Heraldry in Britain and continental Europe developed in medieval times along similar lines and with many shared features, but there are national and regional variations in how certain features are used. The Teutonic (or Germanic) heraldry of the Holy Roman Empire (see box) has several regional differences that give it a striking and colourful appearance. Following a recent visit to Goslar and Quedlinburg – historic German towns at the heart of the Holy Roman Empire – I was inspired to create this bright and colourful coat of arms in the Teutonic tradition.
Teutonic heraldry rarely includes ‘supporters’ holding the shield, so these arms include just the shield, helm and mantle, which together have more than enough complexity to challenge any carver.
The shield
Germanic shields tend to show simpler ‘charges’ such as chevrons and bars. This example is ‘impaled’ with two hereditary sets of arms displayed side by side. The right-hand side has three horizontal bars (in silver on a red background) and the left side has two chevrons (in gold on a blue background). The shield, tilted at an angle, is the simplest part of the carving.
The helm
In Germanic heraldry the helmet (helm) is usually facing forwards (affronty) and is round with vertical bars closing the front. There are also differences in the number of helms shown – in Britain we only show one, but in Germanic heraldry they show the helms and crests for all the inherited titles as well. Prince Albert had six round helms and crests in a row on top of his Saxe Coburg Gotha arms, looking rather like a field of turnips. In this example I have stuck to just one helm, facing ‘affronty’ in the German style. The helm is coloured silver with gold bars in the visor.
The mantle
The most striking feature of the arms, and this carving, is the mantle – the swirling shreds of cloth that represent the small cape that hangs behind the helm to stop the sun from boiling the wearer’s head. The mantle always has a colour on the outside and a ‘metal’ (gold or silver) on the inside. Over time the mantle came to be represented in a shredded ‘seaweed’ form, but still retaining its inside/outside colours, which give a variegated effect as the cloth twists and rolls, showing the inside and outside colours simultaneously. In this carving the left side of the mantle has gold on the inside and blue on the outside, and the right side has silver on the inside and red on the outside. As you carve each swirl you have to keep track of which surfaces are inside and which are outside. The mantle reflects the principle colours on the shield, and in Teutonic heraldry if the arms are ‘impaled’, as in this example, the mantle will show the colours of each side of the shield. This creates some very colourful mantling. The mantle is by far the most complex part of this carving.
Acrylic sander-sealer; acrylic paints in red, blue and black; silver and gold metallic lacquer; clear acrylic lacquer
1. Get a piece of lime, 415x320x75mm, with the grain horizontal. Make a full-size copy of the drawing to fit it (either copy the drawing into your computer and print it out in parts to the same scale, or get a print shop to enlarge it for you). Lay the carbon paper on the wood, tape the drawing firmly over it, and trace the drawing on to the wood. Mark the internal voids and the external edges in red so you don’t get lost with the saws2. Drill entry holes in the internal voids and cut them out with a jigsaw. It helps if you trace the outlines of the voids and external outline on to the back of the panel as well, taking great care to line up both sides exactly, then if your jigsaw blade flexes or is not quite long enough to go right through you can tackle it from the back as well3. Cut away the surplus wood outside the pattern. As the block is 75mm thick and the cutting lines are very convoluted, you really need a bandsaw for this job. If you don’t have one, beg, borrow or buy one
Roughing out
4. We need to rough out the shape and levels of the elements to get down to the surfaces we want to carve. The shield is the best place to start. Carve away the surplus wood until you get down to a 30mm thickness at this stage5. The next stage is to expose the sides of the helm by roughing out the inner parts of the mantle. Use curved gouges to slope the inner mantle steeply down from the forward curls to meet the sides of the helm at about 20mm from the back edge6. Now we can shape the helm, starting with the lower part, known as the ‘gorget’, which lays over the throat. Use your gouges to cut down to a depth of about 30mm below the visor, then slope the gorget back to the shoulders7. Shape the upper helm and visor into a globe shape, with the ‘crown’ crest on top. The section of the visor that will take the bars must also be well rounded so that the knight would have some sideways vision8. Roughing out the mantling requires some mental gymnastics that may scramble your brain until you get into the swing of it. You have to remember that each swirl will show both the inside and outside colours as it twists and curls. Start with the small swirl at the top for practice9. As you move down to the middle part of the mantling, the swirls start to make more sense10. With the lower part of the mantle roughed out, we can now see the shapes we have to carve the detail on
Carving the helm and shield
