Coat of arms

From Free net encyclopedia

(Redirected from Coat-of-arms)

See heraldry for a fuller account of the history, design, and regulation of coats of arms.

A coat of arms or armorial bearings (often just arms for short) is, in European tradition, a colorful design belonging to a particular person or group of people and used by him or her in a wide variety of ways.

Coats of arms have their origins in the designs used by medieval knights to make their armor and shield stand out in battle or tournaments and enable quick recognition by allies or spectators. The designs were used to decorate clothing worn over the knight's armor, from which we derive the term coat of arms. In addition to being painted on the shield, elements of a knight's coat of arms were used to decorate the helmet crest, pavilion, and banners used by knights.

In some heraldic traditions (such as the Scottish), an individual (rather than a family) possesses a coat of arms. In those traditions, coats of arms were passed from father to son as legal property, and were not used by more than a single individual at the same time (other than the eldest son and his eldest son both of whom would differentiate with a label). Other children in a Scottish family would only use a form of their father's arms that were differenced with a change to a color or addition of a distinguishing charge once they obtained Lord Lyon's specific approval. Other traditions, including the English were less formal.

Because of their importance as legal property, the use of arms as a distinguishing mark has necessitated their strict regulation (although today only a few countries continue in this); this has been carried out by heralds and the study of coats of arms is called "heraldry."

Today, the term "coat of arms" or "arms" is frequently applied in two different ways. In some uses, it may indicate a full achievement of arms or heraldic achievement, which includes a variety of elements — usually a crest sitting atop a helmet, itself sitting on a shield; other common elements include supporters holding up the shield and a motto beneath. Other times, "coat of arms" or "arms" is used to refer simply to the escutcheon (i.e. the shield itself). (Note that the crest is one specific part of a heraldic achievement and that "crest of arms" is a misnomer.) The "coat of arms" frequently were adorned with a device - a motto, emblem, or other mark used by a Knight-errant to distinguish himself from others. If a motto affixed to the arms, it usually had some punning allusion to his name. A device differed from a badge or cognizance primarily because as it was a personal distinction, and not a badge borne by members of the same house successively.

The Japanese equivalent, called kamon (often abbreviated "mon"), are family badges which often date back to the seventh century, and are still actively used in Japan today.

At a national level "coats of arms" are generally retained by those states with constitutional continuity of more than a few centuries, including constitutional monarchies like Denmark as well as old republics like San Marino and Switzerland. Since 1989 some of the ex-Communist states, such as Romania, have resumed the arms of their former monarchs.

The Great Seal of the United States is often said to be the coat of arms of the United States of America, though it does not conform with the European heraldic tradition.

Note that not all personal or corporate insignia are heraldic, though they may share many features. For example, flags are used to identify ships, embassies and such, and they use the same colors and designs found in heraldry, but they are not usually considered to be heraldic. A country may have both a national flag and a national coat of arms, and the two may not look alike at all. For example, the flag of Scotland (St Andrew's Cross) has a white saltire on a blue field, but the royal arms of Scotland have a red lion within a double tressure on a gold field.

[edit]

External links

[1] A shareware program which allows the user to construct their own blazons

The Heraldry Series
Blazon \| Cadency \| Canting arms \| Coat of arms \| Officers of Arms
Badge \| Crest \| Compartment \| Mantling \| Mon \| Quartering \| Shield \| Supporters

National flags	National coats of arms
Flags of sovereign states	Coats of arms of sovereign states
Flags of dependent territories Flags of unrecognized states	Coats of arms of dependent territories Coats of arms of unrecognized states