IDTG

I have written extensively in the past about the blog I consider to be the best on the topic of heraldry: the Blog the Heraldica maintained by the Spanish Air Force Major José Juan Carrión Rangel. His blog has evolved from being a simple hobby blog (like this one) to becoming the equivalent of the New York (or London if you prefer) Times of the heraldic world! A top notch blog in its own right and the absolute best on heraldry.

One of the characteristics of a popular communication medium is that everyone wants to publish there so that it reaches a large audience. This means that, like the traditional media, not only do articles that the blogger wrote & believes in get published but also “letters to the editor” as well as “op-eds” from other persons.

The good Major’s blog is no stranger to controversy having published articles/letters written by others that contain ideas or opinions that are not very popular. Many times, these very opinions caused a maelstrom in our small but vociferous global heraldic community, so much so that many Spanish-language heraldic bloggers decided to form an alliance to improve the community.

Unfortunately, as the most recent events on the blog demonstrate, this was but a pipe dream….

On September 18, the noted heraldist José Luis Sampedro Escolar (distinguished member of the Royal Heraldic & Genealogical Academy of Madrid – Real y Matritense Academia de Heráldica y Genealogía) and frequent contributor to the blog wrote a scathing article about the Viscount of Ayala & Marquis of La Floresta, Dr. Alfonso de Ceballos Escalera critiquing his armorial achievement and arguing the legal validity of his certification of personal arms. I won’t go into the details as the article is available to be read in the original Spanish on the blog.

The article was very strongly worded and made no secret that its author had no love lost for the Viscount & Marquis.

When I read it, I expected a similarly strongly worded retort by the equally (if not more so) noted heraldist Dr. Ceballos Escalera, with perhaps this back and forth dragging for a couple more days and then subside. Occasionally, third parties would give their 2 cents too picking a side or arguing with all. This has usually been the pattern.

However, this time there was a different turn of events.

It’s true that the retort came through and the third parties appeared but, what was surprising and a first was the attack on the Major himself.

The blogger clearly marked the article as being authored by another and has repeatedly posted in the past that he takes no ownership of the contents of any articles posted that have been submitted by third parties. He only provides the medium for the article to be published. This is no different than an op-ed in a major newspaper.

I was surprised to see that persons whom I hold in high regard would question the motives of a person that, through his blog, has contributed immensly to the proliferation of heraldic knowledge in the Spanish speaking world and beyond.

That is not to say that the original post by Mr. Sampedro Escolar was not incendiary, because it was.

If the article had remained an analysis of the legal authority of the Viscount & Marquis as the Chronicler of Arms for personal heraldry & genealogy, it would have been just fine. Honestly, this truly is something that should be (and has been) debated and I have my own personal opinions on the matter (that I might share sometime but, meanwhile you can read what the expert on heraldic law Mr. Cerda Acevedo had to say).

Where I think Mr. Sampedro Escolar crossed the line was in his questioning of the rights of Dr. Ceballos Escalera to use the external ornaments of his achievement. This is a personal affront considering the status of the latter and his vast heraldic knowledge. These sorts of allegations cannot and must not be made without concrete evidence, otherwise it is (in my opinion) tantamount to calling him a fraud or ignorant. Particularly when, as in this case, the person in question is rightfully using all the external ornaments.

For a good example of how to handle these situations where one is questioning the legality of a person’s arms or title one can refer to the case of the false Baron of Gavin which case was thoroughly researched and an irrefutable case made, relying solely on the facts and removing any emotion.

Regardless of the content of the posting by Mr. Sampedro Escolar and whether one agrees with it or not, the blog and its owner are not at fault. Any personal attacks are, at best, ill thought.

After some of the attacks, the good Major has rightfully moved to the counter-attack and I cannot blame him. I would have done the same and fully support him in this.

By now, several others have commented on these events and one can say that I’m kind of late to the game. Honestly, I don’t care  I have a day job that takes priority over any heraldic (and non) ramblings since it pays the bills.