11. Start the detail carving with the grill on the helm. This involves carefully marking out the bars and the rim, then chiselling out the gaps between the bars to a depth of about 8mm. The bars are vertical and the grain is horizontal, so take great care not to break out the narrow cross-grain of the bars. Reshape the helm outside the rim of the grill so the rim is raised above the surface of the helm12. The crest at the top of the helm is a simple crown with small leaves around the top. Shape the crown and cut three 8mm holes in the band13. Refine the shape of the helm to make it smoothly and evenly rounded. Cut back the mantling where it meets the helm so it is just 10mm thick, and shape the shoulders of the gorget to make it look deeper. Cut a border line 6mm in from the lower edge of the gorget. Hollow out under the front of the gorget to expose the whole shield, then hollow the shoulders and run the back of the gorget under the back of the shield14. The shield has a very slightly curved surface and shows the combined arms of two families divided down the middle (‘impaled’ in heraldic terms). Trace or draw the pattern on to the shield, then use flat chisels to carve away the background surface to a depth of 2mm, leaving the bars and chevrons standing above the background. In heraldry these ‘charges’ represent real objects attached to the shield
Carving the mantle
15. In carving the detail of the mantle you have to visualise a leaf-shaped piece of cloth that curls and rolls so that mostly it is showing you its red/blue outside face but sometimes flashing its silver/gold inside face. This all involves a lot of hollowing and shaping and carving smooth curves with various curved gouges. Shape the leaf tips and create vein lines much like in an acanthus leaf, but a bit smoother. After carving a swirl on one side, repeat it on the other side before moving on16. Move up to the middle swirl of the mantle and repeat the process. Note that the mantle must flow from under the back of the helm17. Continue up to the top part of the mantle, which joins the crown and frames the helm18. The mantle must now be extensively undercut from the back to hollow out the swirls and remove surplus wood from under the fatter leaves and stems. To do this you must fix pieces of wood to the bench to support the shield and other low features in order to protect the tip of the gorget and the forward swirls of the mantle from being crushed. Place a towel over the blocks and lay the carving face down on it in the correct place to protect the delicate parts. Hold the work securely in place by laying a batten across the top and screwing both ends to the bench. You can then securely scoop away the surplus wood. Keep checking the depth so you don’t remove more wood than you wanted19. Finally, undercut the edges of the shield so it appears to be about 10mm thick from the front. Also slightly undercut the edges of the helm and gorget. Then go over the mantling with a hooked skew chisel and refine all the leaf points and any other edges that need to be tidied up. The carving phase is now finished20. Give a good sanding with medium abrasives to the smooth surfaces of the carving, like the helm, gorget and shield, but only a light sanding with fine abrasives to the mantling to avoid dulling the swirls and curls. Here is the finished piece ready for decorating
Decorating
21. Give the whole carving a coat of acrylic sander-sealer, then another light sanding before painting. Paint all the blue surfaces on the left, and the red surfaces on the right, with acrylic paint. Leave out the bits that will have gold and silver paint22. Paint the ‘inside’ of the helm between the bars with a thin wash of acrylic black paint to give the impression of it being hollow. Next, paint the gold surfaces on the crown, the grill, the shield and the left side of the mantle with metallic gold lacquer23. Finish by painting all the silver surfaces on the helm, shield and right side of the mantle with metallic silver lacquer. Carefully touch up any irregularities in the painting to give a neat finish24. Give the red and blue acrylic paint a coat of clear acrylic lacquer to seal in the colours and protect the surface. The project is now finished and can be hung anywhere indoors or under cover outside, including your workshop, to give you pleasure each time you see its vibrant colours
The Holy Roman Empire
In European history, the era of the Holy Roman Empire causes some confusion. It considered itself to be the successor to the empire of Ancient Rome, and protector of The Pope. But, as French philosopher Voltaire said, it was ‘neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire’. It was basically a federation of Germanic kingdoms and principalities founded in the 8th century by Charlemagne, who became the first Emperor. It imposed its sovereignty not only over the German states but also at various times over Burgundy, Austria, the Low Countries, and much of Italy and France. The kings of the German states (including the Hanoverians who became kings of Britain in the Georgian era) bore the title of ‘electors’, as they elected the new Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire when the old one died. For around 1,000 years it was the major political and sovereign power in Europe, until Napoleon conquered and dissolved it in 1806.
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