Post by Hans-Jürgen von Knappe on Aug 11, 2006 0:17:00 GMT -6
The heralds of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance traced the origin of their fonction from the caduceators, a Roman official who carried the emblem of Mercury (caduceus) and was the herald of Olympus. His duty was delivering messages declaring war and peace, calling for truces, and other obligations that heralds have performed in times of war.
The caduceators’ emblem of Mercury was not the elaborate winged wand with snakes, associated to Mercury and what we know from the antiquity art, when the old Roman religion was fading out. Instead, the caduceators’ symbol, as well as that of Mercury, is eighteen inches long and tied with a white ribbon near the top. The caduceators disappear as Roman culture decayed and let the way to the Middle Ages. When the barbarians took over most of the Empire, they admired Roman’s wealth and culture, but they had their own customs when it came to war, which shoved Roman war past into the “filing” of history. The caduceators’ office with his ties to Mercury met the same destiny, after the adoption of Christianity as Rome's official religion by Constantine the Great.
Centuries passed before a similarly function as a caduceator would return to Europe. The Herald’s first apparition was in northern France in the twelfth century. However, the earliest depictions of heralds are much later, dating to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The caduceators’ emblem of Mercury was not the elaborate winged wand with snakes, associated to Mercury and what we know from the antiquity art, when the old Roman religion was fading out. Instead, the caduceators’ symbol, as well as that of Mercury, is eighteen inches long and tied with a white ribbon near the top. The caduceators disappear as Roman culture decayed and let the way to the Middle Ages. When the barbarians took over most of the Empire, they admired Roman’s wealth and culture, but they had their own customs when it came to war, which shoved Roman war past into the “filing” of history. The caduceators’ office with his ties to Mercury met the same destiny, after the adoption of Christianity as Rome's official religion by Constantine the Great.
Centuries passed before a similarly function as a caduceator would return to Europe. The Herald’s first apparition was in northern France in the twelfth century. However, the earliest depictions of heralds are much later, dating to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.