Essais - Armoiries et blasons en Terre du Milieu

[Elendil]

C'est bien sûr une traduction libre. Après tout, je sais ce que je veux dire :


Interesting paper. I'll make only three comments:

1) It seems this paper only consider the latest version (from an external standpoint) of each coat of arms. And Tolkien indeed changed some of those coats of arms quite often. I'll just quote the changes in Elendil's banner, which first used six-pointed stars before Tolkien settled for five-pointed ones. If I remember correctly, there was even a seven-pointed version envisioned at some points.

Moreover, the fact that one of the old Gondolin coats of arms was confirmed in the later text depicting the arrival of Tuor at Gondolin doesn't prove that any of the others were still valid. At this point, it's even impossible to know whether Tolkien still envisioned twelve Houses for Gondolin. By the way, I believe that the coat of arms that was confirmed is the one on Tuor's shield, found in Vinyamar. And this shield was created after Ulmo's advice. It might be utterly different from the 'classical' Gondolindrim production. Tolkien often reused some of his old ideas in very different contexts, as you certainly know if you have studied some of his invented languages.

2) There is an additional possibility that might explain the origin and use of the coats of arms. While it is not supported by any text I am aware of, it might be worthwhile to mention it, as it would explain why many coats of arms include symbols and objects related to the later part of the life of the people they represent. For instance, the similarity of Fëanor's and Fingolfin's coats of arms and their opposition to Finarfin's one seems related to the fact that The former went back to Middle Earth while the later one did not. Similarly, the hand on Beren's coat of arms, the Silmaril on Eärendil's one can only be explained by events occuring very late in the life of those people.

Thus, why those coats of arms would not be used to represent people after they died? If you want to create a statue, a painting or any other representation of someone who has not very recognizable features, then using specific symbols associated with them is the surest way to recognize them. For instance, if you had not met them before, I guess it would be difficult to distinguish a representation of Fingolfin, Fingon or Turgon (not to mention Argon).

For a statue, a coat of arms could be worn by the statue itself of be present on the pedestal. For a painting, it could be used as a motif on his clothes. The christians did not do anything different when they associated specific symbols to each saint for people to recognize them. In our case, the coats of arms would be a very solution to achieve the same goal.

3) In this paper is mentioned the fact that the Crown of Gondor was the chief mark of royalty. This seems a blatant misunderstanding. The Crown was only the symbol of the royalty of Gondor. And Gondor was -at least theoretically- a vassalage of Arnor (the King's Land). Hence, it would be the symbol of a delegated power. The chief mark of royalty would be either the scepter of Arnor or the Elendilmír. I would tend to think that it was the later, as only Elendil and with son Isildur were formally acknowledged by Gondor as High Kings of the Dúnedain.