Christmas Gift Guide: Part 1
November 09, 2026
Every so often, though, a gift arrives that a man will still be wearing thirty years later. A signet ring bearing his family's crest is one of those.
Heraldic Times
German Heraldry: Part 4
Every heraldic tradition develops its own regional cast of characters, and Central Europe's is shaped unmistakably by its landscape: dense forests, high alpine peaks, and a deep well of legend running underneath both.
German Heraldry: Part 3
If you've absorbed the idea that heraldry belonged strictly to titled nobility, Germany is the tradition that overturns it most decisively.
German Heraldry: Part 2
In English heraldry, the crest tends to play a supporting role, a small figure perched above the shield that most people barely notice next to the main design. German heraldry never accepted that arrangement.
German Heraldry: Part 1
Ask someone to picture a coat of arms, and they'll probably imagine something English or French: a single knight's shield, granted by a single king, recorded in a single national registry. German heraldry never worked that way, and understanding why takes you straight into the strange, sprawling political structure that...
Welsh Heraldry: Part 4
Not every symbol carried into battle in Wales was a beast or a shield. Some of the most enduring markers of Welsh identity grew straight out of the ground, or were pinned to a hat rather than painted on armor.
Welsh Heraldry: Part 3
Most of European heraldry assumes a fixed surname sitting behind every coat of arms, a name that stays the same from grandfather to grandson so a family's arms have somewhere stable to attach. Wales didn't work that way until surprisingly recently.
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