Bucket shop (heraldry)
Encyclopedia
An heraldic bucket shop is a heraldry
company that will "sell" a coat of arms
associated with the customer's surname
, regardless of whether the customer can actually claim a relation to the original armiger.
According to the law of arms
, usage of a pre-existing coat of arms must be predicated on some form of relation. Typically, inheritance of arms flows through the male line though in many traditions, it may flow through the female line as well.
Bucket shops work from a pre-built database of surnames and shields that were sourced from manuscripts, armorials
and various journals. Using a database such as this, the seller may sell to anyone named, for example, "Smith" the arms found for another Smith. Unfortunately, the chances of any relationship with the original "Smith", let alone patrilineal descent, are slim to none.
Heraldry
Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...
company that will "sell" a coat of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
associated with the customer's surname
Surname
A surname is a name added to a given name and is part of a personal name. In many cases, a surname is a family name. Many dictionaries define "surname" as a synonym of "family name"...
, regardless of whether the customer can actually claim a relation to the original armiger.
According to the law of arms
Law of Arms
The law of heraldic arms governs the "bearing of arms", that is, the possession, use or display of arms, also called coats of arms, coat armour or armorial bearings. Although it is believed that the original function of coats of arms was to enable knights to identify each other on the battlefield,...
, usage of a pre-existing coat of arms must be predicated on some form of relation. Typically, inheritance of arms flows through the male line though in many traditions, it may flow through the female line as well.
Bucket shops work from a pre-built database of surnames and shields that were sourced from manuscripts, armorials
Roll of arms
A roll of arms is a collection of coats of arms, usually consisting of rows of painted pictures of shields, each shield accompanied by the name of the person bearing the arms...
and various journals. Using a database such as this, the seller may sell to anyone named, for example, "Smith" the arms found for another Smith. Unfortunately, the chances of any relationship with the original "Smith", let alone patrilineal descent, are slim to none.