
Azure semée of cross crosslets a lion rampant or armed and langued gules

John Paynell (1301) Or two bars azure with an orle of eight martlets

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