Cooke's Ordinary and the Balliol Roll | Friends of the National Libraries

Item date: c. 1340

Grant Value: £5,000

Item cost: £132,500

Item cost pre-decimal: NULL

Item date acquired: 2007

Item institution: British Library

Town/City: London

Manuscript roll of seven vellum membranes, England c,1340, containing both the earliest surviving English ordinary of arms, with 589 painted shields, and the oldest roll of arms for Scotland on the dorse. The latter, apparently copied c. 1340 by an English herald from a Scottish manuscript no longer extant, contains the arms of Edward Balliol (d. 1364), King of Scots and the shields of 35 of his supporters.

Item Provenance

Franciscan Friary, Carmarthen; Robert Cooke, Clarenceaux King of Arms (d.1592); Sir Thomas Phillipps (d.1872), Phillipps MS 26463; Sir Anthony Wagner, Garter King of Arms (d.1995); Sotheby's 4 Dec. 2007, lot 47.