16 questions · History
In the twelfth century knights had a problem: under a great helm and a coat of mail one looked just like the next. Anyone who wanted to be recognised in a tournament or on the battlefield painted a sign on his shield. From that practical idea grew a whole science with a language of its own, heraldry. Its guardians were the heralds, court officers who checked the arms of the combatants at tournaments, proclaimed them and recorded them in rolls of arms. The discipline is named after them. The heart of every coat of arms is the shield, the only element that may never be left out. Above it a helm with a crest may sit, beside it there are often supporters, lions, wild men or angels holding it up, and on a scroll below there is sometimes a motto. A puzzle for beginners: right and left are defined from the point of view of the bearer behind the shield. Heraldic right, or dexter, is therefore what the viewer sees on the left. The colours follow strict rules too. The tinctures include metals, colours and furs. Gold may be painted as yellow and silver as white, and the rule of tincture says that colour should never lie on colour, nor metal on metal, so the design stays legible from afar. In English blazon red is gules and blue is azure. Among the furs, ermine shows black tails on white, while vair recalls the sewn together pelts of squirrels. Among the charges, heralds distinguish the ordinaries, geometric bands such as the pale, the fess and the chevron, from the common charges such as a lion, a tower or a key. The most famous flower is the fleur-de-lis of the French kings. Anyone describing a coat of arms uses the blazon, a terse technical language precise enough for a painter to reproduce the arms without ever seeing them.
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Tinctures
The metals are gold and silver, the main colours red, blue, green and black, and the furs ermine and vair.
đź’ˇ Did you know? Because old prints had no colour, a system of hatching was invented: vertical lines stand for red, horizontal lines for blue.
Gold
Gold and silver are the two heraldic metals; silver, called argent, may likewise appear as white.
đź’ˇ Did you know? In hatching, gold is shown as a field of dots, while silver is simply left blank.
Gules
The word comes from Old French; in modern French blazon red is still called gueules.
đź’ˇ Did you know? A popular explanation links it to collars of red dyed fur that were called gueules in the Middle Ages.
Azure
The word goes back through Arabic to the Persian name of lapis lazuli.
đź’ˇ Did you know? The arms of the French kings showed golden fleurs-de-lis on azure.
Shield
Helm, crest, supporters and motto are accessories; a shield on its own is already a complete coat of arms.
💡 Did you know? Women’s arms were traditionally shown not on a shield but on a lozenge, a diamond shape.
Crest
It was originally a real figure, often of leather or wood, that a knight wore on his helm in tournaments.
💡 Did you know? In everyday English “family crest” is often used for the whole coat of arms, which heralds consider wrong.
Supporters
They are often lions, griffins, wild men or angels and form part of the external ornaments.
đź’ˇ Did you know? In the British royal arms a lion and a unicorn hold the shield.
Motto
It expresses an attitude or a promise of the family and is not an obligatory part of the arms.
💡 Did you know? The British royal arms bear the French motto “Dieu et mon droit”.
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