Below are links to commentary by two other bloggers that I respect and recommend to be read:

• From the blog Derecho Heráldico by Carlos Cerda Acevedo
• From the blog Heráldica Catalana by Javier Cruïles

What is the saddest part of this story is that some of the biggest names in Spanish heraldry, people whose work I truly respect and admire, have ended up in a spitball war.

In a personal email to Maj. Carrion Rangel, I likened this whole thing to a Mexican telenovela and I stand by that analogy. The only thing missing is a love interest (I guess heraldry can assume that role).

Arms of Major José Juan Carrión Rangel

It was an absolute pleasure to read this morning in the blog Salon del Trono that my dear friend, the Spanish Royal Air Force Major and maintainer of the best heraldry blog online, don José Juan Carrión Rangel has been awarded the Medal of Honor of the Grand Priory in Spain of the Military and Hospitaller Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem in the category of Gold!

The award is in recognition of the outstanding promotion he has done in favor of the St. Lazarus initiatives through his blog, the famous Blog de Heráldica.

Well deserved and my sincere congratulations to a man who almost single-handedly has given heraldry a home on the Internet!

Medal of Honor in the category of gold

On February 20th, 2010 what in my opinion has been the best blog on heraldry in any language, Blog de Heráldica, posted its final entry.

The blog was maintained by the Spanish Air Force Major José Juan Carrión Rangel, a knight of the Cofraternity of San Fernando (Hermandad de san Fernando) and certified by the Spanish Armed Forces as a military herald. A man I have the honor of calling a friend.

Over the period of time that the blog was active, it was the forum where some of the top heraldic experts of the Spanish speaking world congregated.

Who can forget the discussions on the lack of a national Chronicler of Arms and the potential for a future one. Or the most interesting essays by the Marquess de la Floresta, shining a light on all things heraldic in Spain. Or even the ongoing discussions on the Order of St Lazarus.

It is no small feat that the publication of the Heraldry Society of England, the “Coat of Arms” recognized it, a non-English blog, among the top blogs on heraldry.

It was José Juan’s blog that inspired me to start my own and I modeled mine after his. However, I was unable to keep up with him with the daily and sometimes more frequent updates.

It was this frequency of updates that tired him and understandably so. I know I can’t do it and I’ve tried! It is hard to do so with the busy schedule he has and a family!

I do sincerely hope though that he reconsiders his decision to retire from the blog world and return with his postings but, with a more reasonable frequency. Perhaps weekly or monthly.

The heraldic world is a small one and with the silence of his blog, heraldry online will be much poorer.

Today’s entry will be about my coat of arms, how I came about deciding on this design and the symbolism behind it. The blazon of my arms is

Per fess Azure and Argent a Saltire counterchanged between in chief an Athenian Owl tourné Argent in base an Oak Tree eradicated Azure.

Kimon Andreou

The emblazonment you see above was created for me by an amazingly talented artist named Srechko Nikitovich of Serbia who is a member of the Center for Research of Orthodox Monarchy, led by the Rev. Deacon Fr. Nenad Jovanovich.

The path to these arms did not come about immediately or without effort.

Originally, I had the hope that perhaps I may lay claim to ancestral arms from one of my family lines. Alas, my Greek ancestry through the “Andreou” line does not have an armigerous member that I or anyone else in my family know of (more on my adventures in genealogy in a future blog entry). However, on my mother’s side I found a number of my ancestral lines bearing arms. My mother’s patrilineal line is the Martínez de Vergara, who descend originally from the Basque Country of Spain through Gibraleón, Huelva in the south of Spain.

