Tabard
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A tabard is a short coat, either sleeveless, or with short sleeves or shoulder pieces, emblazoned on the front and back with a coat of arms, and worn as the distinctive garment of officers of arms. In the case of Royal officers of arms, the tabard is emblazoned with the coat of arms of the sovereign. Private officers of arms, such as still exist in Scotland, likewise make use of tabards emblazoned with the coat of arms of the person who employs them. In the United Kingdom the different ranks of officers of arms can be distinguished by the fabric from which their tabards are made. The tabard of a king of arms is made of velvet, the tabard of a herald of arms of satin and that of a pursuivant of arms of damask silk. It was once the custom for pursuivants to wear their tabards with the sleeves at the front and back, but this practice was ended during the reign of James II and VII.
A similar garment with short sleeves or without sleeves was worn in the late middle ages by knights over their armour, and was also emblazoned with their arms or worn plain. This became an important means of battlefield identification with the development of plate armor as the use of shields declined.
The name was also given in earlier days to a much humbler similar garment of rough frieze worn by peasants; the ploughman wears a tabard in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. See also The Tabard, the inn at which the principals meet in that same Prologue. (Wikisource:The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue)
Similarly at Queens College, Oxford, the scholars on the foundation were called tabarders, from the tabard, obviously not an emblazoned garment, which they wore.[citation needed]
It can also be the British English word for a cobbler apron.[citation needed]
[edit] Gallery
 Peter O'Donoghue in his tabard at the Garter Service |
 Marcel van Rossum, Deputy Herald of South Africa, and Themba Mabaso, State Herald of South Africa, wearing their tabards 2006 |
 John Brooke-Little wearing a tabard as Norroy and Ulster King of Arms |
 Slains Pursuivant Peter-Drummond-Murray of Mastrick wearing the tabard of the Earl of Erroll |
 Sir Anthony Richard Wagner, wearing his tabard while serving as Richmond Herald of Arms in Ordinary in 1952 |
 The tabard of Blanc Coursier Herald John Anstis from 1727 |
 Clarenceux King of Arms John Hawley wearing a tabard in a 1556 grant of arms |
 Sir Thomas Innes of Learney, Lord Lyon King of Arms, in his tabard |
 Officers of arms wearing their tabards at the Garter service in 2006 |
 Godfrey of Bouillon wearing a tabard of the Kingdom of Jerusalem |
 Alexander Walter Lindsay, Endure Pursuivant to his father, the Earl of Crawford |
 Hubert Chesshyre in the procession to the annual service of the Order of the Garter |
