Heraldry



Heraldry is, according to Sir Anthony Wagner, “the systematic use of hereditary devices centred on the shield.”  This means, primarily, what has come to be known as "the coat of arms." While shields were decorated in the classical and early medieval eras, as well as in East Asian cultures, such decorations were either not systematic or not hereditary (or neither). Medieval heraldry (as well as modern heraldry, which is unchanged in substance) follows rules enforced by heraldic officers, and constituted a form of intellectual property that could be passed down from parents to children according to those rules.

In 14th century Europe literacy was rare, and so images were how you identified yourself. Heraldic imagery needed to be precise and distinctive, as it functioned much the way that social network profiles, business cards, or even signatures function today. In general, heraldry is “insignia which is distinctive of a person or family” or or even a country (J.P. Brooke-Little, Boutell’s Heraldry [London:  Frederick Warne, 1970], p. 163).

Definition of Heraldry
As noted above, heraldry is “the systematic use of hereditary devices centred on the shield” (Sir Anthony Wagner). Shields have probably been decorated for as long as they have been in use by human warriors. However, not all shield decorations are either systematically regulated or passed down from one individual to their hereditary heirs. For example, the decoration of Greek aspis shields may have been random according to the whim of the owner, or standardized for all members of a city-state's militia (like the Spartan "Lambda" for Lacedaemon). Similarly, the shields borne by William the Conqueror's Norman cavalry and King Harald's shield wall were brightly decorated, but to our knowledge these designs were neither regulated nor tied to individual identification nor passed onto the bearer's descendents.

By contrast, therefore, medieval heraldry was 1) a form of individual identification, 2) passed on to hereditary descendants, and 3) professionally codified & regulated.  In the main, therefore there is no such thing as a "family" coat of arms.  Any particular coat of arms indicates the identity of an individual rather than a family, although in many cases there will be strong heraldic similarities between the arms of different family members. In the case of national or corporate (business, civil or other organizational) heraldry, the arms represent an individual in either a symbolic or legal sense. The people of England are identified by t, whereas the government and people of Edmonton, Alberta, can be identified by the arms of the city of Edmonton. But in no wise are 'your' coat of arms discernible by simply typing your last name into an internet database (like this one), which completely undermines the function of heraldry as individual identification and private property.



An individual may legitimately display heraldic arms under the following circumstances:

First, if the individual inherits the arms from the person of whom they are the legal heir. This is how you might get a coat of arms from a family member, i.e. by tracing your pedigree to an armigerous (heraldically entitled) ancestor. Second, if the individual is granted a coat of arms by an armourial authority. In Canada and other Commonwealth countries, this will be from a group of heralds appointed by the sovereign, like the College of Armsin England or the Canadian Heraldic Authority. Third, if the individual is identifying themself as a follower of a nobleman/noblewoman to whom they bear allegiance, or to another institutional entity like a city or country. In such cases, care must be taken in the display of such arms to distinguish the follower from the person who is being followed. For this reason, badges may have been more commonly used to indicate who one is a follower of.

Heraldic Conflicts

The image to the left shows how to bear national arms identifying yourself as a member of the English army. The flag (a banner, specifically) on the soldier's spear bears the arms of St. George. In the context of medieval Northwestern Europe in the 14th century, it would have been known that St. George was one of the patron saints of England (in previous centuries other saints and their arms represented England without St. George). Moreover, because everybody knew that St. George was not a living individual with direct descendants, everybody also knew that by displaying the arms of St. George the individual wasn't claiming to actually be St. George or his individual successor!

By contrast, the image to the right shows how  not  to bear arms identifying yourself as a member of the English army. In a classic television blunder, the soldiers in Edward III's army are shown carrying shields bearing Edward III's personal royal arms. Heraldically speaking, this means that each soldier with that shield was de facto claiming to actually be  the king of England. The distinction between royal and national insignia is still maintained today in the United Kingdom:  the royal arms do not represent the people of the United Kingdom, but rather individual monarch of the United Kingdom (currently the person of Queen Elizabeth II). The people of the United Kindom are represented by their patron saints' flags, either individually (i.e., Scotland's, England's cross of St. George, etc.) or aggregated (the ).

Heraldic conflict, therefore, arises when someone bears arms that indicates that the person bearing them is actually someone else, which would have been the case had English soldiers actually borne the arms of Edward III (which, thankfully, they didn't). It is important to note that St. George was not the exclusive heraldic property of the English either, but was a very popular saint across Europe at this time. Indeed, prior to the 14th century, while St. George was popular with English crusaders, he was still viewed as a "foreign saint." Therefore, the cross of St. George was used to identify many groups in the middle ages who had no connection whatsoever to England, including the people of Florence and monks in southern Germany.



Heraldic conflicts were minimized by geographic isolation, however. Remember that without modern forms of travel and communication, the world was much smaller in the middle ages. Florence was unlikely to go to war against England or the Bishopric of Constance, and so the fact that they all used the same heraldry was unilkely to be a problem.

Heraldic conflicts did arise more commonly when knights came together for tournament or war. Wars often featured combattants from a number of different countries (e.g., the Battle of Crecy included soldiers from England, Wales, France, Scotland, Flanders, Genoa and Bohemia), and tournaments were frequently an international affair, constituting a "circuit" that knights from many countries would "tour." In such contexts, it could easily happen that one knight from one area of Europe discovered that another knight from another area had the same heraldry. Heraldic officers (such as heralds, pursuivants, and kings of arms) or, in England, the Constable and Marshall, were called upon to resolve such disputes. Courts of heraldry attempted to discern who had the most authoritative claim to the arms. The criteria used to resolve such disputes included the dates of adoption (who used the arms first?) and the rank of the person who granted the arms (e.g., a monarch vs. merely assuming the arms on one's own lower authority).

