Take a close look at the image below on the left.  Do you see the Playboy Bunny in reverse?

WTF?!?  I was so amused when I noticed the symbol yesterday that I had to make it today’s post.  The heraldic image above actually comes from the Hastings Hours (a private devotional book) in the British Library.  Evidently, the Hastings’ family coat of arms is comprised of argent a maunch sable (or, black sleeve on a silver background).  So the negative space between the sleeve that looks like the Playboy Bunny is just pure negative space.  And that oddly shaped black thing is a sleeve, like the ones on a shirt but imagine a long, swooping medieval sleeve.

The golden writing around the blue belt (actually the symbol of the Order of the Garter) says Honi soit qui mal y pense: Shame be to him who thinks evil!  The book was owned by William Hastings, 1^st Baron of Hastings.

Enjoy the full pages that include the coat of arms below.

Master of the First Prayer Book of Maximilian I, The Annunciation (fols. 73v-74), 1475-1483, tempera colors and gold on parchment.  The British Library, London [Add. MS 54782]

Master of the First Prayer Book of Maximilian I, King David Before the Almighty (fols. 150v-151), 1475-1483, tempera colors and gold on parchment.  The British Library, London [Add. MS 54782]

Can you spot the Hastings arms in the image below?

Master of the First Prayer Book of Maximilian I, A Funeral (fols. 184v), 1475-1483, tempera colors and gold on parchment.  The British Library, London [Add. MS 54782]