Albi, Tarn, France
The arms of Albi are
De gueules, au château crénelé à quatre pièces d'argent, maçonné de sable, ouvert du champ de deux portes coulissées d'argent, sommé d'un léopard d'or les pattes posées sur les quatre créneaux, le tout brochant sur une croix archiépiscopale d'or posee en pal, adextrée en chef d'un soleil de même et senestrée d'une lune en décours d'argent.
Gules an archiepiscopal cross between in chief a sun in his splendour or and a crescent argent overall a tower argent masoned sable pierced by two gates with portcullis of the field in chief a lion passant gardant his feet on the battlements of the tower or.
These arms were entered into the Armorial Général.
The French blazon makes the castle and the lion the main charges and adds that they are placed over the archiepiscopal cross. In English blazon, it is necessary to state the cross first and place the tower overall. The blazon supplied by the Archives Départementales gives tour instead of château, and since there is no mention of tourelles, the English is happier with tower rather than castle. In this example, the gates are blazoned with portcullis raised. The term croissant en décours does not appear in the standard heraldic glossaries, but since en décours means waning when applied to the moon, the crescent is presumably shown turned either to the dexter or to the sinister, instead of its normal representation.
Representations of the arms in the town are difficult to find.
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From a postcard |
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A drain cover |
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The logo now used by the town |
The cathedral, begun in 1282, was built to confirm the power of the archbishop and the church after the Crusade against the Cathars.
The Albigensian Crusade,1209–1229, was initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate the Cathar heresy in Languedoc. The Crusaders were predominantly French and the motive was political, resulting in a huge reduction in the number of Cathars, and also the bringing of the region under the power of the French crown, the loss of regional culture and Aragonese influence. The Pope promised the lands of the Cathars to the crusaders. The Crusade played a part in the creation of the Dominican Order and the Medieval Inquisition.
The history of the Albigensian Crusade can be found by following the link above.
Simon IV de Montfort, Seigneur de Montfort-l'Amaury, 5th Earl of Leicester, 1160 – 1218.
Gules a lion rampant double queued argent a chief ermine
Raymond VI, 1156 – 1222, count of Toulouse.
Gules a cross clechy pommety and voided or
Pope Innocent III, 1160 - 1216, Pope from 1198.
Gules an eagle displayed checky or and sable beaked and membered of the last
Arms of the département of the Tarn
Or
a pale and a chief gules overall in chief a cross of Toulouse or
The above illustration is by Robert Louis, who designed the arms of the départements in the 1950s. Apart from those with a long history, the majority were rarely or never used.
The arms of the Tarn and towns in the département on a postcard
Finally, a linguistic aside. Albi and the surrounding area owed its prosperity to the cultivation of pastel, Isatis tinctoria , known in English as woad or dyers' woad, from which the dye indigo was produced. The French pastel is from Latin pasta, because the leaves were crushed to form a paste.
Pastel is also called guède in French, from Latin glastum, the name of the plant, via guesde. This is vouède in the Picard dialect. The sound changes g to gw to w occur frequently in the languages of Western Europe, and explain the links beween vouivre, guivre and wyvern in the note on the dragon.
The district of Eisenach, Germany bears woad in its coat of arms, which can be seen at Heraldry of the World.
