Jean Courtois
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Jean Courtois (†1436) was a French herald.
en: Sicily Herald, fr: le Sicile heraut, it: Sicillo Araldo, la: Siculus
Jean Courtois called Sicily Herald was in the service of the king of the two Sicilies Alfonso V of Aragon. He lived for long in Mons in Hainaut in the Netherlands. At the beginning of his career, he was in the service of Pierre de Luxembourg, the count of Saint-Pol, and then he acted in the Naples court of Alfonso of Aragon king of Sicily, Valence, Majorca, Corsica, and Sardinia, the count of Barcelona. In his work Le Blason des Couleurs (1414)[1], Courtois developed a heraldic system consisting of the tinctures, planets and carbuncles, the virtues, metals, months, the zodiac, and weekdays among others. He claimed, his work was compiled with ”l'Aide de Dieu”, princes, knights, squires and all his brothers, kings of arms and heralds. He was familiar with the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, and also he gave the names of the tinctures in Greek. However, his main contribution was the development of gemstone-planetary blazon.
[edit] Editions
- Trattato dei colori nelle arme, nelle livre e nelle divise. (Naples, manuscript in Italian). New edition, Pavia: A. Viani, 1593).
- A french language translation: Le blason des couleurs en armes, livres et divises (H. Cocheris, Paris, 1860)
- ^ full title: Le Blason des Couleurs en armes, livrées, & devises
