Medieval Glossary

Rose

In heraldry, a rose is drawn in a conventional form and never with any stalk, except when expressly directed by the words of blazon. Being sometimes argent and sometimes gules, it cannot be designated proper, but when blazoned "barbed and seeded proper," it is meant that the barbs are to be green and the seeds gold and yellow. As a mark of cadency, the rose has been used as the difference of the seventh son.

The rose gules was the badge of the Plantagenets of the house of Lancaster, and the rose argent that of York. The York rose was sometimes surrounded with rays as of the sun and termed rose en soleil.

Related term(s): Heraldry; Blazonry; Argent; Gules; Mark of Cadency; Knighthood
Category: Heraldry
Added: 07.04.06
Source information: Wilhelm, Thomas. A Military Dictionary and Gazetteer. Philadelphia: L.R. Hamersly & Co., 1881. 498.

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