File:Harness pendant (FindID 617872).jpg

English: Incomplete cast copper alloy heraldic horse-harness pendant in the shape of a shield. The arms on the face of the shield are in the form of six horizontal lines of alternating squares in a checkerboard pattern, with most of the raised red enamelled squares remaining. The recessed areas in bronze would have originally been gold in colour and contrasted with the red enamel and reflected off its glassy surface. The base of the suspension loop survives and tapers to a point where the loop would have been.

Without a canton (a square charge which is a diminutive of the Quarter) in the top left corner of the shield, it is impossible to be sure which family is represented. But the heraldic pattern like this one of horizontal lines of squares, alternating in gold and red, or 'chequy or and gules' has been associated with the Fleming family (Gilbert, 1820, plate 13). Pascoe (1979) describes the arms of the Fleming family of Landithy in Madron as 'Vair, a chief chequy Or and Gu' on page 40. The more ancient coat of arms of the Flemminge family of Cornwall, referred to in 1620, consisted of just the 'Chequy Or and Gul' (Baring-Gould, 1898, 19) as depicted on the pendant.

The ancient family of Fleming (Latinised to de Flandrensis ("from Flanders")), who, at a very early period, became barons of Slane in Ireland, had large possessions in Cornwall and Devonshire, and are supposed to have given name to the parish of Botes-Fleming. Their chief English residence was at Chymwell in the parish of Bratton Fleming, Devonshire, which manor they held as recorded in the Domesday Book. They possessed the manor of Ashetorre in Saltash, a seignory with very extensive jurisdiction, till the reign of Edward IV, when the coheiresses of the elder branch married Bellew and Dillon. The barony of Slane, which has since been forfeited by attainder, went to a younger branch, still remaining in Ireland. It is most probable that the Flemings of Landithy, who came from Munster in Ireland, and bore the same arms, were of this family.

Cherry in Saunders (1991) illustrates a similar shield-shaped pendant with two rows of alternating squares in gold and blue ('checky or and azure') on page 24, Fig.1, No.2 which is dated from the 14th century. (de Warenne, Earl of Surrey?)