Transcribing the Accedence of Armorie

The heraldry section now has a complete transcription of Gerard Legh’s Accedence of Armorie, the 1597 edition, from the title page to the colophon. All 308 of its woodcut coats of arms are reproduced alongside the text. It is the longest single primary source on the site, and it took a good deal longer than I expected to get it there. The title page of the 1597 edition, set within an allegorical border. What the book is The Accedence of Armorie is Gerard Legh’s only work, and by J. P. Cooper’s description, “perhaps the most popular heraldic work of the later 16th century.” Its first edition was printed by Richard Tottel in 1562 as The Accedens of Armory; the 1597 printing is the first to carry the spelling Accedence in the title, and it is the edition by which the work is now usually cited. It was printed in London by Henrie Ballard, “dwelling without Temple-barre at the signe of the Beare,” and it has a preface by Richard Argall. The text is a dialogue between “Gerard the Herehaught”…