The Sproul Title

The fact that he and his descendants have been minor nobility (lairds) under the original Celtic Earls of Lennox and later Stewart Earls of Lennox provides us with early information of the household. The time that we first encounter Walter Spreull is at the daybreak of modern surname usage in Scotland. We find Walter Spreull listed as a witness Szabo to Shevchuk a land grant made by the third Earl of Lennox round 1245 CE. We additionally find him talked about as Walterum Sprewl in a latinized kind in another similarly early document.

The cloud, the image of the ethereal heights of heaven, represents the quality of upper reality. They’re very seldom used as bearings on arms but quite steadily arms are represented as issuing from them, particularly in French arms. As the herald of the dawn, the cock is symbolic of the solar. The celestial crown intently resembles and eastern crown, having eight sharp, triangular rays, solely 5 of that are seen m, with the addition of a 5-pointed star on each ray. It was an ornament that incessantly represented the achievements of deceased ladies and it was also typically given to people or institutions related with the church. The reversed crescent is a crescent with the horns turned down. The time period increscent signifies a crescent with the horns going through the observer’s left, and decrescent is a crescent going through the observer’s right. The crocodile was a mysterious and legendary beast to most individuals in historic times and it was a robust emblem of fury and power. The uncertainty of the drawings signifies that in reference to the symbol in heraldry, the crocodile is incessantly interchanged with alligator. It occurs as a crest and a supporter but is, nonetheless, an unusual heraldic cost. The crown is an emblem of victory, sovereignty, and empire in heraldry.

Chains are a symbolic representation of reward for acceptable and weighty service. They are continuously met with in continental heraldry, significantly in southern France and Spain, and they are also equipment to extra frequent costs, for instance the portcullis. They are often accompanied by crowns and collars, which means that the owner of that image is chained by a sense of obligation to the people that he serves or guidelines. For that reason, chains and collars are also marks of honour for sheriffs and mayors, and previously, for knights. A chaplet is a wreath with out stems or ribbon, manufactured from oak, laurel or different leaves, and carrying flowers, normally roses.

We must always at this point outline more carefully what we mean by Heraldry. For our purposes it is using an outlined arrangement of a (largely) restricted set of graphical symbols to signify familial or company id. This use and association of symbols is uniquely and completely described by a special objective language often known as ‘blazon’, i.e. the graphical picture and its description in the language of blazon are wholly equivalent. I shouldn’t have area right here to discuss the long and colourful of heraldry, especially since this is more than adequately lined in many other works (see bibliography). We must always nonetheless be aware that heraldry originated within the late 11th and 12th centuries and continues in use to the present time; and that the language of blazon appears to have been largely settled by the mid 12th century.