Marcus Vulson de la Colombière

Marc Vulson de la Colombière (†1658) or Sieur de la Colombière was a French heraldist, historian, poet, minion of the royal court. His name is sometimes spelt as Wulson and also as Volson.

He published several highly successful books on symbols, prophecies, heraldry, dreams etc. He put together all the available knowledge and traditions associated with chivalry. In the 17th century chivalry was practically rediscovered by two genealogists in the French court: Vulson de la Colombière and Claude-François Ménestrier after its golden age (1100–1400) and the decline of chivalry, developing its idealized image. Some authors named Vulson de la de la Colombière as the inventor of hatching system of tinctures.

We have only some fragmented data about his life. Even the 19th century big biographies deliver only incomplete information about him. He was born in a Protestant noble family at the end of the 16th century in Dauphiné. He was a son of François, advocat and Michelle Odde de Bonniot. In his youth, he fought for Henry IV. According to a curious anecdote, in 1618 he went to Paris to request grace, after he killed his treacherous wife and her lover.

According to the title pages of his books, (see for example Le Vray Théâtre d´honneur et de Chevalerie, Paris, 1648), he was a member of the parliament in Paris and the member of the Order of Saint Michael (gentilhomme de la Chambre du Roi et Décoré de l’Ordre de Saint-Michel). By all probability, until 1635 he was staying in Grenoble as he was a royal counselor in the Dauphiné parliament (conseiller du roi en la cour de parlement de Dauphiné). He also published a book in the spirit of the Gallicanism in Geneva that year. (It can be noted that several of the Protestant priests and students at the Geneva University were his kinsmen.) Gallicanism served as a proper means to express his Protestant views in opposition to Catholicism, and he presented them in such a way that it was even appreciated by the state establishment too.

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