A Complete Guide to Heraldry

Too frequently it is the custom to regard the study of the science of Armory as that of a subject which has passed beyond the limits of practical politics. Heraldry has been termed "the shorthand of History," but nevertheless the study of that shorthand has been approached too often as if it were but the study of a dead language. The result has been that too much faith has been placed in the works of older writers, whose dicta have been accepted as both unquestionably correct at the date they wrote, and, as a consequence, equally binding at the present day.