Music and Instruments of the Elizabethan Age: the Eglantine Table. Edited by Michael Fleming and Christopher Page. 245mm. Pp xviii + 291, 34 b/w figs, 16 col pls. The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 2021. isbn 9781783274215. £40 (hbk).

Abstract

they are known certainly to have resided. A number of chapters cover the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. First, Jane Eade delineates the important convergence of portraiture and heraldry, a link that she underscores with the little-known fact that William Segar, Garter King of Arms (d. ), was both a herald and a portrait painter. Eade provides some interesting examples of heraldic symbolism from this context, beautifully illustrated. KathrynWill demonstrates that the wide interest in, and study of, heraldry by the aspiring new men of this era led to a popularisation of heraldic parody in literature, some of it with decidedly sexual undertones. Adrian Ailes considers how popular awareness of heraldic symbolism spilled over into satirical artwork well into the eighteenth century. Continuing the literary theme, Fiona Robertson notes the popular use of heraldry in nineteenth-century fiction, making the interesting observation that the sloppy use of the term ‘crest’ instead of coat of arms saw its origins in Sir Walter Scott’s novels. Shaun Evans deals with the Five Courts of Mostyn in Tudor Wales. Michael Snodin provides a synthesis of Horace Walpole’s interest in heraldry as displayed at Strawberry Hill; Walpole enjoyed creating heraldic ‘pedigrees’ for his cherished objects as a means of vaunting previous distinguished owners. Peter Lindfield considers what drove the eighteenthcentury Lancashire saddler Thomas Barritt to become an important collector of heraldic art. Clive Cheesman gives us a fascinating insight into the rising interest in the swastika in the early twentieth century, such that it rather unexpectedly came to be used in English heraldry. Interest was sparked by Schliemann’s discoveries at Troy, following which the device became elevated to ‘an unprecedented pitch of semiotic potency’. This led the Norfolk historian, Walter Rye, to adopt a shield charged with three swastikas, which to modern eyes appear disturbingly National Socialist. The volume is rounded off by Patric Dickinson’s consideration of personal symbolism displayed on coats of arms, with examples ranging from the medieval to the modern. This beautifully illustrated volume both titillates and inspires. It successfully captures the theme of the symposium, which sought to bring together historians frommany different disciplines in an appreciation of the diverse roles that heraldry has played over the centuries.