ARMS IN THE WINDOW
In his History and Genealogy of the Carpenter Family (1901), Daniel Hoogland
Carpenter wrote that the Hereforshire family arms were "emblazoned in
a glass window of the college and church at Westbury and Trim as early as
1443,
having been placed there by Bishop John Carpenter of Worcester" (p. 353).
The
arms in the window were no doubt his own arms, and differed in interesting
ways from the later Hereforshire arms. In A History of Worcestershire
(University
of London, 1971) the Bishop's armorial bearings were described from tiles
and altars that survived as "paly azure and gules
a chevron argent with three crosslets gules thereon and a mitre in the
chief".
Elsewhere in the same history we are told there was a "paly of eight
pieces".
This all means is that while the Herefordshire arms had six stripes, the
Bishop's
arms had eight, and while the Herefordshire arms had a blue chevron with
gold
crosses, the Bishop's arms had a silver-white chevron with red crosses. Thus
it is easy to see how the Bishop's arms led to the Herefordshire arms.
However,
if the Bishop's arms are the oldest, then the problem of tracing family
history
based on armorial bearings becomes problematic.
Let me offer a solution. Bishop John was the personal chaplain of Henry VI.
Henry was involved in a civil war called the War of Roses. Henry's side was
the Lancaster and his enemies the York. The Lancaster tincture was
red, and supporters of the cause showed their loyalty in the tinctures of
their armorial bearings (see TheArt of Heraldry ,1998, p 48) . If we can
visualize for a moment the Bishop's arms,then red is the outstanding color,
the color of the crosses and the red stripes behind.
The problem then becomes what the family arms looked like prior to the
Bishop. Was there a blue chevron, like the later Herfordshire arms,
and like the earlier Low Countries Carpentier family that they apparently
developed from.
Sincerely,
Bruce E. Carpenter