The Use of Heraldry by the Knights of the Northern Realm


In 14th century Western Europe, armourial bearings were moving from being simply "assumed" on the authority of the one who bore them, to being granted to individuals by heralds or representatives of the monarch. In this respect, heraldry became increasingly regulated by the powers of the state. However, in all cases coats of arms were adopted by the nobility or those who aspired to it. The common folk would not bear coats of arms as their own individual property, but might bear the badge of their lord and could use other forms of non-written communication, such as makers-marks on the products they crafted or signs above their place of business, that could be considered "heraldic" although not "armourial" in the strict sense. Moreover, the growth of individualism was only beginning to appear in the upper classes, and it's unlikely that lower classes would have even desired individual identification as opposed to that of a group or collective.

Therefore, members of the Knights of the Northern Realm will use badges, maker marks, national insignia, and individual coat armour when the persona or role they are portraying requires it. Our members do not officially display armourial bearings unless legally entitled to do so. (To my knowledge, no current members have this right in Canada.)  Rather, we use historically accurate and personally significant coat of arms as illustrative of the historical period we seek to represent. At our annual tournament, knights, squires, ladies, heralds, and pursuivants will display coats of arms on shields, clothing, and various flags, as well as crests on helmets and badges. Our website lists the members of the club and the arms they sometimes use for these purposes, but such heraldry has no connection to either one's standing in the club or the member's armigerous rights in Canada. Our club currently has no arms of its own. When such designation is required (such as participating in an event with other clubs), we have simply used the arms of St. George. The have been decomissioned since 1965, but their modern elements make them unsuitable for use by our club. The Knights of the Northern Realm are indebted to the counsel and advice of Sir George Lucki and Darren George, both members of The Royal Heraldry Society of Canada, who help educate club members on heraldic matters and vet the arms proposed for use in the club.

Heraldic Development
The question of why heraldry developed cannot be answered by this wiki entry, as it is best left to heraldic experts and historians. In general, the two main reasons given for the development of heraldry were 1) ease of identificaiton in battle, and 2) the rise of individualism in upper-class European society.

Battlefield Identification
Ever since the advent of massed armies in the Sumerian period (5th to 3rd millennium BC), identification in battle has been important. It is not only important to identify enemies and friends alike, but also to identify units within the battle group and to communicate with those groups so as to execute certain manoeuvres. One hypothesis for the birth of European heraldry was that single-coloured flags were used to denote battle groups, and associated with the leader of each of those groups. When it became necessary to have more battle flags than there were basic colours, parti-coloured flags were introduced and these designs eventually became identification not only for the battle group, but for the division's leader himself. Along these lines, David Crouch argues that regular "knights did not take up individual devices [heraldry] peculiar to themselves until the early thirteenth century," while magnates did (David Crouch, Tournament [Continuum, 2006], p. 140). In the 14th century, the right to carry a banner (the square heraldic flag, see the section on heraldic display below) into battle and tournament was a mark of rank: the knight banneret, who commanded a large group of troops and lesser knights.



These aformentioned flag designs would presumably have been transfered to the shield, surcoat, horse trappings and other surfaces (such as ailettes), and eventually the shield replaced the flag as the primary means of display. Armour tends to obscure the identity of the person wearing it, as it is a comparatively generic form of body covering. It would stand to reason that customized decoration would follow (interestingly, this seems to be what some Clone Troopers did in George Lukas' fictional Star Wars universe). Moreover, as the knightly helmet moved away from the Norman-style spangenhelm with its nasal bar towards the great helm of the 14th century, the face was increasingly obscured (see the image to the left). With the face no longer visible, the need to identify one's friends and enemies by some other means was acute.



The Individual
It is often difficult for the 21st century Westerner to imagine that individualism is a relatively recent phenomenon, but many cultures, both contemporary and historical, value collective identity over the singular person. One aspect of the rise of individualism in Europe may be reflected in the development of heraldry. For the medieval knight, martial prowess and reputation were the central source of self-worth. This came to be associated with the knights individuality rather than the retinue of which he was a part. The tournament only exacerbated this singularity -- the champion, the hero, the chivalrous knight who fights for his lady's favour -- these elements of tournament pageantry only make sense in terms of the self-as-centre. Moreover, one's authority in battle derived from one's individuality, as did one's claim to noble status and wealth. During this period, in fact, claims to nobility became increasingly based on lineage (biological or legendary), and so the hereditary aspect bonded with the way in which heraldic devices emphasized individuality. Heraldry thus exploded in popularity, as it emphasized the individuality of the nobility who by the necessities of their social order desired such recognition: martial prowess, tournament fame, legal authority, and noble pedigree.

Hartmann von Aue (to the right) is an individual par excellence, covered in birds no less!

A Short History of Heraldry
The earliest hereditary shield decoration belonged to Geoffrey of Anjou (to the left), who was knighted in 1127.

The arms he bore became those of his grandson, William Longespée, Earl of Salisbury, and his descendants. By the 13th century, heraldry was so widespread that it was professionally codified and regulated, including precise descriptive vocabulary known as "blazon" (see below). The officers who performed the services of codifying, regulating, and describing heraldry were called "heralds," although the relationship was actually inverted. Heralds are, by definition, those who announce (think "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" or the Calgary Herald), and so heraldry is whatever heralds do: announce the visual individuality of the knightly classes. The 14th century was the golden age of heraldry, because as armour became increasingly obsolete on the battlefield in the 15th century and afterward, heraldry was less important as a form of individual identification (other than flags, presumably).

