Coats of arms of monarchs. History of coats of arms and heraldry

If you take a quick look at the coats of arms of the Scandinavian states, you cannot help but notice a detail common to almost all of them: almost everywhere there is an image of lions and leopards, equally exotic for the northern countries. Why are they present in the coats of arms of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland?

Banner that fell from the sky

The leopard on the coat of arms of Denmark appeared around 1190 under Canute VI Valdemarsson, almost simultaneously with the leopards of Richard the Lionheart. Consequently, we have before us one of the oldest state symbols. The Danish king's leopards were azure in a field of gold, decorated with scarlet hearts. This image was preserved in the coat of arms of Denmark under all rulers. It has survived to this day, and in the modern state coat of arms of the Kingdom of Denmark it occupies the first field.

The division of the shield on the Danish coat of arms is special. It is produced not with the help of lines, but with the help of a cross. This is no coincidence. After all, the cross - it is called Danenbrog - is considered one of the national emblems of the Danes. Sometimes images of cross banners were minted on coins by Danish kings, for example Regnald Gottfredsson in the tenth century or Valdemar the Great in the twelfth century.

However, legend connects the appearance of Danenbrog (this is the name not only for the cross, but also for the banner with the cross) with another ruler - King Valdemar II the Victorious. According to legend, a red banner with a white cross fell from the sky to his troops at a critical moment in the battle with the Estonians in 1219 and helped to win the victory. This is even stated in the “History of the Russian State” by N.M. Karamzin.

Since the 15th century, the coat of arms of the Danish kings was a combination of the coats of arms of the allied kings of Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Vandalia. In the center was a shield with their dynastic coats of arms. Later, Danish leopards and dynastic Oldenburg and Delmengorst signs appeared in turn in the middle shield, and depending on this, the entire heraldic shield was rebuilt.

In the 18th century, the Danish coat of arms took on a form close to the modern one: a shield with a dynastic coat of arms superimposed on a large shield with the coats of arms of the kingdoms that were part of the domain of the Danish crown. The heraldic shield is supported by bearded savages with clubs, images of which appeared in the Danish coat of arms in 1449. In truth, no one gives an explanation for this: it is believed that the savages were “introduced” into the Danish coat of arms by the Oldenburg dynasty, thus declaring their ancient origins. The shield was crowned and surrounded by chains of the highest state orders of the Elephant and Danenbrog.

In 1960, the Great and Small state emblems of the Kingdom of Denmark were determined. The minor coat of arms was the actual coat of arms of Denmark, in which leopards were finally replaced by “leopard lions”. The large coat of arms of Denmark had a complex structure and lush decorations. It was used by the royal family, court and guard.

Queen Margaret II, who ascended the throne in 1972, renounced all titles not backed by real power, except for the Danish royal one. The emblems of the Germanic possessions—the coats of arms of the kingdoms of the Goths and Wends—disappeared from the coat of arms. Schleswig's leopard lions have survived since part of Schleswig was returned to Denmark in 1920.

The Danes explain the second field with three crowns as the emblem of the Kalmar Union, which united the Scandinavian kingdoms from 1397 to 1523. Under Margaret II, the complex-shaped “order” cross of Danenbrog was replaced by a straight “banner” cross.

Fire of volcanoes and water of geysers

In 1918, Iceland was declared an independent kingdom in union with Denmark. In 1944, the island state left the union and declared itself a sovereign republic. That's when the Icelandic coat of arms was created. The heraldic shield bears the design of the national flag and is supported by four shield holders. They are the guardian spirits of Iceland. According to ancient sagas, they must protect the island from the Danish kings. The symbolism of the colors of the Icelandic flag scarlet fire of volcanoes, silver water of geysers, azure of the sea and sky.

Three crowns

In Sweden, lions are preserved only in the large royal coat of arms. And this tradition has been going on since time immemorial. Shield-bearing lions have been enshrined in the coat of arms since the end of the 16th century and are depicted with forked tails. Let us pay attention to two other lions placed in the second and third fields of the shield, divided by a large cross. These are the so-called Gothic lions. They are depicted on top of silver streams in an azure field.

