The Hauteville coat of arms is the coat of arms by which the Siculo-Norman dynasty of Hauteville, founder of the Kingdom of Sicily and protagonist of the historical events of southern Italy during the 11th and 12th centuries, is represented. The actual use of a coat of arms by the lineage that had Tancred as its progenitor, however, is not an assumption that is undoubtedly proven or universally agreed upon. There are various reconstructions of the coat of arms, which the various authors have associated with the Hauteville family; the azure insignia with a bend chequy in argent and gules of two rows of tiles has been attested as the most widespread and most accepted representation.
The bend chequy
Origin of the coat of arms and significance The origin of the coat of arms of the House of Hauteville is uncertain and debated, since there are allegedly no documents or historical evidence to date with certainty its introduction, as well as its actual use by the Siculo-Norman monarchs; according to some studies, the Hauteville coat of arms would be one "attributed" to the dynasty only in later times.. This thesis, however, is countered by the reconstructions of some historians, such as Giovanni Antonio Summonte, Agostino Inveges and Giuseppe Sancetta.
Between 1601 and 1602, the four books (the last two posthumously) of the original edition of the Historia della Città e Regno di Napoli, by the Neapolitan historian Giovanni Antonio Summonte, were published. In the following decades and up to the middle of the following century, several reprints were made, as well as expanded editions by other authors, the most widespread being that of 1675. In his monumental work, Summonte writes that Roger II, first king of Sicily, "bore as an insignia a duplicate stripe, divided into five parts, that is, five red, and five silver, which descends from the right side to the left side sideways, placed on an azure field, as did all the Normans his predecessors." In the opinion of the Neapolitan historian, this symbol would signify "an invincible spirit in acquiring supremacy."
A similar but more articulate thesis was made by the Sicilian historian Agostino Inveges, in the third volume of his Annali della felice città di Palermo, prima sedia, corona del Re, e Capo del Regno di Sicilia, a work that was printed between 1649 and 1651. In the views of Inveges, who took up the theses of Giuseppe Sancetta, the Hauteville adopted the new coat of arms, abandoning the one with the two lions of the Duchy of Normandy. The monarchs were to be endowed with a coat of arms "with two stripes, or as Sancetta says: with two bends sinister, chequy gules and argent on a azure field: as is seen in three very ancient wooden plaques hung in the Cathedral of Palermo above the Royal porphyry tombs of King Roger, and of the Empress Constance his daughter [...]".
Less clear, in Inveges' opinion, is the identification of the initiator of the adoption of the new coat of arms. The Sicilian historian advances the hypothesis that the coat of arms was introduced at the time of Roger II, in conjunction with the coronation of 1129; when, without approval from Pope Honorius II, Roger wished to obtain publicly, from an assembly of notables, both lay and religious, from both Sicily and his continental states, the recognition of his sovereign authority.. To ground his position, Inveges resorts to complex heraldic reasoning:
Analysis of the coat of arms
Summonte interprets and explains the Hauteville coat of arms by providing a meaning of the coat of arms in its entirety, understood as the result of the combination of the three tinctures that characterize it: the insignia of the dynasty, therefore, "as composed of two principal colors, and of silver metal, signify nothing but an invincible spirit in acquiring supremacy." In contrast, the analysis of the coat of arms presented by Inveges "breaks down" the coat of arms, examining, disjointly, the heraldic ordinary and its individual tinctures and the field.
It seems obvious that his remarks cannot disregard the heraldic charge that characterizes the coat of arms, namely the stripe: the latter, writes the Sicilian historian, "is an insignia of war, & ornament of a Soldier." As reported by Marco Antonio Ginanni, an intellectual and heraldist, author of L'arte del blasone dichiarata per alfabeto, "the stripe represents the baldric, that is, the pendant of the Sword, and is a sign of military honors, and dignity.". In his Heraldic-Chivalric Encyclopedia, the heraldist and genealogist Goffredo di Crollalanza endorses Ginanni's interpretation and, with an explicit reference to the figure of the "ancient knights," points out that the stripe "was by heraldry placed among the honorable ordinaries as a sign of military honors and dignities" (adding, in a second line, that the stripe could also represent the scarf worn over the shoulder in military circles).. The reference to the Hauteville warriors' and condottieri's skills is not limited to the stripe as such, but extends to its being checkered. Crollalanza reports that the chequy, one of the "noblest and most ancient figures of the blazon," is closely connected to the game of chess and strategy: it represents, like the chessboard, the battlefield and, also, an army deployed in combat, which is why those who have demonstrated their valor in war, that is, their skills as military strategists, boast of it. In Crollalanza's opinion, the introduction of the chequy in heraldry, more likely than other hypotheses, would have precisely a Gothic or Norman origin, since, reports the author of the Heraldic-Chivalric Encyclopedia, it was the Normans who introduced the chequy flags in Normandy, England, Apulia and Sicily..