Therefore, in later centuries heraldry became degenerate, making sense only on paper, for it was far too ornate and complex to perform its function as precise battlefield identification (see image to right).

Artistic style also changed throughout the middle and modern ages. In strict heraldic terms, style doesn't matter at all. Because the purpose of heraldry (which we have seen to have been undermined by "paper heraldry") is to provide simple and clear visible identification, the style in which an eagle (for example) is drawn is not important -- all that matters is that the eagle must clearly be an eagle.

However, because our club re-enacts 14th century medieval history, part of making our presentations as accurate as possible will involve emulating the style of 14th century art in our heraldic displays. At present, this is more of an ideal to aspire to than an actuality achieved by our club. We need to do further research into paint pigments that would have been used in the period, and attempt to either replicate those colours with modern paints or, even better, mix our own! Similarly, various rolls of arms and other manuscripts can be illustrative of the style we should emulate in the heraldic motifs that we use (stars, boars heads, eagles etc.).



Heraldic Display
As noted above, heraldry is defined by the "systematic use of hereditary devices centred on the shield." But it could be displayed in a wide variety of ways, not just on shields: jewelry (pins or “badges” & signet rings), stamps on letters (wax “seals”– like a signature that kept the letter secure), business signs or logos (makers marks), flags (“banners,” “standards,”“gonfalons”), helmets (“crests”), and clothing (“coats of arms,” “armourial bearings”).

Seals
A seal was an engraved stamp which impressed a heraldic image into sealing wax which sealed a letter and thereby "signed" it. This function can still be seen on the "stamp of approval" on notary certified documents, or the institutional seal on a diploma. Recalling that heraldry signified the individual person's identity in a largely non-literate context, the seal was in effect, the signature of that person. Of course nowadays a signature at the bottom of a letter is distinct from the stamp on the envelope and the glue which seals the envelope, but in the middle ages these three functions were combined into one.The seals in the 14th century could either be of the equestrian sort (showing the individual riding his horse in full armour and heraldic trappings) or just the armourial shield.

Badges


A badge is a piece of jewelry or cloth that can be pinned to one's clothing which identifies the wearer in some way.



Badges were quite popular in the middle ages, and can themselves be the topic of much focussed study. Badges could communicate almost anything, from one's devotion to a particular saint, to cruising for sex, to one's allegiance to a particular lord. A badge could be worn by a follower without the implication that the follower was in fact the same person they were following. In this sense, the arms of national saints (like St. George) could be said to function as badges.

Badges were heraldic in the broad sense, in that they conveyed information without writing, but were not necessarily armourial, in the sense that they didn't have to involve the regulated and shield-centered insignia which constituted a coat of arms. In the Knights of the Northern Realm, we use a number of square fabric badges showing the crosses of St. George for England, St. Andrew for Scotland, and St. David for Wales. These are somewhat conjectural, although the manuscript illustration below [needs to be added] shows something similar, namely circular badges parti-coloured white and red. Individual members of our club sometimes display reproductions of historical badges (a database of these can be found here) as part of their costume, including St. Hubert the patron saint of hunters, and a galavanting penis badge signifying goodness knows what. ☺

Badges could, however, make their way onto armourial shields, as in the case of Edward of Woodstock (the Black Prince)'s Shield of Peace, which would have been used for tourneying rather than war. Interestingly, this badge continues to be used by the contemporary Princes of Wales, as can be seen on many commercial items sold in the UK and endorsed by the Prince.



Crests
The display of badges on the top of helmets developed into crests. An heraldic crest, therefore, is the device that is born atop the helmet. Crests do not need to have any resemblance whatever to the armourial devices of the shield, although they may resemble each other. Indeed, some crests are simply a fan-like appendage bearing the arms of the knight on the top of his head! Crests can vary from feathers or flag-type appendages, to ornate sculptures of wood, boiled leather, or perhaps paper mache.

Crests seem to be largely associated with the lavish display of tournament rather than the life-or-death utility of war. Later forms of tournament (outside our historical period) even included an event where the sole goal of the combattants was to strike the crest off an opponent's helmet with a special wooden mace.

The standard heraldic achievement (full set of heraldic devices and accoutrements) in the 14th century were a shield (which remained of central importance), a helmet, and the crest.

The cloth often depicted flowing beneath the crest over the top of the helmet and especially covering the neck is called a "mantling," which may have both served as a sun shade and covered the points of attachment that held the crest to the helmet. A "bandeau" is the twisted cloth (often of the two main colours of the arms itself) that is wrapped around the base of the crest where it attaches to the helmet, again probably to cover up those attachment points.

Flags
Heraldry was commonly borne on a variety of flags; in fact, as noted above, heraldry may have originated on flags before migrating to shields.

There are a number of different sorts of heraldic flags, each with their own distinct name (although this standardized vocabulary may not reflect equal precision in the 14th cenutry).



Banners
Banners are square or rectangular flags affixed to a vertical stave. The rectangular banner was usually borne in a vertical orientation, rather than the longer horizontal orientation typical of modern national flags (see the St. George banner above). As mentioned earlier, in the 14th century the right to carry a personal banner into battle and tournament was a mark of rank: the knight banneret, who commanded a large group of troops and lesser knights. Heraldic banners are still displayed today, for example in Westminster Abbey.

Pennons
A pennon (or "pennant," I presume) is a triangular flag affixed to a vertical stave. Knights bachelor (a rank that dates to the 13th century reign of Henry III) bore pennons, typically affixed to the lance. Sir Geoffrey Luttrell was depicted with a single-pointed pennon, while swallow-tailed pennons are depicted in the Maciejowski Bible. It has been said (source?) that battlefield promotions from knight bachelor to knight banneret involved chopping the tip of the pennant off, so that the flag became a rectangular banner. This might have meant that the pennons resembled a square banner with a partial "tail" along the top edge? (I've seen such things, but don't know where.)

