The Heraldry Society - coat of arms

No. 188 Winter 1999

On the Origin of the Emblem of the Order of the Golden Fleece

The Order of the Golden Fleece was founded by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, when he married Isabella of Portugal in Bruges, Flanders in 1429/30. The reason for his choice of the Golden Fleece as the emblem of his new Order has puzzled historians ever since.

The most obvious and most often cited reason why the Duke chose the Golden Fleece as the emblem of the Order was that the Flanders wool trade was of particular importance in that country. Many individuals and towns associated with the wool trade bear heraldic shields with a fleece upon them. This occurs in many European countries, not only in Flanders, although this development generally followed the foundation of the Order of the Golden Fleece, rather than preceding it. Another possible reason is that the 15th century saw an increase in the interest in classical literature and Greek myths; and it has been surmised that the legend of Jason and the Argonauts and their search for the Golden Fleece may have inspired the Duke to use that legendary fleece as the Order's emblem. It is very likely that both factors played a part in the Duke's decision.

And yet I wonder whether there was another reason for choosing this emblem, for the Ram seems to have had a mystical significance in Flanders. In 1188, Giraldus Cambrensis (or Gerald of Wales) travelled to the area known as the Rhos in West Wales in the company of Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury. In his record of the journey, Gerald told of how the area was settled by Flemings, who were brought to the country by King Henry I of England to colonise the district. Gerald was impressed by their hardihood and their skill in the wool trade. He went on to say:

"A strange habit of these Flemings is that they boil the right shoulder-blades of rams, but not roast them, strip off all the meat and, by examining them, foretell the future and reveal the secret of events long past. Using these shoulder-blades, they have the extraordinary power of being able to divine what is happening far away at this very moment. By looking carefully at the little indents and protuberances, they prophesy with complete confidence periods of peace and outbreaks of war, murders and conflagrations, the infidelities of married people and the welfare of the reigning king, especially his life and death."

Gerald makes it clear that this belief was not restricted to the Fleming population of Wales, but was also held in Flanders itself, the belief in the magical powers of rams' shoulder-blades coming with them from their old country. He narrates a number of stories of events, both in Wales and in Flanders, in which people were able to discover what had happened in the past and what was to happen in the future. Nor would a shoulder-blade from any animal do; it had to be a ram. Gerald gives the following account:

"The shoulder-blade of a goat was brought to a certain person instead of that of a ram, for when they are cleaned they are very similar. He felt all the indents in it and all the marks. 'Unhappy herd', he cried, 'which never multiplied! Unhappy he who owned it, for he never had more than three or four in his herd!'" [ continues here ]