By R. R. Timberlake

Perhaps others like myself have been intrigued by the motto above the door of Wolf House, Silverdale, Homo homini lupus, or ’Man is a wolf to man’. Although obviously inspired by the wolf crest of the Fleetwood family, it has always seemed to me a rather cynical choice of a motto. The other day I found it quoted in a Spanish novel, La Regenta, by Leopoldo Alas, published in 1885, when it was obviously in common use in the sense of ‘Man preys on Man’. A note in the recent English translation of La Regenta explains that it is borrowed from Plautus’ Asinaria, Act II, sc. ii, 1. 495. A slightly different implication is revealed by a reference to Plautus where the full sentence reads, ‘Lupus est homo homini, non homo, quom qualis sit non novit’, or ‘A man is a wolf, not a man, to another man when he does not know what sort of fellow he is’, i.e. ‘Do not trust a stranger’. ‘Whatever the exact meaning that was intended, it looks as if disillusion or resentment was at the back of it. Can anyone produce an explanation?

Mr R.R. Timberlake raised the question of the motto under the coat of arms over the door of Wolf House but got no answer to his query. It – reads Homo homini lupus, which is usually read as’ indicating a cynical outlook on life – that man is a wolf to his fellow man. It is, however, a line from a play by Plautus.

The full quotation (Asinaria II.iv) reads, Lupus est homo homini, non homo, quom qualis sit non novit, which night be translated as, ‘A man is no man, but rather a wolf, to a man who does not know what sort he is’- a cautious rather than a cynical remark.

The coat of arms, with its six martlets and its wolf crest, belongs to the Fleetwood family, and was presumably put there when the property belonged to Henry Paul Fleetwood (David Peters, In and around Silverdale 1984). The motto, however, is unusual. Fox-Davies (Armorial Families, 19) gives the Fleetwood motto as Quod tibi hoc alteri (What goes for you, goes for the other man, or more colloquially, do as you would be done by.) It is true that in England, unlike Scotland, the motto is not part of the original grant of arms and is not hereditary. Any holder of a coat of arms is free to write in what motto he chooses. The problem remains of why this particular Fleetwood chose this particular motto. Has anyone any information?

Published in Mourholme Magazines Issue 8 Summer 1984 and Mourholme Magazines Issue 14 1990