Standards
Standards are huge, long and narrow flags with a coat of arms (often the arms of the national saint) against the staff, usually the “livery” colours on the fly, and then decorated with badges, crests & mottoes. I believe Edward III had a standard of this sort, but I cannot find any images of it at present.

Gonfalons
“Gonfalons” (from the Italian) or “gonfanons” (from the French) hang from a horizontal crossbar, not a vertical stave. They appear to have been used for more static and ceremonial purposes (like the processional banners in Westminster Abbey), than the martial banners, pennons, and standards mentioned earlier. Most of the flags currently used by our club are gonfalons, which we display primarily at tournament fights and feasts. We can be sure that gonfalons were used in the 14th century, because they are actually used as heraldic charges on shields (!) in the 1340 Zurich Roll of Arms.

Clothing
As the term "coat of arms" would imply, heraldry was displayed on clothing -- not least, on coats! But heraldry was not restricted to military clothing:  the women attending Sir Geoffrey Luttrell the 3rd are wearing heraldic dresses, showing their father's or husband's arms impaled with Luttrell's arms.

Knightly Heraldic Clothing
The "cote d'armures" was specifically the heraldic surcoat, basically a long sleeveless poncho (not necessarily sewn shut along the sides) worn over the knight's armour -- e.g., seen throughout the Codex Manesse. Such surcoats seem to have originated during the crusades, and were well established in widespread use by the dawn of the 14th century. During the first half of the century, the cyclas appeared, which was a surcoat that was shortened in the front but longer in the back. In the second half of the 14th century, the short, tightly fitting and (sometimes?) padded jupon was worn over the armour, displaying the knight's heraldry while also emphasizing the wasp-waisted shape that was the ideal of male beauty at the time. By the beginning of the 15th century, the knight was completely encased in plate armour, which was apparently so impressive that it was worn "allwhyte," or without any cloth covering at all. Somewhat sad, that, from a heraldic perspective.

The cloth coverings of horses (trappers or caparison) could also bear the arms of the knight, as well as "ailettes" or small rectangular or square pieces of (probably) boiled leather attached to the shoulders. It's debatable whether these served a protective function or not, but they certainly were very useful for the display of heraldry! If there was a surface that could be painted or embroidered, chances are someone in the 14th century covered it with heraldry.

That said, there was no requirement that a knight's coat or horse trappings be heraldic. A knight might not wear a surcoat or jupon at all, or he might wear an undecorated surcoat of a colour (or coloured pattern) unrelated to his arms. Moreover, if his arms were represented on his & horse's clothing, they could be represented in a number of ways. The most straight forward way of representing arms on clothing is "perarmiferous," which is to treat the clothing's face as if it were the same as the knight's shield. The colour of the cloth would be the background colour of the arms, and the devices of the arms would be displayed throughout the clothing as a single charge. Another way is to scatter a number of shields across the clothing, each bearing the heraldic arms; presumably the background would be some other colour for the sake of contrast. D'Arcy Boulton, who also coined the term "perarmiferous" above) calls this method "scutiferous," as it (usually) involves numerous escutcheons (shields) on the clothing. Finally, a hybrid method multiplies the heraldic devices across the surface of the clothing (which would have the same colour as the shield's background) but without the charges being contained within shields or the like.  This method could not be applied to the shield itself or a banner, but evidently the rules of heraldic representation were less stringent when applied to clothing.



Heraldic Tabards
In the late 15th century, heraldic tabards were worn by knights over their gothic or Tudor full-plate harnesses at tournament, which "hung half-way down the thighs, had broad sleeves to the elbow, and was open at the sides. ... The tabard was essentially an heraldic garment. The arms of its wearer were displayed on both front and back, and also on the sleeves. ... It went out of fashion about the middle of the 16th century" (J.P. Brooke-Little, Boutell's Heraldry, p. 24). To my knowledge it would not be period appropriate to wear heraldic tabards in a martial fashion for 14th century re-enactment. The Knights of the Northern Realm currently uses a number of sleeveless tabards with national insignia or colours (St. George, green & white for Wales, etc.) for depicting commoner soldiers or guards, but this practice may need to be discontinued as unhistorical.

However, heralds had been wearing heraldic tabards (with or without sleeves) much earlier than soldiers, perhaps wearing the cast-off heraldic surcoats of their masters. (Here is a link to a German sleeveless herald's tabard, reconstructed in the 19th century from embroidered pieces of medieval flags: http://objektkatalog.gnm.de/objekt/T548.) The herald's tabard is probably the only example where a person would wear the full coat of arms of another person but would not be assumed to be impersonating that person. This may be due to the fact that heralds functioned as diplomats, and may have functioned as the personage they represented in negotiations.

Of course, the tabard as a simple undecorated poncho-type garment would have been worn throughout the period, the "high-style" civil tabard having originated in the 13th century.

Shields
Obviously, shields were the central means by which heraldry (in the sense of coats of arms) was displayed. However, because heraldry was a form of individuation and rank, not everybody who used a shield in battle would have been "armigerous" or permitted to display a coat of arms of their own. The bulk of the army, then, not being knightly would not likely have borne heraldry on their shields. What, if anything, the common soldier would have borne on his shield in our historical period is a point where further research is necessary. The Knights of the Northern Realm possess a number of shields bearing the national saint's arms, although the historical accuracy of this has yet to be established as far as I can see. Bearing a badge or other identifying mark on an infantryman's shield does stand to reason, however, and the pavise shields of Genoese crossbowmen reportedly identified them as such. The question of heraldry (even if non-armigerous) for the common soldier remains an interesting and underdeveloped field of study.