The story of their appearance is as follows. First, in the coat of arms of King Eric III around 1224, three leopards appeared at once, one under the other, as in Danish. This coat of arms was adopted by Eric III's nephew Waldemar, who belonged to another family of Folkungs. Waldemar's father, Earl Birger, had a different family coat of arms - a lion on top of three left baldrics. As you can see, it is very reminiscent of the images in the second and third fields of the shield on the modern royal coat of arms of Sweden. The thing is that King Valdemar was overthrown from the throne by his brother Magnus, who received the nickname Defender of the Peasants, who, unlike his predecessor, remained faithful to the family coat of arms of the Folkungs, but the lion has since become crowned.

The oldest known seal of Magnus the Protector of the Peasants has three crowns at the top and sides of the royal shield. In the 14th century, under King Albert of Mecklenburg, three crowns became the main symbol of Sweden.

There are several interpretations of this heraldic emblem. Some correlate the appearance of three crowns with the cult of the Three Kings, widespread in Europe, the wise men who brought gifts to the baby Jesus Christ. This cult was revived after the transfer of their relics from Milan to Cologne in 1164 by Frederick Barbarossa. Others see Swedish crowns as a symbol of the Holy Trinity. But there are also purely heraldic interpretations. Some heraldry experts see in this emblem either a crown from the family Mecklenburg coat of arms, reinforced by the sacred number three, or the legendary coat of arms of King Arthur, who embodies the moral ideals of chivalry, or some “fabulous coat of arms” of one of the ancient Irish kings.

The three crowns unexpectedly took on a new meaning when the Scandinavian kingdoms united into one state - the Kalmar Union. Swedish crowns then occupied the second quarter of the common coat of arms of the allied kings, and this symbol began to express the unity of Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

The Swedish coat of arms itself was formed during the years of the Kalmar Union. Under Karl Knutsson, who proclaimed himself King of Sweden in 1448 and reigned intermittently until 1470, the heraldic shield was divided into parts by a golden cross. According to legend, this emblem appeared in the 12th century. According to legend, the Swedish king Eric IX, before his campaign against the pagan Finns, saw a cross-shaped golden light in the sky. However, the origins of the symbol are much more ancient. The description of the life of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great says that before the battle with his rival general Maxentius, he saw a sign in the sky - a shining cross made up of stars. Constantine ordered this sign to be depicted on the weapons and banners of his troops, which allegedly helped win the decisive battle at the Milvian Bridge. Karl Knutsson introduced into the Swedish coat of arms a middle shield with the image of his own family coat of arms - a golden rook in a black field.

In 1523, the Kalmar Union collapsed. In Sweden, Gustav Vasa became king, and a new dynastic coat of arms, a sheaf, was placed in the middle shield instead of a rook. In Swedish, the generic nickname "Vase" is similar to the word denoting a sheaf, a bundle of twigs, a bunch of plants, and the like.

Gustav Vasa adopted the triple title "King of the Swedes, Goths and Wends", perhaps in imitation of the extremely magnificent titles of the Danish kings. Accordingly, the meaning of the three crowns of the House of Folkung was once again rethought. And this is exactly how they began to explain the origin of the three crowns on the coat of arms of Sweden.

Under Gustav Vase or under his son Eric XIV, the original colors of the coat of arms also changed. Instead of a black bunch in a golden field, a golden sheaf appeared in an azure-silver-scarlet field, beveled twice on the right. The shape of the sheaf gradually changed, which eventually began to resemble a vase with handles.

Later, the royal dynasties did not stay long on the Swedish throne. The large coat of arms remained unchanged all the time, only the dynastic emblems in the shield changed: the Palatines of the Rhine, the Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel and, finally, the Dukes of Holstein-Gottorp...

In 1810, the last of the Swedish Gottorp dynasty adopted Napoleonic Marshal Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, Prince de Pontecorvo. Eight years later, the marshal took the Swedish throne, taking the name Charles XIV John. As a sign of continuity, and not as a sign of kinship, which did not exist, in the middle shield of the royal coat of arms the coat of arms of the Vasa dynasty again appeared, and next to the princes of Pontecorvo, in the azure above the argent stream (the wavy end) a silver bridge with three arches and two towers, and above the bridge is a Napoleonic eagle with two feathers.

After some time, the Napoleonic eagle on the Swedish coat of arms turned into a raven. It is difficult to say whether this confusion arose accidentally or intentionally. The word “corvo” means “raven” in Italian, and “rupte corvo” translates to “humpbacked bridge.”

