Massachusetts' seal features several elements:
The motto, "Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem" ("By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty") was written by Algernon Sidney, presumably sometime before he was executed for treason.a shield having a blue field or surface with an Indian thereon, dressed in a shirt and moccasins, holding in his right hand a bow, and in his left hand an arrow, point downward, all of gold; and, in the upper corner of the field, above his right arm, a silver star with five points. The crest is a wreath of blue and gold, on which in gold is a right arm, bent at the elbow, clothed and ruffled, with the hand grasping a broadsword.
My favorite part of the seal has always been the disembodied arm swinging the sword. There's a Massachusetts monument at Gettysburg that has an arm rising out of the top — when I was a child, it always made me think of zombies.
According to the Secretary of the Commonwealth, the sword was first added to the seal in 1775, but it doesn't seem to have become disembodied until at least 1780. Yet, we find it on the Benjamin Chamberlin gravestone in Pepperell, MA (dated 1778):
There are a few possibilities here:
- the arm and sword motif may have been circulating in Massachusetts before Nathan Cushing designed the seal in 1780
- the Benjamin Chamberlin stone may have been carved after 1780
THIS MONUMENT
Is Erected in Memory of
Mr. Benjamin Chamberlin
who departed this Life
in the Continental Army
at Valleyforge in the
year 1778; In ye 17th
year of his Age.
He was ye Son of Mr. Phineas Chamberlin
and Mrs. Lydia his wife.
*I say this, of course, with the caveat that I know nothing about heraldry. It may fit the conventions very nicely, but I still think it's ugly.
**The best state seals (in no particular order): Rhode Island, Texas, Louisiana. Mississippi would be a contender if they hadn't just lifted their design from the US seal.
2 comments:
RJO has done a very good job in the first comment. You may see scads of examples in Fairbairn's Crests. When armored, the arm is sometimes described as "vambraced," from the wonderful term for the piece of armor that covered the forearm.
Sidney errs a bit in including the twisted silks (the wreath, bandeau, or torse) as part of the crest. The crest sits atop the wreathed helm.
When shield and crest are displayed, like this, w/o helm, the proportions are often, as you note, messed up. Seems a feature of 'degenerate' late 17th, and later, heraldry. Helmets are often miniaturized as well. But, then, some of the earliest depictions have undersized helms (see Heidelberg Codex),
Thanks for this information.
I guess that means that the stone could have been carved in 1778 — it was not necessarily inspired by the 1780 design.
Since there is no definite death date and the wording implies that the body is probably not there, it's still possible that it is a post-1780 stone, but that would be hard to prove unless I found another reference to it.
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