The Heralds' Visitations part 4
With the creation of the College of Arms and it’s consolidation in London under the eye of successive monarchs, the college went from strength to strength. It was from this strengthened and revived College of Arms that the Heralds went out to hold the Heralds’ Visitations in the 16th and 17th centuries. What exactly were these Visitations? They were a new departure in the recording of arms, for they combined almost from the start the recording of pedigrees with that of arms, and the Heralds acquired a genealogical function which they have kept to the present day. The Visitations were a continuation of the old Rolls of Arms and a new form of recording armorial matters. They were also crucially...