Shropshire's Punning Heraldry - Tayleur

I have written a lot about the Tayleur Arms (public house) on this weblog charting first my concern over the incorrect Inn Sign, through to its new ownership, destruction by fire, and the eventual resurection of this fine Inn and eating house along with the replacement of the sign to one more fitting for a pub called the Tayleur Arms. Now, I have the pleasure of adding the arms to my gallery of Shropshire's Punning Arms. There is a slight difference in that the sword, in the MS of Mr. Morris, is recorded as being "imbued" that is to say blood stained at the point.

I bring to my reader's attention a rather scathing report of the so called pun by Sir Bernard Burke, Ulster King of Arms. 

Tayleur

Tayleur, John, of Rodington, Sheriff, 1691.

Arms: Ermine, on a chief Sable, three escallop shells Argent.

Crest: Issuing out of a ducal coronet (Or) a dexter arm in armour embowed holding in the hand a sword point imbrued Proper.

The arms of John Tayleur, of Rodington, Sheriff, 1691.

There is a traditional heraldic joke associated with this coat of arms, though it is a historical misconception rather than a true intentional pun (canting arms). The armorial joke relies on a humorous, non-heraldic interpretation of the technical components of the shield. In traditional heraldic analysis, such as that famously remarked upon by Sir Bernard Burke in his Vicissitudes of Families, the elements are playfully stripped of their noble meaning to describe the literal tools of a tailor (Tayleur). The Ermine fur pattern of the field represents the expensive cloth or material being worked on. The Chief Sable (The black horizontal block at the top of the shield) represents a tailor's cutting board or heavy ironing table. Instead of the holy pilgrim symbols of the Crusades, the escallop shells are instead, jokingly, interpreted as "thrums", the discarded threads, scraps, or fringe left over at the edge of a piece of woven cloth after a tailor cuts a pattern. Burke noted that onlookers cracked this joke to poke fun at the trade origins implied by the family's name. He dryly added that it was "a pun, and not a very clever one".