Full Heraldic Achievements
An heraldic "achievement" is the full complement of an entity's (usually a person) full armourial objects. This will always center around the shield, but can include numerous other items, such as crests, mantlings, badges, mottoes, and supporters.

In the 14th century, the full achievement seems to have been limited to shield and crest, although the crest was represented on a helmet (I do not know if the helmet itself systematicallly varied from one armiger to another) sometimes with a mantling or bandeau. German heraldry especially seems to have shown the full achievement with the shield at a slant, such that the dexter corner of the shield sat directly under the helmet which bore the crest. I do not know if supporters or mottoes were represented as part of the achievement during this period.



Heraldic Design
While very 14th century knight should have a crest, there’s really no rules for designing crests. So just stick something cool on top of your helmet!

However, he design of the central heraldic element, the shield (and by extension, flags, clothing etc.), is comprised by a combination of a few basic colours, shapes and pictures, and yet an almost limitless variety of arms can be designed this way. Because heraldry is systematic, certain practical rules (of thumb) arose to govern it.

Loosely speaking (i.e., not systematically), the first 14th century heraldic rule of thumb is simplicity, and the second 14th century heraldic rule of thumb is boldness.  The result is design that provides both precise and highly-visible individual identification during the heat of battle. This was the rationale behind heraldry's development, after all, and 14th century heraldry epitomizes this function. So although the rules of heraldic design may seem complex and annoying, their function is to ensure that coats of arms remain dumbass and badass! The 'paper heraldry' of the gunpowder era forgot much of this simple elegance.

At its most basic, heraldry is the combination of “tincture” and “line.”


 * Tincture = what we call colour
 * Line = what you need to draw shapes
 * “Field” = the background of the arms
 * “Device” = any image laid over top

The Laws of Armoury are the systematic rules that govern tinctures and the lines that separate them by either drawing devices or by dividing the field.

Tincture
Heraldry distinguishes between at least three different categories of tincture:  metals, colours, and furs:

Each tincture has an Anglo-Norman French name (even to this day), which is fun especially for historical re-enactment purposes. Metals are or (gold/yellow) and argent (silver/white), while the colours are gules (red), azure (blue), vert (green), sable (black), and in some sources, purpure (purple). The two main furs are ermine (representing the black tails of weasels in their winter plumage) and vair (representing the blue-grey & white patterning of squirrel furs). There are other furs used in heraldry, but I am unsure if any were used in the 14th century. Other colours were used as well called "stains" (primarily tan/orange, blood red, and mullberry purple), but these were not used in the middle ages at all.

The Law of Tincture
The law of tincture is:  Always place colours on metals, or vice versa. Contrasting metals (i.e., white & yellow) with (darker) colours maintains high-contrast designs, resulting in the clarity and boldness which facilitates visibility at a distance and under duress. It is much harder to distinguish a design which is comprised of two darker colours (like black on a green background) or two light colours (like something yellow on a white background). To this day, traffic signs follow the law of tincture. It can be an enjoyable occupation to look for violations of the law of tincture in movies, fantasy novels, and unofficial heraldry.

Of course, what is a rule without exceptions? Furs are the first exception, as they are neither metals nor colours. One may place either a metal or a colour or another fur on a fur (or vice versa), although it would be advisable to ensure maximum contrast even when violating the rule of tincture in this way. The second exception is multi-tinctured devices, and the third is placing devices over a divided field.  Divided fields may also violate the rule in themselves, as in the arms of Edward III, which has two quarters gules and two quarters azure. The fourth exception is devices that are coloured "proper," which means the natural colouration of the object. Finally, some arms simply violate the law of tincture, like the arms of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 11th-13th centuries.

Divisions of the Field
The heraldic field does not need to be divided, as some coats of arms may be a single tincture, like the arms of the Dukes of Brittany. However, for there to be more than a dozen coats of arms, other variation must be introduced.

Divisions of the field use lines or bands to distinguish between one large section of tincture from another. These divisions or bands may be vertical, horizontal, diagonal, crimped (chevron), quartered/cross, or in an 'X' orientation (saltire). Each orientation has an Anglo-Norman French name which denotes a wide band of that sort (e.g., fess); thin bands are described with diminutives (e.g., bar); repeating patterns of thin bands are described by adding a 'y' suffix (e.g., bar); while a divided field without any band at all is described as "per [orientation]" (e.g., per fess). The full set of wide bands are sometimes known as heraldic ordinaries, which are perhaps the most basic form of heraldry:  wide bands of geometric colour easily painted across the face of the shield.



Crosses have a series of variations exclusive to them, largely consisting in adding finials to the ends of the cross' limbs. This can involve simply cutting the limbs so they do not extend to the edge of the field (a cross "couped"), splaying the limbs outwards (a cross "formy" or "patée"), curling the ends of the cross (a cross "moline"), even crossing the ends (cross "crosslet") or terminating them in fleur-de-lys (cross "flory").

The ordinary divisions of the field can be repeated in patterns, for example if a quarterly division is repeated numerous times on the shield, the result is a chequered field known as "checky." The same holds for other patterns, like barry, paly, bendy, chevrony, etc.

Marshalling
The divisions of the field can be used to combine two or more coats of arms (known in general as "marshalling"), as seen in the "quartering" of the royal arms of France and England with Edward III. Quartering arms seems to be more prestigious, and may not have been permissible in all cases. Certainly at a later date (possibly earlier, I don't actually know), quartering was normally restricted to showing the marriage between an armigerous male and a female who was the armourial heir (because she had no brothers to carry on her father's arms). Such quartering became permanent, so that even though the male-line was lost on the woman's side, the patrilineal arms did not die out.