The law of May 15, 1908 established the official image of the large and small coats of arms of Sweden. The place of the raven in the coat of arms of Pontecorvo was again taken by the Napoleonic eagle...

Lion of Saint Olaf

Around 1200, the ruler of Norway got his own coat of arms: the golden crowned lion of St. Olaf on a scarlet field with a battle ax in his front paws. This image is almost exactly reproduced on the modern coat of arms of Norway. On a pointed “Varangian” shield of red color, under a royal crown without precious stones, a lion walks with an ax in his paws.

The Norwegian royal coat of arms, like the Danish one, is decorated with dynastic symbols. Here we see the same shield, but there is a crown above it with precious stones. From underneath is released a mantle with ermine lining: The shield is surrounded by a chain with the insignia of the Order of St. Olaf, founded by King Oscar I in 1847.

Raising the sword and trampling the saber

The first Dukes of Finland were Swedish princes from the Folkung family. Their family coat of arms included a lion. The first coat of arms of Finland was granted in 1557 by the Swedish king Gustav Vasa to his son John, along with the title of Duke of Finland. This coat of arms was composed of the coats of arms of the two most important provinces of the duchy: Northern Finland (Satakunta) and Southern Finland, or Finland proper. The latter's coat of arms, among other things, depicted a black bear raising a sword. Later, a single coat of arms appeared, denoting all Swedish eastern possessions, including Finland and Karelia. The tomb of Gustav Vasa in Uppsala is decorated with this coat of arms. This is a crowned shield with a golden crowned lion in a scarlet field. The right front paw of the lion is clad in armor and raises the sword; with its hind paws the lion tramples the thrown curved saber. The scarlet field is strewn with silver roses; there are nine of them on Gustav’s tomb. It must be assumed that it was taken from the Swedish royal coat of arms, and its gesture was borrowed from the coat of arms of Northern Finland or the Principality of Karelian, where the right hand was depicted with a raised sword.

When John Vasa ascended the Swedish throne, he combined his previous title “Grand Duke of Finland and Karelia” with the title “King of the Swedes, Goths and Wends and others” (in Latin Finland was called the Grand Duchy, and in Swedish - the Grand Duchy). John III, for reasons of prestige, included a closed crown in the royal coat of arms.

In this form, the coat of arms of Finland remained until the end of the century, and at the beginning of the 17th century the lion’s gesture changed somewhat: he began to trample the blade of the saber with his right hind paw, and clawed the hilt of the sword with his left front. The crown also disappeared from the lion's head. Soon the armor also disappeared somewhere, and the lion’s tail turned out to be forked. But ten silver roses survived.

The coat of arms of Finland looked similar when the Russian Romanovs took the throne. True, under Alexander II, a special Finnish grand ducal crown was introduced into the coat of arms. It looked somewhat ridiculous: with a two-headed eagle on the front prong, with high “auxiliary” prongs, but without side ones. The subjects themselves stubbornly refused to recognize this crown, under any pretext replacing it with the Grand Duke's. Regardless of the officially approved coat of arms of “Russian Finland,” the Finns adhered to their traditions and everywhere used a coat of arms with an image repeating the shield from the tomb of Gustav Vasa, but with a closed crown.

The Finnish Declaration of Independence, proclaimed in December 1917, and the constitution approved in July 1919, consolidated this option. But in 1920, the crown stopped surmounting the shield, and the coat of arms curiously lost its symbol of sovereignty just when Finland truly became sovereign.

Georgy Vilinbakhov, Mikhail Medvedev

Anna Komarinets. Encyclopedia of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table /A. Komarinets - M.: Publishing House Ast LLC, 2001 - this article pp. 115-118

Identification system; subsequently the science of compiling and describing coats of arms.

Coats of arms and special signs on the shield and helmet, designed to help identify a knight during a battle or tournament, have traditionally been perhaps the most obvious feature that distinguished a knight from other members of medieval society. It is believed that the custom of using coats of arms arose in the 12th century, when a helmet with a visor appeared, completely hiding the face, and monotonous standard armor turned the knightly army into a single steel mass. All this contributed to the development of “identification marks” - heraldry. An even more urgent need for a developed coat of arms arose among participants in the crusades, in which knights from different countries could take part. There was a need to find some kind of system of signs and symbols that would allow - placed, for example, on a shield - to recognize knights.

