Jean Courtois was a French herald

Herald

A herald, or, more correctly, a herald of arms, is an officer of arms, ranking between pursuivant and king of arms. The title is often applied erroneously to all officers of arms....

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en: Sicily Herald, fr: le Sicile heraut, it: Sicillo Araldo, la: Siculus

Jean Courtois called Sicily Herald was in the service of the king of the two Sicilies Alfonso V of Aragon. He lived for long in Mons

Mons

Mons is a Walloon city and municipality located in the Belgian province of Hainaut, of which it is the capital. The Mons municipality includes the old communes of Cuesmes, Flénu, Ghlin, Hyon, Nimy, Obourg, Baudour , Jemappes, Ciply, Harmignies, Harveng, Havré, Maisières, Mesvin, Nouvelles,...

 in Hainaut

County of Hainaut

The County of Hainaut was a historical region in the Low Countries with its capital at Mons . In English sources it is often given the archaic spelling Hainault....

 in the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

. At the beginning of his career, he was in the service of Pierre de Luxembourg, the count of Saint-Pol

Saint-Pol

Saint-Pol is part of the name of several communes in France:* Saint-Pol-de-Léon, in the Finistère département, named after Paul Aurelian, a Celtic saint* Saint-Pol-sur-Mer, in the Nord département...

, and then he acted in the Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

 court of Alfonso of Aragon king of Sicily, Valence, Majorca, Corsica, and Sardinia, the count of Barcelona. In his work Le Blason des Couleurs (1414), Courtois developed a heraldic system consisting of the tinctures

Tincture (heraldry)

In heraldry, tinctures are the colours used to emblazon a coat of arms. These can be divided into several categories including light tinctures called metals, dark tinctures called colours, nonstandard colours called stains, furs, and "proper". A charge tinctured proper is coloured as it would be...

, planets and carbuncle

Carbuncle

A carbuncle is an abscess larger than a boil, usually with one or more openings draining pus onto the skin. It is usually caused by bacterial infection, most commonly Staphylococcus aureus. The infection is contagious and may spread to other areas of the body or other people...

s, the virtue

Virtue

Virtue is moral excellence. A virtue is a positive trait or quality subjectively deemed to be morally excellent and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being....

s, metal

Metal

A metal , is an element, compound, or alloy that is a good conductor of both electricity and heat. Metals are usually malleable and shiny, that is they reflect most of incident light...

s, month

Month

A month is a unit of time, used with calendars, which was first used and invented in Mesopotamia, as a natural period related to the motion of the Moon; month and Moon are cognates. The traditional concept arose with the cycle of moon phases; such months are synodic months and last approximately...

s, the zodiac

Zodiac

In astronomy, the zodiac is a circle of twelve 30° divisions of celestial longitude which are centred upon the ecliptic: the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year...

, and weekdays among others. He claimed, his work was compiled with ”l'Aide de Dieu”, prince

Prince

Prince is a general term for a ruler, monarch or member of a monarch's or former monarch's family, and is a hereditary title in the nobility of some European states. The feminine equivalent is a princess...

s, knight

Knight

A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....

s, squire

Squire

The English word squire is a shortened version of the word Esquire, from the Old French , itself derived from the Late Latin , in medieval or Old English a scutifer. The Classical Latin equivalent was , "arms bearer"...

s and all his brothers, kings of arms and herald

Herald

A herald, or, more correctly, a herald of arms, is an officer of arms, ranking between pursuivant and king of arms. The title is often applied erroneously to all officers of arms....

s. He was familiar with the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville

Isidore of Seville

Saint Isidore of Seville served as Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered, as the historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien"...

, and also he gave the names of the tinctures in Greek. However, his main contribution was the development of gemstone-planetary blazon

Blazon

In heraldry and heraldic vexillology, a blazon is a formal description of a coat of arms, flag or similar emblem, from which the reader can reconstruct the appropriate image...

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Editions

• Trattato dei colori nelle arme, nelle livre e nelle divise. (Naples
  Naples
  Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
  
  , manuscript in Italian). New edition, Pavia: A. Viani, 1593).
• A French language translation: Le blason des couleurs en armes, livres et divises (H. Cocheris, Paris, 1860)

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