Dictionary of British Arms: the publication of the fourth and final volume of the Dictionary of British Arms Medieval Ordinary completes the first stage of work, which began with a bequest to the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1926 from Lieutenant Colonel George Babington Croft Lyons to produce a new edition of Papworth's Ordinary. For several decades card indexes were compiled listing instances of British Arms, giving an original source for each entry. The index was divided into pre and post 1530, in other words the periods before and after the start of the Heralds' Visitations.
By the 1970s there were approximately 114,000 cards in the pre-1530 ordinary. The work was largely directed from the College of Arms as Sir Anthony Wagner, sometime Garter, was General Editor from 1940 till his death in 1995 and the decision to produce the work as an ordinary was taken in 1979.
Volume One of this monumental work was published in 1992, Volume Two in 1996, Volume Three in 2009 and Volume Four in 2014. The hard work of entering and editing over 20,000 cards for this volume and for Volume Three was undertaken by Sarah Flower at the College of Arms under the direction of the present Garter King of Arms, Thomas Woodcock. Together these four volumes form an index and ordinary to hundreds of manuscript and other sources for medieval British heraldry.
Volume Four and previous volumes are available online from: Boydell & Brewer Ltd., PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF.