Thoughts on the Remy Coats of Arms
Replies: 0
Thoughts on the Remy Coats of Arms
I know all of us who find a tie in to Remy families of Europe want to see “our coat of arms”, but frankly, very few people will be able to trace their ancestry to one of the French ennobled Remy’s. If you do, it seems, according to French law, you are free to use that Coat of Arms.
In France, Coats of arms are unregulated by the authorities: anyone is free to assume arms, and there is no mechanism by which arms can be officially granted or registered. However, coats of arms are considered part of the family name, and enjoy the same legal protection against usurpation. (In England, the use of Coats of Arms is very strictly regulated, and there is no such thing as a 'coat of arms for a surname'. Many people of the same surname will often be entitled to completely different coats of arms, and many of that surname will be entitled to no coat of arms. Coats of arms belong to individuals. For any person to have a right to a coat of arms they must either have had it granted to them or be descended in the legitimate male line from a person to whom arms were granted or confirmed in the past.)
There is an organization in France that provides registration services for coats of arms. It is a private organization called the Conseil Français d'Héraldique. The following information comes from their website: (excuse any weirdness caused by the translation from French to English)
Who can carry armorial bearings?
Can carry armorial bearings:
- all the French, men, women and children, married or unmarried, laic or religious, noble or commoners, subject to not usurping those of others. If two families carry same weapons, it is that which can show the oldest possession which can preserve them, according to the proverb of the old habit: “Which first takes them are his”.
Actually, as of the Average Age, of the French and foreign families often had the same ecus without these fruits of the chance generating judicial actions. The rare lawsuits on the matter were engaged against individuals who had publicly dishonored weapons identical to those of the plaintiffs or who had adapted famous ecus wrongly belonging since centuries to great families with an obvious aim of fraud,
- all territorial units: communities of states, states, provinces, departments, overseas territories, communes, districts urban, inter-commune trade unions, etc,
- all sports associations, cultural, philanthropic, caritative, ludic, genealogical and different,
- all political parties, clubs and trade unions.
- all commercial companies,
- all military units,
- universities, faculties, colleges, colleges, public or deprived elementary schools,
- abbeys, convents, religious congregations, brotherhoods and all ecclesiastics whatever their hierarchical row within the church,
- large trades and administrations…
N.B.:
This list is given only as example and is by no means restrictive.
What the Civil code says
As regards the armorial bearings carried by private individuals, the French Civil code recognizes that they are related to the person as well as the patronymic and that they constitute a private property protected by the legislation.
Jurisprudence as regards heraldic is poor.
However, a judgment given in 1949 precise that the weapons are “marks of recognition, accessories in the name of family, to which they are attached in an insoluble way that this family is or not of noble origin”.
Which armorial bearings can one carry?
Obviously provided to avoid the national emblems (Tricolor, beams of gold lictor in field of azure, official badges of the French Republic, Monarchy and the Empire), each one in our country is free to adopt the armorial bearings of its choice if they are not already carried by other families.
That these weapons are old or of recent creation, that they were the subject or not of a recording or a publication, their port is legal in condition however that their owners are the authors or that they inherited it by the agnatic line (except for some families known as that of Jeanne d' Arc which, by privilege of the sovereign, can transmit their armorial bearings by the women).
The new weapons of the private individuals obey the same laws of transmissibility as the old ones. To be authorized to raise the weapons of an extinct female branch, it is necessary to be downward the most direct for it and only, unless having obtained the desistance from all the other heirs.
The armorial bearings being related to the names, it appears desirable to be able to jointly raise the ones and the others. Moreover, of the weapons speaking carried by the owner about another patronymic would lose all their significance.
The women generally carried ecus in rhombus, without cimier nor crown, but this use is lost and the carrying ones new armorial bearings seem more to be concerned with this distinction.
In the event of plenary adoption involving the transmission of the surname and the totality of the civil laws attached to the genetic children (law of July 11, 1966), it is logical that the armorial bearings are included in these patrimonial goods from which the transmission does not suffer any exception.
It goes from there differently in the event of simple adoption, without transmission of the patronymic; in this case and a fortiori if adopting it is the last male of its family, this one can bequeath its weapons by taking care to clearly express it in its last wills, such a transmission not being automatic. The not recognized natural children and the hybrid children cannot carry the armorial bearings of their fathers.
The legitimate children can adopt weapons different from those of their ascending, just as an individual is always free to modify his armorial bearings throughout his existence (right whose the knights did not deprive themselves of the Average Age), according to the evolution of his personality and as well as a signature nothing immutable has. The creators of contemporary ecus could not more claim to impose their drawing on all their collateral. The armorial bearings symbolize initially a character as shows it for example Armorial Général of Charles d' Hozier where one usually sees brothers carrying different weapons (and not only broken). Free with the descendants to take again these creations and to include them in the genetic inheritance, like the medieval men of war who often had a pride to carry the ecus of their aïeux. The law opens a possibility here, but does not create an obligation.
Quid of the external ornaments, the crowns and the cimiers?
Each one is free to carry the supports, the currencies and the sentences of its choice.
For the cimiers, the use would like that the heaumes (helmets) (closed or opened, of face or profile, etc) are reserved for the nobility, but this “rule” is briskly transgressed since centuries.
When with the crowns, the examples are numerous where simple commoners used them, who it is by vanity or simple aesthetic concern. In 1779, Honore-Gabriel de Riqueti, count de Mirabeau, wrote with his young mistress Sophie de Ruffey, woman of the old marquis de Monnier: “People of quality take a whole a crown of duke, because there is prosecutor who does not carry that of count or marquis”. This abusive use however went against a judgment delivered by the Parliament of Paris on August 13, 1663 interdissant “to all ground owners to qualify barons, counts, marquis, and to take of it the crown with their weapons, if not under the terms of letter-licences checked well and duement in the court…” (Chérin, chronological Abrégé of edicts…, p. 138). Only the imperial and royal crowns were never usurped.
At the XXe century, at most can one highly advise with the creators of new armorial bearings not to allot crowns which would not be justified by a former and proven practice or corresponding titles of nobility, under penalty of sinking in the ridiculous one. Moreover, the French Council of Heraldic would be seen in the obligation to refuse the publication of these ecus stamped in order not to encourage claims peerage-books.
On the other hand, the handing-over with the honor of the cimiers and the supports which supplement a heraldic composition so harmoniously can only be encouraged.
One can with the need to replace the crowns and the heaumes (helmets) by cimiers more adapted to our time (full-face helmets American motorcyclists, latticed helmets of the hockey and footballers, futuristic helmets of the spationauts (astronauts?), berets of the légionaries or parachutists, owners of the one and others being direct heirs to the jousters and the combatants of the Average Age).
Now, which members of the Remy line had a Coat of Arms and descendants that might have come to America? There are 19 know Remy Coats of Arms, most of which probably have no tie to America.
1. Nicolas de la Ramee, who was a Huguenot assassinated on 24 Aug 1572 had a Coat of Arms. It was a silver St. Andrews Cross on a blue field. In each diagonal corner was a gold pigeon. I’ve seen this Coat of Arms used in reference to the descendants of Jacques/Jacob Remy.
2. Didler Remy from the Lorraine region of France, and his descendants used a Coat of Arms that had a gold field (background), with a red bar running across the center horizontally, and 2 black pigeons above the bar and one below it. Didler was ennobled in 1560.
3. Jacques Remy of Ivoy, Lorraine died in 1568. His sons, Johannes, Matthew, Jacques and Pierre were Huguenots and had to flee for their lives. It is his grandson Jacques (son of Pierre) that was indentured to Nicholas Spencer and came to Virginia in 1654. His Uncle Jacques went to Greenhausen on the Rhine (Germany?). He registered a Coat of Arms in Rotterdam.
If you have any information or thoughts on this subject let me know.
In France, Coats of arms are unregulated by the authorities: anyone is free to assume arms, and there is no mechanism by which arms can be officially granted or registered. However, coats of arms are considered part of the family name, and enjoy the same legal protection against usurpation. (In England, the use of Coats of Arms is very strictly regulated, and there is no such thing as a 'coat of arms for a surname'. Many people of the same surname will often be entitled to completely different coats of arms, and many of that surname will be entitled to no coat of arms. Coats of arms belong to individuals. For any person to have a right to a coat of arms they must either have had it granted to them or be descended in the legitimate male line from a person to whom arms were granted or confirmed in the past.)
There is an organization in France that provides registration services for coats of arms. It is a private organization called the Conseil Français d'Héraldique. The following information comes from their website: (excuse any weirdness caused by the translation from French to English)
Who can carry armorial bearings?
Can carry armorial bearings:
- all the French, men, women and children, married or unmarried, laic or religious, noble or commoners, subject to not usurping those of others. If two families carry same weapons, it is that which can show the oldest possession which can preserve them, according to the proverb of the old habit: “Which first takes them are his”.
Actually, as of the Average Age, of the French and foreign families often had the same ecus without these fruits of the chance generating judicial actions. The rare lawsuits on the matter were engaged against individuals who had publicly dishonored weapons identical to those of the plaintiffs or who had adapted famous ecus wrongly belonging since centuries to great families with an obvious aim of fraud,
- all territorial units: communities of states, states, provinces, departments, overseas territories, communes, districts urban, inter-commune trade unions, etc,
- all sports associations, cultural, philanthropic, caritative, ludic, genealogical and different,
- all political parties, clubs and trade unions.
- all commercial companies,
- all military units,
- universities, faculties, colleges, colleges, public or deprived elementary schools,
- abbeys, convents, religious congregations, brotherhoods and all ecclesiastics whatever their hierarchical row within the church,
- large trades and administrations…
N.B.:
This list is given only as example and is by no means restrictive.
What the Civil code says
As regards the armorial bearings carried by private individuals, the French Civil code recognizes that they are related to the person as well as the patronymic and that they constitute a private property protected by the legislation.
Jurisprudence as regards heraldic is poor.
However, a judgment given in 1949 precise that the weapons are “marks of recognition, accessories in the name of family, to which they are attached in an insoluble way that this family is or not of noble origin”.
Which armorial bearings can one carry?
