Gerard Legh's heraldic treatise under its later title, printed in London by Henry Ballard in 1597, transcribed from the Getty Research Institute copy.
The Accedence of Armorie (1597) is the first edition of Gerard Legh’s heraldic treatise to appear under that spelling of the title, and it is the edition by which the work is now most often cited. It was printed in London by Henrie Ballard, “dwelling without Temple-barre at the signe of the Beare.” The text is a colloquy between Gerard the Herehaught and Leigh the Caligat knight, and it carries a prefatory address by Richard Argall. The first edition had been printed by Richard Tottel in 1562 as The Accedens of Armory.
The complete text of the 1597 edition is given here, from the title page to the colophon, including the Table and the verses on tricking. It is divided into chapters below so that it can be read a section at a time.
The transcription follows the Getty Research Institute copy, scanned in full colour at 500 ppi and recorded as public domain. It can be read at HathiTrust (view the scan) and the same image set is hosted by the Internet Archive (view the scan). The edition is recorded as STC (2nd ed.) 15392 and ESTC S108424. The 1562 first edition is recorded separately at The Accedens of Armory (Tottel, 1562).
The text is diplomatic with light normalization. Original spelling and punctuation are retained; long s is rendered as s; u/v and i/j are kept as printed; nasal abbreviations are silently expanded; prose is reflowed into paragraphs, so the original line breaks are not preserved; verse is kept in lines. Running heads, catchwords and signature marks are not transcribed. Woodcuts are reproduced inline as images cropped from the Getty scan. The whole work is transcribed and has been proofread page by page against the scan; the pass corrected a systematic misreading of long s as f and normalised long s to s throughout. A few readings remain uncertain because the scan’s long s and f are hard to tell apart; these were resolved by context.