Philippe de l\'Espinoy

Philippe de L'Espinoy (1552–1633) of Ghent was a Walloon historian and genealogist. Ghent (ˈɡɛnt Gent ʝɛnt in Dutch, Gand in French, and formerly Gaunt in English) is a City and a

He served as the commander of a company of Walloon infantry during the reign of Philippe II. Commander is a Military rank which is also sometimes used as a military title depending on the individual customs of a given military service He gave up the military career to devote fulltime to genealogical studies that led to the publication of the important volume in 1631, which was partly financed by the Gantese magistrate. Genealogy (from Greek: el γενεά el-Latn genea, "descent" and el λόγος el-Latn logos, "knowledge" is the study of ^[1]

The work contains the genealogical history of the counts of Flanders with a description of the aforesaid country. Flanders (Vlaanderen Flandre Flandern is a geographical region located in parts of present day Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. The number of illustrations in this book counts to a hefty 1,121 escutcheons, standards and seals of armorial bearings on wood, besides 58 copperplate illustrations. A flag is a piece of Cloth, often flown from a pole or mast, generally used Symbolically for signaling or identification A seal can mean a wax seal bearing an impressed figure or an embossed figure in paper with the purpose of authenticating a document but the term can also mean any device for A coat of arms or armorial bearings (often just arms for short in European tradition is a design belonging to a particular person (or group of people Copperplate refers to the use of inscribed sheets of copper in printing There is a full-page engraving with the arms of the Infante Isabelle and a great double-spread engraving representing an assembly of the dignitaries of the Flanders.

The French heraldist Imbert de la Phalecque^[2] and his Italian counterpart Goffredo di Crollanza^[3] claim that the work of Philippe de l'Espinoy is the first one in which he adopted the hatching system applied in the blazon. However, the hatchings on the arms do not follow any system. The book does not contain any table of hatching. Looking at the numerous pictures of arms in this elaborate work, at first sight they appear to have hatchings. If one however compares these "hatchings" with the descriptions, then one finds out that there isn't any system in it at all. For instance Gules is alternately indicated by horizontal or vertical or diagonal lines or is left blank. In Heraldry, gules (pronounced with a hard 'g' is the tincture with the colour Red, and belongs to the class of dark tinctures called "colours" It seems l'Espinoy considered lines and dots merely as a sort of artistic additions which he put in at random.

An earlier book of l’Espinoy in 1628 had Brabantic thematics^[4] indicating that the author was also closely connected to the territories where the heraldic hatching system emerged initially. The system of Heraldry has two main methods to designate the tinctures of arms in uncolored illustrations hatching and tricking. Besides the Flemish thematics of the book it shows a close connection between the French and Brabant-Flemish territories, as also the fact that in 1595 Petrus Zangrius also published a book in Douai. Flemish (Vlaams in Dutch) is a popular informal term to refer to Belgian Dutch ( Belgisch-Nederlands in Dutch Dutch as spoken in Belgium Jan Baptist Zangrius (? - 1606 in Leuven) was an Flemish Engraver, Publisher, Typographer and bookseller ^[5]

References

^ The exact title according to the BnF catalogues reads: 1631:
L'Espinoy, Philippe de, Recherche des antiquitez et noblesse de Flandres, contenant l'histoire généalogique des comtes de Flandres, avec une description dudit pays, la suite des gouverneurs de Flandres. . . un recueil des nobles et riches châtellenies. Châtelain ( Med Lat castellanus, from castellum, a castle in France originally merely the equivalent of the English Castellan, . . la police qui y at [”sic”] esté observée en la conduite et gouvernement de l'Estat et villes. . . divisée en deux livres, par Philippe de L'Espinoy,. . . Douay : impr. de Vve M[arc] Wyon, 1631. – In-fol. , 1012 p. , fig. et frontisp. .
The second volume from 1632:
L'Espinoy, Philippe de, Recherche des antiquitez et noblesse de Flandres, contenant l'histoire généalogique des comtes de Flandres, avec une description dudit pays, la suite des gouverneurs de Flandres. . . un recueil des nobles et riches châtellenies. . . la police qui y at [”sic”] esté observée en la conduite et gouvernement de l'Estat et villes. . . divisée en deux livres, par Philippe de L'Espinoy,. . . Douay : impr. de Vve M[arc] Wyon, 1632. – In-folio, 1012 p. , fig. et frontisp. . .
facsimile: Recherche des antiquites et noblesse de Flandre, 1972.
^ Phalecque, I. de la, De la gravure du Blason. Lille, 1855
^ Crollalanza, G. Di, Enciclopedia araldico-cavalleresca. Pisa, 1878 (entry tratteggi). Facsimile: ed. by Arnaldo Forni, Bologna 1980
^ L'Espinoy, Philippe de, Prelats, Barons, Chevaliers, E´scuiers, viles, franchises et officiers principaulx de ceste illustre Duche´ de Brabant, distincte par offices, recuillie hors des vieulx Registres, Lettres et Cartelaines des Monasteres et Viles des l'An 1300, & la enuiron. Iean vanden Kerckhove: Gand, 1628.
^ Molanus, Joannes: Natales sanctorum Belgii et eorundem chronica recapitulatio (Leuven: Joannes Masius en Philippus Zangrius, 1595), idem in de druk Douai: Petrus Borremans, 1616

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Further reading