Obviously provided to avoid the national emblems (Tricolor, beams of gold lictor in field of azure, official badges of the French Republic, Monarchy and the Empire), each one in our country is free to adopt the armorial bearings of its choice if they are not already carried by other families.
That these weapons are old or of recent creation, that they were the subject or not of a recording or a publication, their port is legal in condition however that their owners are the authors or that they inherited it by the agnatic line (except for some families known as that of Jeanne d' Arc which, by privilege of the sovereign, can transmit their armorial bearings by the women).
The new weapons of the private individuals obey the same laws of transmissibility as the old ones. To be authorized to raise the weapons of an extinct female branch, it is necessary to be downward the most direct for it and only, unless having obtained the desistance from all the other heirs.
The armorial bearings being related to the names, it appears desirable to be able to jointly raise the ones and the others. Moreover, of the weapons speaking carried by the owner about another patronymic would lose all their significance.
The women generally carried ecus in rhombus, without cimier nor crown, but this use is lost and the carrying ones new armorial bearings seem more to be concerned with this distinction.
In the event of plenary adoption involving the transmission of the surname and the totality of the civil laws attached to the genetic children (law of July 11, 1966), it is logical that the armorial bearings are included in these patrimonial goods from which the transmission does not suffer any exception.
It goes from there differently in the event of simple adoption, without transmission of the patronymic; in this case and a fortiori if adopting it is the last male of its family, this one can bequeath its weapons by taking care to clearly express it in its last wills, such a transmission not being automatic. The not recognized natural children and the hybrid children cannot carry the armorial bearings of their fathers.
The legitimate children can adopt weapons different from those of their ascending, just as an individual is always free to modify his armorial bearings throughout his existence (right whose the knights did not deprive themselves of the Average Age), according to the evolution of his personality and as well as a signature nothing immutable has. The creators of contemporary ecus could not more claim to impose their drawing on all their collateral. The armorial bearings symbolize initially a character as shows it for example Armorial Général of Charles d' Hozier where one usually sees brothers carrying different weapons (and not only broken). Free with the descendants to take again these creations and to include them in the genetic inheritance, like the medieval men of war who often had a pride to carry the ecus of their aïeux. The law opens a possibility here, but does not create an obligation.
Quid of the external ornaments, the crowns and the cimiers?
Each one is free to carry the supports, the currencies and the sentences of its choice.
For the cimiers, the use would like that the heaumes (helmets) (closed or opened, of face or profile, etc) are reserved for the nobility, but this “rule” is briskly transgressed since centuries.
When with the crowns, the examples are numerous where simple commoners used them, who it is by vanity or simple aesthetic concern. In 1779, Honore-Gabriel de Riqueti, count de Mirabeau, wrote with his young mistress Sophie de Ruffey, woman of the old marquis de Monnier: “People of quality take a whole a crown of duke, because there is prosecutor who does not carry that of count or marquis”. This abusive use however went against a judgment delivered by the Parliament of Paris on August 13, 1663 interdissant “to all ground owners to qualify barons, counts, marquis, and to take of it the crown with their weapons, if not under the terms of letter-licences checked well and duement in the court…” (Chérin, chronological Abrégé of edicts…, p. 138). Only the imperial and royal crowns were never usurped.
At the XXe century, at most can one highly advise with the creators of new armorial bearings not to allot crowns which would not be justified by a former and proven practice or corresponding titles of nobility, under penalty of sinking in the ridiculous one. Moreover, the French Council of Heraldic would be seen in the obligation to refuse the publication of these ecus stamped in order not to encourage claims peerage-books.
On the other hand, the handing-over with the honor of the cimiers and the supports which supplement a heraldic composition so harmoniously can only be encouraged.
One can with the need to replace the crowns and the heaumes (helmets) by cimiers more adapted to our time (full-face helmets American motorcyclists, latticed helmets of the hockey and footballers, futuristic helmets of the spationauts (astronauts?), berets of the légionaries or parachutists, owners of the one and others being direct heirs to the jousters and the combatants of the Average Age).
Now, which members of the Remy line had a Coat of Arms and descendants that might have come to America? There are 19 know Remy Coats of Arms, most of which probably have no tie to America.
1. Nicolas de la Ramee, who was a Huguenot assassinated on 24 Aug 1572 had a Coat of Arms. It was a silver St. Andrews Cross on a blue field. In each diagonal corner was a gold pigeon. I’ve seen this Coat of Arms used in reference to the descendants of Jacques/Jacob Remy.
2. Didler Remy from the Lorraine region of France, and his descendants used a Coat of Arms that had a gold field (background), with a red bar running across the center horizontally, and 2 black pigeons above the bar and one below it. Didler was ennobled in 1560.
3. Jacques Remy of Ivoy, Lorraine died in 1568. His sons, Johannes, Matthew, Jacques and Pierre were Huguenots and had to flee for their lives. It is his grandson Jacques (son of Pierre) that was indentured to Nicholas Spencer and came to Virginia in 1654. His Uncle Jacques went to Greenhausen on the Rhine (Germany?). He registered a Coat of Arms in Rotterdam.
If you have any information or thoughts on this subject let me know.