A maunch (from the French ''manche'' "sleeve") is a heraldic charge representing a detachable lady's sleeve with a wide pendulous cuff, as was fashionable amongst women in the

13th In music or music theory, a thirteenth is the note thirteen scale degrees from the root of a chord and also the interval between the root and the thirteenth. The interval can be also described as a compound sixth, spanning an octave pl ...

and 14th centuries. They are found most frequently in

English heraldry English heraldry is the form of coats of arms and other heraldic bearings and insignia used in England. It lies within the so-called Gallo-British tradition. Coats of arms in England are regulated and granted to individuals by the English kings ...

, occurring to a lesser extent in the heraldry of France, Scotland, and other nations. In the Middle Ages, it was common for ladies to give their sleeves as favours for knights to wear in tournaments. Thus, heraldic maunches came to symbolise that the armiger was popular with the ladies, or that he loved his wife. Alternatively maunches can occur as canting arms, such as in the arms of the Mohun and Mansel families. In French heraldry, they are referred to as ''manches mal taillée'' (meaning "badly cut sleeves") to distinguish them from ordinary sleeves.

In literature

In Sir Thomas Malory's ''

Le Morte d'Arthur ' (originally written as '; inaccurate Middle French for "The Death of Arthur") is a 15th-century Middle English prose reworking by Sir Thomas Malory of tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Knights of the Rou ...

'', Sir Lancelot fights in a tournament anonymously as an unknown knight using a white shield with a red sleeve on it. He also affixes Lady Elaine le Blanc's sleeve to his helmet to further disguise himself as he has never worn a lady's token of affection in a tournament.

References

{{commons category, Sleeves in heraldry *Fox-Davies, Arthur Charles (1909), ''A complete guide to heraldry'' New York : Dodge (1909) https://archive.org/details/cu31924029796608.

External links

*http://www.heraldsnet.org/saitou/parker/Jpglossm.htm#Maunch Heraldic charges