Arthur's coat of arms. Late French version

The coat of arms was (and is called in theoretical heraldry today) special figures or symbolic images created on the basis of well-known, precisely defined rules and serving as permanent distinctive signs of an individual, clan, community or organization, as well as a city, region or an entire state.

There are known cases of the use of individual symbols and iconic images by famous warriors of antiquity and the Dark Ages. These signs remained the exclusive property of a certain person, while the medieval coat of arms went beyond simply an identification mark, since it became hereditary and acquired legal significance (when the coat of arms was used in seals). End of the 12th century and the entire XIV century, the era of the heyday of the knightly romance, was at the same time the era of the heyday of knightly heraldry. Literacy in those days remained the lot of only a very narrow circle, so the generally accepted language of coats of arms, emblems and symbols was of particular importance. Heraldry XIII – XIV centuries. actually took the place of the figurative language of this era, which almost everyone could speak. Therefore, it is not surprising that heraldry left its mark on almost all aspects of life in the Middle Ages.

Coats of arms adorned banners, standards and city buildings, and were displayed on the saddlecloths of horses. The knights returning from the Crusades brought with them the custom of imitating oriental luxury of clothing, and the so-called surcot, or cotte-hardie, worn over a long tunic with narrow sleeves, came into fashion. Noble persons wore clothing in colors corresponding to their coat of arms; ordinary nobles received such heraldic clothing from the king or from their lords, and also wore their coat of arms. Under Charles V (1330 - 1380, reign from 1364), suits of two coat of arms colors came into fashion in France: the right half of the suit corresponded to one coat of arms color, and the left half to another. This is how two-color dresses and fairies arose, which almost every humorist and satirist, starting with Mark Twain, made fun of, but which did not seem at all clownish to those who wore them in the 14th century.

Heraldry, or blazon (as it was called at the time of writing chivalric romances), appeared in the form of special knowledge precisely in the era of the Crusades. The custom of tournaments and the ceremonies associated with them, which became widespread around the same time, also contributed to the development of the terminology of heraldry and even the so-called heraldic language. At first, very few people knew the rules of this language, and with the increase in the number of personal coats of arms, these rules became very confusing. Heraldry, with its peculiar signs, figures, their endless combinations, various divisions of the coat of arms, etc., has turned into a very complex science. Heraldry was so firmly established as a part of knightly culture that neither the authors themselves nor their audience could imagine the Knights of the Round Table without correctly composed heraldic emblems.

The “historical” Arthur, whose official biography is given in his chronicle by Geoffrey of Monmouth, lived in the Dark Ages, when no heraldry yet existed. Its famous dragon banner is clearly derived from the battle standard of the mercenary cavalry of the late Roman Empire. The emblem on Arthur's shield may have originally been a cross and/or an image of the Virgin Mary - both the Welsh Annals of Cumbria and the Chronicle of Nennius mention this. Although Nennius says that he “carried this sign on his shoulder,” this may be due to confusion arising from the translation into Latin of the two graphically similar Welsh words “shoulder” and “shield.”

From the end of the 12th century. the cross and icon of the Virgin in Arthur's coat of arms are replaced by three crowns, which should obviously indicate his superiority over the other kings. In the 15th century with the spread of the belief that the three crowns stood for the three kingdoms (North Wales, South Wales and Logria), the number of crowns in the coat of arms increased to 13, in order to represent all the kingdoms that had sworn allegiance to King Arthur. The field of Arthur's coat of arms is usually red in English sources and blue in French texts (in keeping with the blue field of the French royal coat of arms).

As for the Knights of the Round Table, it is clear from the texts of the chivalric romances and from illustrated manuscripts that various authors differ as to the armorial emblems of their heroes as much as they disagree about what the Grail is. Nevertheless, no matter what coats of arms they gave to their heroes, these coats of arms were built in strict accordance with the rules of heraldry.

Before turning to the most famous coats of arms of the Knights of the Round Table, several heraldic terms should be clarified.

Since from the very first steps in the development of coats of arms, distinctive signs were placed primarily on shields, the coat of arms itself soon acquired the outline of a shield. The surface of the coat of arms (like the surface of a shield) is called the field of the coat of arms. Ancient heraldry distinguished four colors and two metals. Shields were often decorated with gold and silver, and these metals were transferred to the coat of arms, where they began to represent the corresponding colors. In the names below, the French term appears first, since English heraldry relied on French, as happened several centuries later with Russian heraldry.

