Bartholomew can be of use to the historian in providing a key to coded insult in the long aftermath of civil war in the century after Richard II’s deposition. Our knowledge of properties can help us to detect, for example, the force of the satirical attack on Richard by Wyllyam Collyngbourne in 1484, one year before the king’s death:
The Cat, the Rat and Lovel our dog
Rule all England under a hog.[53]
This couplet has often been quoted, but we are made more aware of the verse’s potential resonance by the distinction Bartholomew had made between the wild pig, aper, and the tame pig, porcus:
The boor hatte aper and is a swyn þat lyueþ in woodes or in feelde and is most cruel and nouʒte mylde, as Isidorus seiþ … Alsswyno the boor is so fers a beste and also so cruel þat for his fiersnesse and his cruelnesse he despyseþ and setteþ nouʒt by deþ. And he reseeþ ful spitously aʒeins þe poynt of a spere of þe hontere. And þough it so be þat he be smyten or stiked wiþ a spere þurgh þe body, ʒitte for þe grete yre and cruelte þat he haþ in herte and strengþe to wreke himself of his aduersary wiþ his tuskes. And putteþ himself in perile of deþ wiþ a wonder fersenesse aʒeins þe wepene of his enemy.[54]
This shows how the boar could signify valour and indomitable power in the armiger. The attributes of fierceness, wrath, cruelty, and courage in facing the adversary are appropriate for a military leader fighting for the throne and rallying support among military men. They seem especially appropriate to Richard III in the light of his apparently suicidal courage at Bosworth, and raise the question of how far an armiger might identify with his or her personal emblem.[55] However, Bartholomew’s chapter on the domestic pig, porcus, reveals its insulting connotations:
A swyn hatte porcus as it were sporcus ‘vile and defouled’, as Isidorus seiþ libro xii. and froteþ and walweþ in drytte and in fenne and dyueþ in slyme and bawdeþ himself þerwiþ and resteþ in stynkyng place. Oracius seiþ þat ‘þe sowe is frende to fenne and to pluddes’ and þerfore swyn ben accompted foule and vnhoneste.[56]