THE LEXICON
The words the Court uses, and the ones it inherits.
Nobody arrives knowing all of this. That is what the page is for.
A
Achievement
The full armorial display: shield, helm, wreath, mantling, crest, supporters and compartment together. Most arms are shown as the shield alone; the achievement is the whole of what was granted.
Antechamber, the
The room outside the one where the Court sits. A name left there is not an application; it is a request to be written to when the Court next receives.
Arrangement, an
The work the Court does around an engagement it does not host: passage sought, seating taken, rooms held, a table kept afterward. Six belong to every membership each year. A week counts as one arrangement, and so does an afternoon.
Aula Regum
Latin for the court of kings, and the Court’s motto. It names the room rather than the men in it: a court keeps its character whoever is standing in it that evening.
B
Besant
A flat gold roundel on a shield, named for the bezant, the gold coin of Byzantium. Crusaders brought both the coin and the charge back west, where it came to stand for wealth held rather than spent.
Black tie
A dinner jacket, black or midnight blue, with a black bow tie tied by hand. It was devised in the 1860s as informal dress for dining at home, which is why it remains the lesser of the two evening codes.
Blazon
The written description of a coat of arms, in a fixed vocabulary and a fixed order. A blazon is the authority; any two artists working from the same words produce arms that differ in drawing but not in substance.
Box, the
A private enclosure at a racecourse, opera house or stadium, held for the day or the season. At the races it sits above the finish; at the opera it is judged by the sightline and the ease of leaving at the interval.
C
Committee, the
The body that decides on admission, conduct and the standing of members. Its deliberations are not published and its decisions are not appealed.
Compartment
The ground beneath an achievement on which the supporters stand. It is usually a grassy mount, and it is the one part of an achievement an artist may invent freely.
Concours d’elegance
A competition of elegance rather than speed, where motor cars are judged on originality, condition and correctness of restoration. It began in seventeenth-century Paris as a parade of carriages through the parks on a Sunday.
Country attire
Tweed or moleskin, a shirt and tie, stout shoes or boots. It is working dress before it is anything else, and it is judged by whether it would survive the day it is worn for.
Course, the
Golf, spoken of by its ground rather than its name. A course is judged by its routing and its condition, and a member who says he is on the course has said where he is and nothing more.
Crest
The device standing above the helm, not the arms as a whole. The word is misused constantly; a crest is one component of an achievement, and many arms have none.
D
Driven shoot, a
A shoot in which beaters drive birds over a line of standing guns, rather than the guns walking the ground. The birds come high and fast, and the difficulty is entirely in the angle.
E
Enclosure, the
The reserved ground at a racecourse, entered by badge and governed by its own dress code. At Ascot a section was set aside for the Royal Family and its guests in 1807, and admission by election and sponsorship followed. The badge is worn on the coat all day.
Engagement
A date in the Court’s calendar, whether the Court hosts it or attends it. The word is chosen for its second meaning: something one has undertaken to do, not something one has bought a ticket for.
Eventing
A three-part equestrian test of dressage, cross-country and show jumping, ridden by one horse and rider across several days. It began as a cavalry examination, which is why endurance is tested before precision.
F
Field, the
Mounted sport taken as a whole, and also the riders out on a given day. To be out with the field is to ride with the company rather than ahead of it.
Founding place, a
Membership taken in the Court’s first season, carrying a one-time fee and exemption from dues in perpetuity. The number is fixed. What it confers does not lapse when the places are taken, which is the whole of its value.
G
Glorious Twelfth, the
The twelfth of August, on which the red grouse season opens in Britain. The date has been fixed by statute since 1831, and nothing about the shooting is glorious except the fact of it beginning.
Gun, a
A person shooting, not the weapon. A driven day is arranged around a fixed number of guns, usually eight or nine, who draw for pegs and move up the line between drives.
H
Helm
The helmet set above the shield, on which the crest rests. Its form once declared rank, and in several traditions still does: the degree to which the visor stands open is not a decision of the artist.
L
Lounge suit
A matched suit in a dark cloth, with a tie. The name survives from the nineteenth century, when the lounge suit was what a man wore anywhere he was not required to wear a frock coat.
M
Mansa
A Mandinka title, meaning king or emperor, borne by the rulers of Mali. It is a title of stewardship rather than conquest: a mansa held the trade routes, the courts and the gold on behalf of those who lived along them.
Mantling
The cloth falling from the helm, drawn slashed and ragged. It represents the sun-cloak worn over armour on crusade, and the tearing is meant to be read as damage taken in the field.
Morning dress
A morning coat with cutaway front, waistcoat, striped or grey trousers, and a top hat where the enclosure asks for one. It is daytime formal dress, worn before six and not after.
P
Paddock, the
The ring where horses are walked and mounted before a race. It is where form is read in the flesh rather than on paper, and the walk there decides more wagers than the card does.
Passage
Entry to an engagement the Court does not host, sought on a member’s behalf. The word is older than the ticket and covers what a ticket does not: the badge, the invitation, the name at the door.
R
Rampant
A beast shown rearing on one hind foot, in profile, forelegs raised. It is the default attitude for a lion in heraldry, to the point that a lion described without an attitude is assumed to be rampant.
Regatta, a
A series of boat races run over several days as one meeting. The word is Venetian, from the gondoliers’ contests on the Grand Canal, and it still carries the sense of an occasion rather than a single race.
S
Secretary, the
The officer who keeps the register, sends the invitations, and answers correspondence. Where the Court is written to, it is the Secretary who reads it.
Smart casual
A jacket without a tie, trousers rather than jeans, and shoes rather than trainers. Nothing with a logo on it. The Court uses the code only where a suit would be wrong: a tennis stadium in forty degrees, a golf course, a race that runs through the night. It is the Court’s version of casual rather than the world’s, and the difference is visible.
Sport
What the Court keeps under no other heading: rugby, cycling, rowing, and the contests a city stops for. The word is used here for the sport itself rather than the ground it is played on.
Sporting clays
Clay targets thrown to imitate live quarry, over a course of varied stations. It is practice made into a competition, and the layout changes so that no shooter can learn a course by rote.
Stakes race, a
A race in which owners pay to enter and the entry fees are added to the prize. The name is literal: the stakes were the money put up, and the term long outlived the practice of putting it up in person.
Supporters
The figures standing either side of a shield and appearing to hold it up. In most heraldic traditions they are granted sparingly, which is why arms bearing them are read as a statement before the shield is read at all.
T
Tennis whites
White throughout, with trim in colour permitted only at some clubs and in some widths. The rule was written in the 1880s, when a visible sweat mark was thought improper, and white hid one better than colour did. It is enforced on the court rather than at the gate, and at the older clubs it is enforced absolutely.
Turf, the
Racing, flat and jump, spoken of as a single institution. The word covers the sport, its governance and the people who follow it, and it long predates the tracks now run on it.
W
White tie
A black tailcoat, white piqué waistcoat, white bow tie and starched wing collar. It is the highest evening code and the least negotiable; where an invitation names it, nothing else is dress.
Wreath
The twisted band of two silks set between helm and crest, conventionally shown as six alternating twists. It hid the join where the crest was fixed to the helmet, and remained in the drawing after the join ceased to exist.
Y
Yachting attire
Soft soles, white or navy, and nothing that will blow away. The rule about soles is not a matter of taste; a black sole marks a deck and the owner will notice.