THE Coat of Arms of the City and County of York are to be seen throughout the city.
The actual sword and mace, shown in the arms, are traditionally carried by a Swordbearer, wearing the Cap of Maintenance in procession preceding the Sheriff or Lord Mayor.
The arms are often to be seen on buildings, badges, pubs, T-shirts and taxis. In heraldic terms, they feature a silver (argent) field with a red (gules) cross, on which are placed five gold (or) lions passant guardant.
In many other cities and towns, the corporate logos are of recent origin. Not so in York, where the City Arms are full of symbolism of the city’s rich history. They may have originally been granted during the reign of Edward III.
Five lions – three lions of England and the lions of Bohemia. The Mace. The Sword. The Cap of Maintenance. The red cross on a white background. Each part of the arms has its own story, linked mainly to the Roman Emperor Constantine or to King Richard II.
The Mace as a symbol of authority dates back to ancient Greece and Assyria. In England, what had been a weapon to defend the King. by the 14th century had become a symbol of civic authority, granted by a king to cities and corporate towns .York was one of the first cities to be granted a Sword, in 1387, and a Mace in 1396.
The Mace, together with the Sword, symbolize the city’s powers of self-government extracted by exploiting the political situation by the city in a grant from the weak King Richard II.
The city’s coat of arms atop the gates to the War Memorial on Leeman Road. Photo supplied
The King ordered that the Sword should be carried point upright in procession before the Lord Mayor and Sheriff or pointing down when the King was present.
The Cap of Maintenance, by tradition, but not fully documented, granted by King Richard II in 1393, is said to symbolise the right of the Sheriff as the representative of the Monarch to raise an army independently of the Crown (The Sheriff’s army or the Yorkshire Regiment). As recently as the first Gulf War, the Sheriff received Red Boxes with daily updates from the commanders in the field and even attended one military briefing in Germany.
The father in law of King Richard II was the Emperor Sigismund of Bohemia – hence the lions. This was at a time when York was a member of the Hanseatic League, a precursor, perhaps, of the EU. To this day, the coat of arms of York decorates the City Hall of Plzen in Czechia.
Recommended reading:
The Coat of Arms predates the establishment of the College of Arms in 1483, but were recorded by the College in 1587. The earliest example, a red cross on a white background, is to be found in the east end of the Minster and probably predates the adoption of the flag of St George of England, so the Coat of Arms perhaps represents the cross of Constantine.
The night before the battle of Milva Bridge in 312AD, Constantine is said to have had a dream that he should order his soldiers to paint their shields with the red cross of Christ on a white background.
After he won the battle, many cities associated with Constantine adopted this symbol, including several post Roman cathedral cities in England. One of these cities was Genoa, a powerful maritime force in the Mediterranean. The King of England asked permission to fly Genoa’s flag of Constantine for protection. An annual tribute was demanded by Genoa, and a recent Mayor of Genoa has been seeking payment of the arrears. For nationalistic reasons, this flag slowly transmuted into the flag of St George.
The cap is replaced from time to time by the monarch. When this happens, the direction of the cap on the coat of arms changes direction. This last happened during the reign of King George V. An older cap is preserved in the Mansion House.
The charters of King Richard II went further than the arms. In 1396, he created the City of York as a county in its own right, ‘The City and County of the City of York’.
Parliament reaffirmed this status as recently as 1995 in The North Yorkshire (District of York) (Structural and Boundary Changes) Order 1995, stating explicitly that York was a county in its own right, quite separate and distinct for all purposes from the County of North Yorkshire.
This status has not been affected by the recent coming into being of the Combined Authority for York and North Yorkshire.
It can be seen therefore that much of the City’s history is summed up in its Coat of Arms. It is not merely a business logo. It is a fascinating historical narrative.
Peter Brown is a former Sheriff of York (1990 to 1991) and Master of Guild of Scrivenors (1990 to 1993)