As for the tinctures, Inveges attributes very specific meanings to them. First and foremost, the Sicilian historian associates, with silver, the wealth of the Kingdom. Certainly, as a metal, silver constitutes, after gold, "the most valuable hue of the blazon." This tincture, however, as Crollalanza reports, symbolizes a plurality of concepts and virtues, such as: skill, clemency, faith, temperance, integrity, truth and purity; but it is also a symbol of dignity and nobility.. Red, on the other hand, Inveges continues, represents royal purple: it is no coincidence that this tincture is generally considered "the noblest color of blazon." As for its symbolism, red, in addition to referring to the idea of nobility, instinctively refers to blood and, more specifically, to the shedding of blood in battle. Thus, concepts related to war and combat are associated with it, such as valor, daring, and dominance, but also the desire for revenge, cruelty, and anger. Among the virtues attributable to red, on the other hand, are found fortitude, magnanimity and justice.. Coming to the blue of the field, finally, Inveges believes that it represents "the toil of arms, and 'the ordeal of war.'" In French heraldry, azure "is considered as the noblest and most valuable tincture, such as the one that appears on the escutcheon of the royal house, so much so that it is placed before gold itself, although it is not from metal." The symbolism attached to this color is broad: the concepts of loyalty and fidelity are associated with it, while warriors, writes Crollalanza, "wanted to express with it vigilance, fortitude, constancy, patriotism, victory and fame.".
Variants It is possible to identify a number of alternative versions of the coat of arms of the House of Hauteville, which, while not evidently the result of misrepresentation or blazoning, are of uncertain attribution, nor do they allow a clear interpretation of the intervening variations. It is worth mentioning, for example, a variant of the coat of arms which differs from the original insignia, presenting, in the bend chequy, not two, but three rows of tiles..
An example of misrepresentation, on the other hand, is found in the aforementioned Historia della città, e regno di Napoli by Summonte,. where at the base of the plates depicting Roger II. and the other Norman rulers. is reproduced a coat of arms that has a bend chequy, instead of the bend described by Summonte. Inveges himself, although he explicitly points out the error present in those plates of the Historia, when speculating that the coat of arms was adopted by Roger II, mentions a bend or strip. Incidentally, the azure insignia to the bend chequy of gules and argent is linked to a hypothesis as suggestive as it lacks solid evidence: said thesis would have it that this was the coat of arms of the House of Drengot Quarrel, attributing the extreme similarity of it to the Hauteville insignia, arising from a series of marriage alliances, between the two families of Norman origin..
An erroneous blazoning of the coat of arms, on the other hand, can be traced in Sancetta: in the description provided by the latter, mention is made not of a band (honorable ordinary which, in the shield, descends diagonally from right to left), but of a bend sinister (honorable ordinary which, in the shield, descends diagonally from left to right).
Within the range of alternative representations of the coat of arms, there would also fall a version of the coat of arms that features a reversal of colors, with the field becoming red, while the bend chequy is silver and azure. Such an insignia is described by the French heraldist André Favyn, in Le théâtre d'honneur et de chevalerie, a work that was printed in 1620. Favyn thus blazons "les Armes" of the Hauteville:
specifying that these would be the "premieres Armes de Scicile," thus, indirectly attributing to the Hauteville the primacy of having introduced heraldry to Sicily. The same blazoning is also reported in the 1628 edition of the Histoire généalogique de la Maison de France, by the French historians Scévole II de Sainte-Marthe and Louis de Sainte-Marthe:. such an achievement is indicated, in the index of coats of arms attached to the first tome of the work, both as arme di Sicile ancien, and as arme di Sicile-Hauteville.. Finally, the insignia is illustrated by the mathematician and cartographer, also French, Oronce Finé, in the volume Giuoco d'armi dei sovrani e stati d'Europa, a didactic game published in 1681.
Also in red is the field of the coat of arms attributed to Robert Guiscard in Promptuaire armorial et general divisé en quatre parties, a seventeenth-century work by the French cartographer Jean Boisseau. Compared to the insignia emblazoned by Favyn, this coat of arms associated with the ruler of the Duchy of Apulia and Calabria differs in one of the tinctures of the band, for while the metal remains silver, the color is black..
Another unusual reconstruction of the coat of arms can be found in the Regum Neapolitanorum vitae et effigies, a Latin-language volume that was printed in 1605: some of the plates accompanying the publication show a coat of arms attributed to the Hauteville as characterized, not by one, but by as many as two bends chequy.. Such a double-banded representation can also be found in the Großes Wappenbuch, an armorial compiled from 1583 in southern Germany: on a red field, the two bends chequy, each of two rows, are of azure and silver..
Finally, an interesting variant of the Hauteville insignia is reproduced inside the Holy Trinity Complex in Venosa. The coat of arms is included in a pictorial decoration, datable to the 16th century, made on the top of the arcosolium of the Hauteville tomb, a funerary ark, where William Iron Arm, Drogo of Hauteville, Humphrey of Hauteville and Robert Guiscard are buried. The coat of arms, trimmed in gold and gules, on a bend chequy with two azure and silver tiles, is held by two putti, which in turn are flanked by two shields with the Maltese cross of the Knights Hospitaller..
Attributed coat of arms