Ampleforth College
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 Civic heraldry of the United Kingdom |
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AMPLEFORTH COLLEGE
Country: United Kingdom
Campus/location: Ampleforth
Official blazon
Arms: Per fesse dancette Or and azure, a chief per pale gules and of the second charged on the dexter side with two keys in saltire Or and argent and on the sinister with a cross flory between five martlets of the first.
Motto:' Dieu le ward.
Origin/meaning
The arms were officially granted on May 17, 1921 to Ampleforth Abbey and Ampleforth College (which were formally separated only in 2017)
Ampleforth has as its centre, as the mainspring of its life, a community of Benedictine monks. It claims descent from the pre-Reformation community at Westminster Abbey through the last surviving monk from Westminster Sigebert Buckley (c. 1520 - c. 1610). After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 and the brief revival of monasticism under Queen Mary, Englishmen wishing to become Benedictines were forced to study at monasteries abroad. In 1602 a faculty for a revived English Benedictine Congregation was granted which sent missionaries to England and founded monasteries on the Continent, one of which was St. Laurence's at Dieulouard, now Ampleforth Abbey. The community had to leave France in 1793 and take refuge in Germany. From there they went to England and for nine years sought for a new home, eventually found for them at Ampleforth Lodge, which became the Priory of Ampleforth.
The arms are those used sometimes by Westminster Abbey in the late 16th century. Westminster Abbey used Per fesse dancetté Or and Azure, which occupies the lower part of the current Ampleforth shield. In medieval times this coat was sometimes used with a crozier dexter and a mitre sinister in the chief, both gules, see for example the arms of John Islip, which impale the Westminster Abbey arms with the his personal arms. Later the Abbey used the keys and cross and martlets as used by Ampleforth today, except that the keys were both of gold.
The crossed keys, found also in the arms of the Holy See, are the emblem of St. Peter, to whom Westminster Abbey was dedicated. The golden key is said to be that of loosing, the silver that of binding. The cross and martlets are the Arms traditionally ascribed to St. Edward the Confessor, founder of Westminster Abbey, though he lived a century before systematised heraldry existed in Europe.
The motto is not an integral part of the Arms. It is not generally used today, and is a pun on Dieulouard, the continental home of the forerunner of Ampleforth Abbey.
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© since 1995, Heraldry of the World, Ralf Hartemink 
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Literature: School arms by David Christie-Murray