Coats of Arms

In medieval times knights used a coat of arms to identify who was who on a battlefield or at a tournament. It needed to be clear and to be able to be seen from a distance. A coat of arms was like a name badge. Later on it became a way of showing that you were a member of the aristocracy. Heraldry was sometimes used on shields, tabards and standards (flags).

A coat of arms can have several parts as well as the shield, it may have a motto, a crest above it or animals supporting the shield.

Sometimes a coat of arms was quartered or divided by straight lines these are called ‘ordinaires’ and depending on how they are divided up the ordinaires are named. Some examples are given below.

bend	bend sinister	chief	fess	pale

cross	saltire	pall	chevron	pile

A cross on a shield was seen as being very significant as it usually showed that you had fought in the crusades.

Traditionally most shields were not ordinaries but had a distinctive symbol on them such as an animal or fleur-de-lis. These symbols were known as charges. Charges were drawn as an outline either in profile or facing directly forwards and not to appear as if in 3D, this made them stand out more when viewed from a distance. They were drawn so that the animal could be recognized but not necessarily realistically. The animals chosen as charges were sometimes real animals and sometimes mythical ones such as dragons and griffins. They were usually depicted looking fierce and as if ready to fight. There are names for the positions in which the animals are shown:

rampant	standing on back legs
rampant guardant	standing on back legs, facing the viewer
passant	walking
couchant	lying down
sejant	sitting

 

bear passant	horse rampant	lion rampant guardant

When heraldry became less significant on the battlefield and at tournaments aristocratic families used them to show off their importance. The eldest son in a family would inherit his families coat of arms unchanged while his brothers would add a symbol to show who they were; this was often a small picture placed in the middle. When a woman married, especially if she didn’t have brothers, the coat of arms of her family was often added to her husband’s arms. If the arms were quartered the husband’s arms would appear in the top left and bottom right and the wife’s in the top right and bottom left quarters.

Heraldic Colours

metal	or	gold or yellow
	argent	silver or white
colour	gules	bright red
	vert	emerald green
	azure	blue
	sable	black
	purpure	royal purple

Traditionally heraldry only used the colours above except for an object that was ‘proper’, which means in its natural colours, for example a ‘tree proper’ would have a brown trunk and green leaves. The colours were known by special names.

The background colour is called the field, sometimes the field is divided up by straight lines separating different colours. There are two metals called or and argent and five colours.

Traditionally the field could be either a metal or a colour but if an object (properly called a charge) overlaid the field it would be a metal if the field were a colour and a colour if the field was a metal. ie a metal cannot be put on a metal or a colour on another colour. The reason for this was to make the coats of arms stand out on a battlefield.

The Blazon

The blazon is a description of the shield in words using the special vocabulary used in heraldry. This vocabulary comes from old French which was introduced with the Normans. The idea behind blazoning is that a description of a shield can be given and a drawing (emblazoning) or picture in the head can be made from the description which will be as like the original as possible.

For a simple shield with a golden lion standing on its back legs on a red field (background) it would be: gules, a lion rampant or.

The background colour is given first, then the charge and its colour. If the background is divided it gets a bit more complicated, for example a shield divided diagonally from top left to bottom right with green on top and black underneath and charged with a silver horse walking it would be: Per bend vert and sable, a horse passant argent.

It can get even more complicated!