Heraldic Badges in England and Wales [4 volume set] - Tapa dura

Michael Siddons's monumental work fills a serious gap in the literature of heraldry, and offers a comprehensive overview of the subject from the first use of badges in the fourteenth century to their decline in the early seventeenth century. SALON

[This] monumental study of heraldic badges provides English historians of the period from c.1300 to c.1600 with an invaluable resource that has hitherto been notably lacking. [...] The scale of the arduous and exhaustive research that has gone into mining the meticulously detailed information that this invaluable book purveys is deeply impressive. The result for Michael Powell Siddons is a triumphant scholarly achievement which looks set to ensure for his book a shelf-life that will endure through multiple generations. ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW

Siddons has dealt with his subject in an extremely thorough, careful, and systematic way, and his treatment of sources is exemplary. [His work] surpasses all of its predecessors by a wide margin and will most certainly remain the standard work for most of the current century. SPECULUM

The breadth of Siddons scholarship is underpinned by a depth and range of research which ensures that, while there is no-doubt be material which has been overlooked or has yet to come to light, one can be confident that any such oversights are minor. Heraldic Badges in England and Wales is a magisterial work, clearly the product of a lifetime of scholarship and many years of painstaking research, and destined to become the standard work of reference on the subject for several generations. TRANSACTIONS OF THE MONUMENTAL BRASS SOCIETY

Heraldic badges occur in a wide variety of contexts - costume, furnishings, armour, warfare, tournaments, seals, flags, plate and monuments. However, despite their importance, and although many illustrations and descriptions survive from the late fifteenth century onwards, they have usually been treated as an incidental part of heraldry. This monumental work therefore fills a serious gap in the literature of heraldry, providing a comprehensive overview of the subject from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century.

The first volume discusses the nature and use of heraldic badges, and our sources of information, while the second is a dictionary of heraldic badges, divided into two separate parts covering royal and non-royal badges. This is followed by ordinaries of heraldic badges and livery colours in the third volume. There are also extracts from unpublished records, a bibliography and full indexes. Overall, this is an indispensable resource for anyone studying the visual inheritance of the English past. Published for the Society of Antiquaries