Shropshire's Heraldic Puns - Moreton

 Moreton

Moreton, Revel, of Shifnal, Sheriff 1742.

Arms: Argent, a chevron Gules between 3 square buckles Sable

Crest: A demi-eagle wings expanded (Azure).

The arms of Revel Moreton, of Shifnal, Sheriff 1742.

Not at first sight canting arms and you'd struggle to find anything remotely like a pun on the name or the etymology of it however, if you know the gentleman's pedigree the answer becomes plain. Erdiswicke says "these were the arms of the family of Engleton with whose armory the Moretons 'invested themselves', in consequence of a marriage with the heiress". The late editor of Eardiswicke adds a crosslet for difference, but no such addition appears in the peerages or on the monuments of Moreton in Shifnal Church and so is most probably an invention. 

So, we now must ask ourselves is there a heraldic pun to be found in the arms Argent, a chevron Gules between 3 square buckles Sable for the surname Engleton?

Indeed there is a visual and linguistic heraldic pun (canting arms) in this design. The three square buckles (or fermailes) are a visual wordplay on the surname Engleton, sounding remarkably like the medieval French word en-gleton or anglet, which means "angle" or "corner". The specific heraldic elements in this design (often historically borne by the Moreton family of Engleton) cleverly encode this pun. The Chevron, a V-shaped ordinary inherently forms sharp angles or corners, playing on the roots of the surname. Because a traditional buckle is characterized by its right-angled shape (and corners), the three buckles visually represent angles.

Looking at the crest, using an eagle for the surname Engleton (or its close variants like Eggleton and Eagleton) is a classic example of canting arms (or "talking arms"). When spoken aloud, the first two syllables of Engleton or Eggleton closely mimic the word "Eagle." Historically, English heraldry was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman French. The Old French word for eagle is aigle. To a medieval herald, names beginning with Engle-, Eggle-, or Aigle- immediately suggested the "talking" charge (armes parlantes) of an eagle. Families with phonetically identical names, like Eagleton, directly used the bird for this exact reason.

The name is formed from two Old English elements: Engla: The genitive plural of Engle, referring to the Angles (the Germanic tribe that gave England its name). tūn: An Old English word meaning an enclosure, farmstead, or settlement.