In most marriages, however, the woman would not have been an armourial heir, and thus her arms (which were her father's) were not quartered with her husband's. Rather, they would have been either "dimidated" or "impaled" with her husband's arms. That is, a vertical division (i.e., "per pale") was drawn down the heraldic field, and one coat of arms shown on the left side with the other shown on the right side. If the arms themselves were literally cut, so that only half of each is shown, this was called "dimidation," but if each arm is squeezed in full into the half of the shield, then the arms were said to be "impaled" with each other. Dimidation and impalement were not usually permanent, and thus not passed on to children. The women arming Sir Geoffrey Luttrell wear impaled heraldic dresses, showing both his arms and the arms of their fathers or husbands.

Female members of the Knights of the Northern Realm ought to consider marshalling their arms with that of their father or husband (real or impersoned), as that would be historically accurate for portraying female armigers of the period.

Variations of Line
Not all lines need to be straight. Both divisions of the field and ordinaries can be altered by making the line "wavy" (or "undy"), zig-zagged (known as "dancety" or "indented"), or other squiggly variations. It is unclear if all heraldic line variants were in use during the 14th century, or if they were clearly distinguished from each other in all cases. A careful examination of heraldic art from the period is required to be sure.

Moreover, lines can be bordered. To "fimbriate" a device (this can be done to geometric ordinaries etc. as well as representative objects, below) is to border the device with another tincture. This is one way to satisfy the law of tincture when otherwise it would be violated, say by putting a blue cross on a red background. If the blue cross is separated from the red background by a white border, it is "fimbriated argent" and the high-contrast result satisfies the law of tincture (this can be seen in the Norwegian flag, and inversely, in the Icelandic flag).

A border may also be separated from the main device by a gap (leaving the background colour visible), which is called a "cotise." A cotised (or "endorsed") border does not need to be the same tincture of the main device, but it must conform to the law of tincture.

Subordinaries
In addition to the ordinaries are the "subordinaries," other bold geometric bands of colour that are perhaps less widespread or more recent than the ordinaries (the distinction between the two is largely arbitrary). Subordinaries include the "chief" (the top third of the shield as a separately coloured partition), the "lozenge" (a diamond shape), the "mascle" (a hollowed-out or "voided" lozenge), the "fret" (a mascle interlaced with a thin saltire to create a knot-like motif), the "billet" (a small rectangle), the "roundel" (a small circle, many of which have unique names on the basis of their tincture), the "annulet" (a voided roundel), the "escutcheon" (a shield shape), the "orle" (a voided escutcheon), a "bordure" (a border extending to the edge of the heraldic surface) and the "tressure" (a cotise-border going around the edge of the heraldic surface -- not necessarily a shield).

Semé
The heraldic field may also be scattered with a pattern of charges, often small ordinaries or subordinaries. This patterned scattering is known as "powdering" or "a semé of [the particular charge]." The royal arms of France in the 14th century (and thus the royal arms of England after Edward III claimed the French crown) consist of a semé of golden fleur-de-lys on a blue background (thence the term "royal blue"). Other common semés are "billety" (a semé of billets), a semé of roundels, "cruisily" (a semé of little crosses), and "gouttée" (a semé of little drops of liquid).

Differencing
Medieval heraldry entailed a tension between both individuation on the part of the person and association with family or lord on the part of the community. This becomes an especially pronounced problem when there is more than one male in a family who needs to bear heraldic arms, like a father and a son, or a number of sons of the same father. The arms of the son will need to resemble the father's arms without being identical to it, lest there be no way to identify the father as opposed to the son. Likewise different branches of the same family; one brother's arms must not be identical to another brother's.



"Differencing" is the process by which a coat of arms is slightly modified, primarily by adding subordinaries to it, to show both connection to and distinction from the undifferenced patrilineal arms. England and Scotland developed standardized systems of “cadency” in the 16th century, but in the 14th it’s fairly random. A "label" (a horizontal bar in the top third of the shield with three or five short vertical tail-like appendages hanging from it) typically denotes a first-born son to distinguish him from his father, but on the death of the father the son removes the label and bears the undifferenced arms. Other forms of differencing can involve changing the tincture of a device, adding a border, or adding a small charge like a crescent or star. Note that differencing will often violate the law of tincture, say with a bordure (e.g., a red field with a blue border, as above) or any charge that covers both the main devices and the field (e.g., a gold bend sinister over top of a silver furnace, as above).

Members of the Knights of the Northern Realm should consider differencing their arms to denote their (or the personage they are representing) place in their family tree.

Charges
Strictly speaking, a "charge" is the same thing as an heraldic "device," which is whatever is placed on the field. For ease of distinction, however, "charges" can be defined as devices which picture something, rather than being an abstract geometric device. Charges typically depict something out of the following six categories:  humans, monsters, animals, celestial objects, plants, or artifacts.

It is important to remember that in the 14th century objects were not necessarily (perceived) the same as today. Therefore, a heraldic panther may be more legendary than scientific in terms of its style of representation, or a heraldic bathtub will look quite different from the bathtubs that we are familiar with today. Therefore, careful study of actual 14th century rolls of arms is imperative when re-creating heraldry for use in the Knights of the Northern Realm:  the charges on our shields etc. should look like they were painted by 14th century artists, with that particular eye on the world! The following examples are all taken from the Zurich Roll of Arms, which dates to c.1340.

