Powerful Arms and Fertile Soil: English Identity and the Law of Arms in Early Modern England

Abstract

This thesis argues that the status and authority of the English gentleman is derived from the uniquely English interpretation and administration of the Law of Arms by the officers of the College of Arms — the heralds. This research examines questions of honour, genealogy, and law, as they were understood by the heralds, and their role in creating an English identity during the early modern period. The work of Simon Schaffer and Steven Shapin demonstrated that the role of the English gentleman was crucial to the origins of early modern science, in the establishment of truth in “matters of fact.” If, following Schaffer and Shapin, gentlemen played a central role in the social construction of facts, I argue that the College of Arms played a central role in the construction of gentlemen. Through the process of Visitation — which involved historical, genealogical, and chorographical investigation — the heralds ascertained who was gentle, and who was not. While the English gentleman could determine what was legitimate knowledge, it was the heralds who possessed the experience and expertise to determine who was a member of that social class; and the empirical practices for which the English gentleman scientist has been lauded, of “taking no-one’s word for it” and “seeing for oneself” already existed in the process of Visitation undertaken by the heralds, particularly those knowledgeable in the study of antiquities. Relationships between blood, honour, gender, and climate meant that the bodily and cultural identity of the English gentleman was firmly embedded in the English land.