“Pierre d’Hozier was a seventeenth century French genealogist and juge d’armes to the king. His job was to check on claims of nobility. His son, Charles, eventually took over the work and the position of juge d’armes. He created, at the request of Louis XIV, the Armorial général de France, a list of all the coats of arms in use at…
Deception
Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur. (The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived.) — Anonymous
Women’s Name Changes
Some months ago I promised to find and post this quote about the practice in the Middle Ages of sometimes changing the given name of a wife. It wasn’t widespread, but it happened often enough to be worth noticing: “The wife was sometimes so completely absorbed into the family of the one man who had…
Rightful king of England
“Rightful king of England dies”, The Mirror, July 5, 2012. On a slow news day the papers love these little stories. Even when it’s not a slow news day, everyone loves the Wars of the Roses. Back in the day, Edward IV (1442-1483) was the penultimate king of the Yorkist dynasty. The Wars of the…
Gathering the Tribes: Mormons from England
This little BBC piece about Mitt Romney’s Mormon ancestors captures some of the zeitgeist of the lives of many Mormon immigrants from England.Mitt Romney’s English Mormon RootsThe Mormons “believed that Jesus had visited America, and that he would return there soon.” Their message was, “Jesus is coming – he’s coming to America. We’ll help you…