Humans
Humans can be represented in heraldry in full body or just parts, like limbs or heads. In the Zurich roll, monks, beggars, armoured knights and moorish women can be found, as well as a "demi-moor" (i.e., half body) holding axes. In terms of body parts, a king's head, a moor's head, unarmoured arms and vambraced arms can be seen.

Monsters
Monsters can also be represented in full body or just parts. In the Zurich roll, there are examples of griffins, wyverns (a dragon with no hind legs), unicorns, panthers, and unicorn heads. Other monsters include dragons, cameleopards (giraffes), and other animals of legend or outside Europe.

There is an unwritten heraldic convention to colour the armaments, tongues & genitals of monsters and animals in a distinct & bright colour (usually red, unless the device or field are red, then blue) to emphasize their courage & fierceness.

Animals
Popular heraldic animals include lions, eagles, boars, stags, cocks, bears, horses, wolves, fish, ibex, small birds, and swans. Rarer animals include apes, camels, beavers, hens, dogs, elephants, lambs, hares, bulls, owls, donkeys, rams and ravens. Animal parts include "attires" (antlers), "massacres" (antlers mounted on a skull cap), ibex horns, "jambes" (legs) of bears, horses and eagles, "volés" (eagle's wings), demi-lions, and the heads of donkeys, fish or cocks.

The cut which separates the head or limb in heraldry may be straight ("couped") or jagged ("erased"), and in some cases bespeckled with blood.

Celestial Objects
Stars, moons (crescents and moons) and the sun are represented in heraldry. Interestingly, stars are usually represented with more than five points, unlike the conventional star of our contemporary time. Five-pointed stars are possible in heraldry, but there is controversy over whether they were meant to represent stars or spur-rowels, and when they first appeared.

Plants & Landscape
The most popular plants in heraldry are flowers, but also include leaves, branches, trees, and hills. The Zurich roll shows fleur-de-lys (lillies), roses, generic plants with specific numbers of petals or leaves (cinquefoils, quatrefoils, trefoils), turnips, linden leaves (these look like "spades" in a deck of cards) and trees, oak leaves and trees, leafy or flowery branches, and a "mount" with a certain number of hills.

Artifacts
All sorts of human-made objects show up in heraldry. These can include crowns, "maunches" (the long tippet-style sleeve decorations), gonfalons, daggers, axes, arrows, arrowheads, helmets, anchors, musical horns, chess rooks, castles and towers, boats, wheels, hats, fireplace hooks, hammers, horseshoes, cauldrons and ladders. Perhaps the oddest inanimate object in the Zurich roll is a bathtub!

Attitude & Orientation
Some charges may be represented in a variety of poses or "attitudes," especially monsters and animals. For examples, lions may be "rampant" (one foot on the ground, the other three feet in the air), "passant" (three feet on the ground, the other one in the air), with their heads "guardant" (facing outwards directly at the viewer) or not (in profile), tails forked ("queue forché") or not. Similar sorts of attitudes describe how eagles display their wings, or whether stags heads face forward or in profile, or what direction fish 'swim' in. While paper heraldry can afford to get overly detailed with heraldic attitudes, a number of these were in use during the 14th century. Again, so long as the pose is distinctive enough to be easily identifiable, there's no in-principle reason to expect that it wasn't in use during the period.

Meanwhile, other objects can be arranged in certain ways, called "orientations." These are the directions that follow the basic divisions of the shield or the ordinaries. For example, three linden leaves could be arranged in a diagonal ("in bend") or another 'ordinary' direction, or left unspecified, which follows the most natural shield-shaped orientation (two on top, one below).

The "Meaning" of Heraldic Devices
It is commonplace to imagine that certain heraldic devices or tinctures had specific meanings, so that a coat of arms could be 'decoded' in some manner (as if blue signified purity, or eagles signified royal blood). But the fact of the matter that heraldry has no hidden, deeper meaning. Lions don't symbolize anything in particular, and neither do buckles, steel flint strikers, scissors or bathtubs! Doubtless lions are badass and red is a bold colour, but that's about it. The only rule is that the knight either liked the charge (maybe he was really proud of his bathtub?) or he inherited it from his father as his father did before him. So while the meaning of heraldry is systematically regulated and passed on through inheritance, there is little symbolic significance to any one coat of arms as opposed to another.

The only clear exception to this rule is "canting," which was the word for an heraldic pun. Sometimes the name of an armiger might suggest a device to bear on a shield. For example, Robert de Septvans (a 13th century knight) bore winnowing fans on his shield, a pun on his last name (seven fans). Perhaps one knight had a name that sounded like the Middle-German word for scissor?

Heraldic Blazon
The language of heraldry contains, as one will have noticed by now, a number of unique terms and indeed a vocabulary unto its own. Part of this is due to the fact of its origin among the Anglo-Norman countries (i.e., northern France and southern Britain), but the retention of this standardized terminology permits "blazon," which is the precise written description of the heraldic essence of a coat of arms.



Blazon allows an artist to accurately render a coat of arms without seeing it first, or a herald to record arms without drawing them. In the Knights of the Northern Realm, a good test of one's assmed arms is to blazon them properly. Blazons generally follow this grammatical order:

For example:  "Or, an eagle displayed sable" means a yellow background with a black spread eagle on it.
 * 1) Field (tincture, divisions, or powderings)
 * 2) Devices (ordinaries, subordinaries, or charges)
 * 3) Orientation or attitudes of the devices
 * 4) Tincture of the devices

Blazons can get fairly complex:

“Per pale azure and gules, between three oak branches fructed and slipped or, a chevron or cotised argent.” (my attempt at the Middleton’s arms)

“Gules, between a bar wavy sable on a fess argent, three boars heads couped of the last.” (my attempt at the Lardner arms used by Sir Thomas)

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;">There’s an art to wording blazons parsimoniously! I’m not super good at it, but it’s fun to try. Give it a shot, but ultimately let Darren George and Sir George Lucki confirm & refine your arms & blazon for you.

