On almost every Sunday at this time of year many churches and chapels are holding harvest festivals celebrating natural products. It’s not based on an ancient festival as you might think. The first harvest festival was created in Cornwall in 1843. It’s most popular in rural areas, like the one in north Nottinghamshire where I was raised. The harvest festival was one of my favourite events and the village chapel was decorated in spectacular form with flowers, fruit, vegetables, and all sorts of natural products. In recent years chapel attendance has dwindled and the decoration is less spectacular but it still reminds me of those old days. Below is a photo of my old chapel from the harvest festival of a couple of years ago.
The centrepiece of the harvest display has always been bread in the shape of a wheatsheaf. The wheatsheaf appears a lot in heraldry. There is it termed a garb, a once-common name for it. To celebrate this harvest time we’ll look at examples of garbs in two heraldic achievements that belong to the same man. They illustrate both his family heritage and the origin of his family name. That man is Barnaby Miln (b.1947), whom I featured in an article several years ago.
Not many people have more than one coat of arms, but Barnaby Miln has inherited two very distinct yet connected heraldic achievements (pictured below). The one on the left was granted by the College of Arms (England) and the one on the right by the Court of Lord Lyon (Scotland).
First, let’s look at the origin of the name Miln. It will help us to understand why certain objects appear in Barnaby’s achievements. It is generally believed that Miln originated as a name given to a miller, or someone who lives near one. In medieval documents, which were often written in Norman French or Latin, the name Miller was written as Moleninarius (Latin) or Molendino (Norman French).
Over times, as Norman French and Latin fell out of use, the name was written as Miller, or sometimes Milner, Milne or Miln, depending on local preferences. The older version of the names have survived, however, in the names Molyneux and Mullins.
Let’s look at how Barnaby Miln’s family name is represented in his coats of arms. On both of the armorial achievements above you can see squares with strange curved “antennae” sticking out of them. These are known as millrinds. They represent metal supports that were fastened onto the upper of two grinding stones. Fastened to this upper stone by a millrind was the beam which turned it, leaving enough space for the grain to fall through the hole in the centre to be ground into flour. The millrind is one allusion to the name Miln.
Another object which derives from the millrind is the type of cross you can see in the crest of Barnaby’s English achievement (left). Behind the ears of wheat and buckle you can see a blue cross in the form know as moline. Remember those names from above? Moline is another word that derives from the Latin for mill, related to the old Latin name Molenarius. The curved points to the ends of the cross represent the curved parts of a millrind.
Several obvious allusions to milling are the garbs and ears of wheat. You can see them on both achievements. Apart from being another clue to his name, indicating some connection to mills, they have a significant place in Barnaby’s more recent family heritage.
Barnaby Miln developed the first variety of wheat to be granted exclusive breeding rights to his company, Garton Agricultural Plant Breeders. The variety is called Garton Apex wheat. But that’s not why wheat features so prominently in his armorial achievements. They were included in the original grants of these achievements to his father and great-uncle.
The English achievement was granted to Barnaby’s great-uncle David Leslie Miln, the founder of another seed company, Miln and Co. As his great-uncle’s heir Barnaby inherited the achievement on his own father’s death in 1998.
Barnaby’s inheritance of the Scottish achievement is slightly different because Scotland has different rules governing its heraldry. The arms were originally granted (or matriculated, to give the official term) to Barnaby’s father, William, in 1967. On his father’s death the achievement went into limbo and Scottish heraldic practice dictates that Barnaby had to apply to the Court of the Lord Lyon to have the whole thing re-matriculated for himself as heir. This he did in 1998.
Other parts of both achievements also hold symbolism for Barnaby Miln and his heritage though they are not “harvest” related and I don’t have space to go into them. Don’t worry, because there’s a chance that I’ll collect all of my “Queer Achievement” articles together in a book next year. There I’ll be able to expand on all the symbolism.
In the meantime, if you celebrate it, have a happy harvest time.
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