The arms on the right are those identified as belonging to my mother’s patrilineal line. The blazon is

En campo de oro, un árbol de sinople, frutado de oro, con un lobo pasante de sable atado al tronco, bordura de gules con ocho aspas de oro”

or

Or an oak tree Vert fructed Or a wolf passant chained to its bark Sable, a bordure Gules charged with eight saltorels Or

and there are multiple sources confirming this blazon, though my main source is the book by Juan Mujíca titled “Nobleza Colonial de Chile”. In this book, my ancestry is traced from the original Juan Martínez de Vergara from Gibraleón, Huelva, Spain all the way to my grandparents in Santiago, Chile.

Though an argument can be made that I can use those arms, perhaps with a difference, I opted not to since I am fond of the arms following the name. However, I did want to take my maternal arms into consideration when designing my new personal arms.

In my quest to develop my arms, I did a lot of research on line and joined the excellent American Heraldry Society (AHS), of which I eventually became the Director of IT.

It was at the AHS where, after a couple of rookie mistakes, I received the assistance of certain excellent individuals: David Pritchard, Kenneth Mansfield, Terry Sarros and Maj. José Juan Carrión Rangel of the Spanish Air Force.

It was David who suggested of using a saltire as a cant of my surname. It was Maj. Carrión who explained the symbolism of the Vergara arms. It was Kenneth and Terry who assisted with the layout and the mockups. All of them helped with their strong, constructive criticism.

Now, on to the symbolism.

My surname is “Andreou” or, in Greek, “Ανδρέου” which is the name “Andrew” in the original Greek (Andrew is a Greek name). The saltire is also known as “St. Andrew’s Cross” and that’s why it is commonly found amongst the symbols of countries whose patron saint is St. Andrew (most famous being Scotland). So, the use of the saltire as a cant of my surname is natural. 

The owl is the Athenian Owl, commonly found on the reverse of tetradrachms (4 drachmas) of ancient Athens. The obverse of the tetradrachms portrayed the goddess Athena, patron goddess and namesake of Athens. The owl being the western symbol of wisdom comes from the mythology of the owl being Athena’s favored animal, as goddess of wisdom. My choice of using the owl is due to my constant quest for more knowledge, however mundane it may be to the average person. 

The oak tree, as one might surmise, is a nod to my maternal arms of Vergara. I much prefer the tree versus the wolf or any of the other choices of the Vergara arms and also chose to blazon it eradicated as I felt it added more character

The choice of color came about in a rather interesting way…. I was trying various tinctures of the field and the charges and every time came back with the owl being Argent. On the other hand, the tree was not as pleasing in Argent and went through even more tincture combinations, eventually ending up with blazoning it Proper. This created the constraint of making the field on which the owl would be to have one of the colors or stains while the tree’s field would have to be one of the metals.

This “problem” resulted in the decision of parting the shield per fess and having Argent in base for the tree and some undecided color in chief for the owl. After multiple tries of colors with meaning to me, whether the meaning was national pride (e.g. American red, white & blue) or just because I like the color, I ended up with Azure as the field for the owl. Azure as my favorite color and the combination of Azure & Argent being the common colors of my background (Greece & Chile) and who I am (USA).

At this point, the saltire had to stand out and was blazoned counterchanged. The blazon for my arms at this point was Per fess Azure and Argent a Saltire counterchanged between in chief an Athenian Owl (Athene noctua) tourné Argent in base an Oak Tree eradicated Proper. However, something didn’t feel right…

After some time thinking about it I finally realized it! It was the tree. It had to change. It had to change to Azure.

This final change made the shield achieve the desired goal of simplicity. I only had 3 charges and 2 tinctures.

After Kenneth emblazoned this latest blazon, I knew it was the right one immediately.

In any case, I put this latest emblazonment through the time honored “fridge test” to be certain. Sure enough, it passed the test and I promptly adopted my arms.

After coming up with a crest, I submitted my registration with the United States Heraldic Registry (USHR), which I highly recommend that every armiger does – it’s free!

Below are the arms of those who helped me with my arms:

Read more on the Vergara coat of arms here in the article dedicated to them.