crest [Dabney Hovse]

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====== The Dabney House Crest ======

{{dabney_crest.svg}}

===== Heraldric description =====
Gules, five fleurs-de-lis sable on lozenges argent conjoined in fess; on chief three birds passant or. Surmounted by a tusked elephant head vert with neck tortilly argent and gules. Riband for the motto to base argent; motto: FIDELIS ET GRATUS sable.

===== Origin =====

The following comes to us from Kaihsu Tai, by way of a document found in the Dabney President's box of stuff, dated October 14, 1959, and signed by Donald Slelard (?):

> The coat of arms is of the house of Dabney (Daubeney). The description of the coat of arms is Gules, five fusils in fess argent, each charged with a fleur-de-lis azure, chief three martlets, or, Crest -- and the elephant's head erased. The motto is "Fidelis et gratus". The family of Daubeney was originally French and in the 17th century they came to America. Thereupon, they changed the name to Dabney primarily to eliminate reference to nobility. In 1890, the family again became nobility conscious and resurrected the family coat of arms. Upon careful study, it was shown that the coat of arms is somewhat of a mixture of French and english in that the one branch of the Daubeney family was driven out of France for various and sundry reasons, none of which the family is proud of, whereupon this branch of the family secured interests in India. It is because of this Indian influence that the crest is an elephant of Indian type, not African. The green of the elephant is for decoration and bears no relation to the Irish. The shield is red because of the courage of the Daubeney family and chiefly for all the blood they spilled in brave actions. The martlets upon the coat of arms are of a very rare bird that ceased to exist in France in approximately 1300. They also indicate the interest of the family in sports as prior to 1300, martlets were highly prized as a game bird. Fleur-de-lis are on the coat of arms by virtue of crown grants. Why there are five, no one has been able to tell. The motto "Fidelis et gratus" leads one to suspect in the absence of proof that the family was held in great esteem and were shown great fidelity by their serfs and that the family was always high in showing gratification for anything that came their way, whether honestly or dishonestly.

===== Minimalist version =====

{{:minimal-crest.svg?250}}

The minimalist version of the Dabney crest also comes to us from the estimable Kaihsu Tai, who drew the first one with chalk on the floor of the Dabney courtyard.

===== More =====

Tom Q found all the info above. See his [[http://wombatula.com/dei/crests/|Dabney Crests]] page for details and scalable versions of both crests.