Diapering
The fact that any coat of arms can and must be describable in precise terms without visual reference means that variations in style or shade of colour are unimportant in heraldry, as noted above. In fact, heraldry can be embellished with all manner of minor details, particularly the ornate embellishment known as "diapering." This is unblazoned and as such does not constitute the heraldic essence of the coat of arms. It's entirely up to the artist, and may be one way of displaying wealth:  as shields were disposable pieces of equipment, lavishing expensive artistic detail on them might be a way of conspicuously displaying wealth.

Heraldic Resources
<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:HelveticaNeue,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;">Here are a few web resources for further research into heraldry:

Rolls of Arms
The Dering Roll, an English roll of arms dating to about 1270. Apparently it's the oldest surviving roll of arms: http://www.bsswebsite.me.uk/History/Dering/deringroll.htm

Zurich Roll of Arms, a Swiss German roll of arms dated to c.1340. The images are actually from an 18th century copy, but the drawings are thought to still replicate the style of the 14th century. It is a good example of what 14th century arms would have looked like: http://www.silverdragon.org/HERALDRY/ZurichRolls/zroaen0.htm Moreover, here is a link showing modern reconstructions of the arms complete with written blazons, but I don't know if it's always accurate: http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/ZurichRoll/ (the link no longer appears to be live) :(

Arms from the Battle of Crecy. I'm not sure what sources this link is using, but it purports to show the arms of the participants in the Battle of Crecy (1346). The drawings appear to be in a modern style. http://www.angelfire.com/empire/medheraldry/webpage6.html Interestingly, though, one of the jobs of a herald was to scour the battlefield after the battle was over, recording the dead and captured armigers, so it's conceivable that there would have been armourial lists of the combattants.

A Roll of Arms in the Reign of Edward the Second (1307-1327), a book edited by Nicholas Harris Nicolas, Esquire:  http://books.google.ca/books?id=HHcUAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Arms from the Siege of Caerlaverlock (July 1300). Sadly, this link doesn't seem to show the banners of either St. Edmund or St. Edward the Confessor (which were reportedly flown at the siege, their being the patron saints of England prior to the adoption of St. George in that capacity): http://www.farreaches.org/staendebuch/heraldry/siege/siege.htm

Gelre Armourial (before 1396), a Flemish roll of arms by <span style="color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:22.3999996185303px;">Claes Heinenzoon, a herald in the service of the Duke of Guelders. The manuscript is in the Royal Library of Belgium, but the original doesn't appear to have been digitized or published in a language other than French. Every entry in the roll has been reproduced on this website (in French and old Dutch), but the artwork is of a 19th-century (or early 20th?) style: http://www.heraldique-europeenne.org/Armoriaux/Gelre/Partie_VI.htm<span style="color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:22.3999996185303px;">  There is a Facebook page for the armourial here:  https://www.facebook.com/GelreArmorial  <span style="color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:22.3999996185303px;">as well as the usual wikipedia page here:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelre_Armorial <span style="color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:22.3999996185303px;">.

Wapenboek Beyeren (c.1405), a roll of arms drawn in the Hague (also!) by Claes Heynenzoon, an important diplomat in the Low Countries. This roll of arms can be considered a "who's who" of the middle ages at the time: http://www.kb.nl/bladerboek/wapenboek/browse/book.html  (This digitized manuscript is currently held in the Royal Library of the Netherlands.)

Digitised Armorials listed by the website Heraldica Nova -- this is an extensive list of 13th, 14th, and 15th century rolls of arms digitised by libraries or archives (some of which have already been listed above): http://heraldica.hypotheses.org/1770

Encyclopedia Brittanica (1911) has three plates from an early 14th century roll of arms, but it's not clear which one. Nice high-res images of period appropriate artwork, though! http://eb.tbicl.org/heraldry/

earlyBlazon.com appears to have a long list of medieval rolls of arms, but all the arms are represented in a modern style, from what I can tell on a cursory perusal:  http://www.earlyblazon.com/earlyblazon/general/sources.htm

An SCA-based page that has a big list of books and rolls of arms from all over Europe, many of which concern 14th century heraldry (but not all):  http://heraldry.sca.org/armory/periodrolls.html<h3 style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:'HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;"><span style="font-size:17px;color:rgb(58,58,58);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:22px;">Books on Heraldry English Heraldry by Charles Boutell. This is a concise and easy-to-read analysis of contemporary British heraldry:  https://archive.org/details/englishheraldry00boutrich  The book called Boutell's Heraldry is even better (it's edited by Arthur Fox-Davies and Sir Anthony Wagner), but I don't know of any online versions of it. It's totally worth purchasing if you find it in a bookstore!

A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Fox-Davies. This is a classic of heraldic reference in English, although it's very long which makes for a comparatively tough read:  https://archive.org/details/completeguidetoh00foxdrich  Here's a project Gutenberg version of the book, which may have the added bonus of being searchable:  http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41617/41617-h/41617-h.htm

<h3 style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:'HelveticaNeue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;"><span style="font-size:17px;color:rgb(58,58,58);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:22px;">Web-Based Resources on Heraldry The Royal Heraldry Society of Canada (RHSC) has a webpage which gives an excellent and brief explanation of heraldry: http://www.heraldry.ca/main.php?pg=l2 http://www.heraldry.ca/main.php?pg=l2