How to use this website.
Note: Occasional references may remain to the original CD. These should be ignored.

For an overview, take the Guided Tour, or visit the Site Map. For the Introduction see below.

In the Text and Pictures listing, you can follow the sequence of chapters in the Academy of Armory, or select individual topics. In the main Text and Pictures sections, click on each picture to see an enlarged version, sometimes with a more detailed caption.

The Picture Index is based on the original plates of the Academy of Armory. It gives a visual overview of the arrangement of the book itself and also provides chapter-by-chapter thumbnails for the pictures in the main text.
Links to the un-illustrated text sections are also included.
The Image List is arranged like the Picture Index but without the thumbnails.

The Ms Pages section includes images of the original sheets of drawings in the Harleian manuscripts. They can be browsed directly and are also linked to and from the enlarged pictures in the Text and Pictures section.

In the Introduction, the First Section gives a brief biography of Randle Holme and discusses the contents, creation and sources of the Academy of Armory.
The Second Section describes the editing of the text and the images. It is also linked to the Bibliography of books cited by Randle Holme.

You can locate specific topics using the Table of Subjects This gives subject headings, each acccompanied by a summary list of the topics included, all linked to the corresponding Text and Pictures pages.
The Text Indexes provides links to the words in the main text, each accompanied by a short context phrase; The three indexes include: significant words; all words in standardised spelling; all words in their original spelling.
The small Sampler section provides (i) a sequence of typical images (ii) a clickable version of the Montage used for the cover of the CD-ROM, so that these images can be examined.
To revisit the initial title pages, use the Site Map or the Ms Pages.

Note: Randle Holme uses heraldic terms to identify positions in a square with more than one image. Dexter refers to the right side of a shield as viewed by the user, i. e. the left of the image square, and Sinister refers to the right of the image square. Chief and Base refer respectively to the top and bottom of the square; Fess is occasionally used of an image running across the centre of the square horizontally and Pale of one running vertically.