Arms of casual origin include the basic ordinaries of the chief, fesse, chevron, and pale and they probably owe their origin to the bands of metal added to a shield for the sake of increasing its strength. A very early instance is the gold pale (vertical band) on a red shield Gules a pale or, belonging to Hugh de Grandemesnil, in the reign of Henry I, image below. Banded and studded shields appears on the pre-heraldic Bayeux Tapestry. Such shields became heraldic in character when the strengthening pieces were colored differently from the surface (field) of the shield upon which they were laid. The shield of a branch of the Montgomery family provides an example of Arms which sprang from the emblem...
The writer Planché memorably described Heraldry as “ the shorthand of history,” but in quoting that phrase the limitations of Heraldry and the dimensions of history must not be overlooked. The idea that every Coat of Arms has a symbolic meaning is false; it is not true of Heraldry, as in commercial advertising, that “every picture tells a story.” The decoration of banners and shields, which has been a persistent custom among warlike people in all ages, was in medieval Europe systematized into what we now call Heraldry to meet a defined need, namely to provide medieval warriors with a means of identification when fully armed. Shut in his house of steel, the knight felt the same need to hang...
Today only English and Scottish Heraldic officers wear official ceremonial dress. On British state occasions, such as coronations, the officers of Arms wear their full heraldic regalia of tabard and knee breeches and carry their staffs of office, continuing a tradition that was begun 800 years ago. In most other European countries the tradition of wearing ceremonial garb ceased after World War I. In the 12th and 13th centuries, when the Herald acted as a messenger or envoy, he would have worn the lord’s own tabard, or short surcoat, as a mark of favour and acknowledgement of the special relationship between a lord and his herald. Wearing his Lord’s armorial tabard clearly indicated that he had his master’s favor and...
The depiction of marriage on Coats of Arms in the early Middle Ages tended to include both Coats of Arms for husband and wife contained upon a single shield. In the late 13th century, in order to fit both Arms on the one shield a process known as dimidiated, or chopped in half, occurred. This unusual practice of joining of two Coats of Arms did not persist for long and by the end of the 14th century showing full sets of Arms for both the husband and wife had become the norm. An early example of the practice of dimidiation can be seen in the Coat of Arms used by Margaret of France after her marriage to Edward I of...
Many of the Coats of Arms of the Russian nobility include the ciphers of sovereigns and charges taken from the Arms of the Romanov emperors. One of the most augmented Coat of Arms of all time were those of Count Alexander Suvorov-Ryminsky, commander of the Russian Armies, whose brilliant strategies helped bring about the eventual defeat of Napoleon. As commander-in-chief of the Russo-Austrian Army during the Second Coalition, he drove the French out of northern Italy in 1799 and was created Prince Italiysky. He had also previously defeated a Turkish Army on the banks of the River Rymnik in Turkey in 1789. The augmentations on his Coat of Arms included a rendering of the map of Italy, an escutcheon (small...