Or – “gold” (later the same term began to denote the color yellow).

Argent - “silver” (later the same term came to mean white).

The colors used in heraldry are called tincture (this word takes into account the shade of the color). When describing the coat of arms, we are talking about “enamels”, since initially the colors on the coats of arms were applied precisely through enamel. Ancient heraldry recognized the following enamels:

Gules (geules) – red, or worm.

Azur – blue, or azure.

Vert (sinople) – green.

Sable - mob.

In the 15th century to these primary colors, several more components were added, the most common of which are purple (pourpur), ash (in German coats of arms) and orange (tenne) (in English coats of arms). Very rarely, so-called natural colors were also used. This was done in the case when, according to special instructions in the coat of arms, it was necessary to depict any animal (deer, fox, bull), known plant or part of the human body - in the color that is characteristic of them in reality: brown, red, gray, pink or flesh-colored etc. In the Middle Ages, heralds in such cases, instead of natural ones, resorted to the closest colors of heraldic tincture that matched the character. This is how gray or red deer, dogs and bulls appeared in coats of arms; lions were depicted as gold or red, parts of the human body - red or silver.

Around the middle of the 15th century. a list of coats of arms was compiled “Names, coats of arms and blasons of the Knights of the Round Table” (“Les Noms, Arms et Blasons des Chevalliers et Compaignes de la Table Ronde”), which contains drawings and descriptions of 175 coats of arms of the Knights of the Round Table. The list existed as an appendix to the famous “Book of Tournaments” by King René of Anjou (c. 1455), which contained detailed instructions for arranging tournaments “according to the rules established in the time of King Uther Pendragon and King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.”

Some of the coats of arms given in this list are directly related to the plots of chivalric romances. For example, the coat of arms of Yvain, the “Knight with the Lion” is a golden lion in an azure field, or the coat of arms of Lancelot: three scarlet baldrics on the left in a silver field. The latter is a reference to the mention that Lancelot had the strength of three warriors. The coats of arms of Lancelot and Yvain shown here belong to the so-called vowel coats of arms. Initially, only those coats of arms were considered vowel, the emblem of which directly indicated the name of the owner; when naming a vowel emblem, the name of the owner of the coat of arms was simultaneously named. Subsequently, emblems-rebuses similar to those mentioned above also began to be called vowels. The vowels include, for example, the coat of arms of Tristan, which contains a play on words based on the name of the hero: greenery, golden lion.

Sometimes, as a result of a copyist's error, the coat of arms could change. So, for example, Kay's coat of arms changed, which was originally blazoned as the Silver Head in the Mob - the head here denoted Kay's position at the court of King Arthur (seneschal). As a result of the error, the word “chief” (head - a heraldic figure, which is a wide stripe at the top of the shield) turned into “clefs” (keys), and on the coat of arms of Kay - Seneschal, instead of the Silver Chapter, two silver keys appeared. In some cases, as a result of an error in reading the coat of arms, a completely new character appeared. A similar “double” of Sagramur the Desired was generated by an incorrect reading of his coat of arms in the “Second Continuation” of “Perceval” by Chrétien de Troyes.

Since several different traditions are intertwined in the Arthurian epic, its main characters, in various novels, have two or even three completely different coats of arms. Something similar happened, for example, to Gawain. In the French tradition, Gawain's shield is the right front corner of a worm in a silver field. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Gawain was knighted by Pope Sulpicius, who also granted him a coat of arms. In the novel “Perlesvo” this coat of arms is called the shield of Judas Maccabee - a golden eagle in a scarlet field. In the appendix to the “Book of Tournaments” this coat of arms is again somewhat modified: a double-headed golden eagle in a scarlet field. Another coat of arms of Gawain (perhaps the most famous of all) is given in the novel Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: a golden pentagram in a scarlet field. In the Middle Ages, such a symbol was called the Seal of Solomon, or the “endless knot.” The same novel says that this coat of arms is exclusively personal, received for special merits and cannot be inherited. In the XIV century. in connection with the development of tournaments, tournament weapons began to differ significantly from combat weapons, and among knighthood it became customary to have a set of two shields: “shields of war” of a traditional triangular shape with a family coat of arms placed on it, and a “shield of peace”, a square tarch with a slot , into which a spear was inserted. A personal coat of arms was placed on this shield - for tournaments and peaceful adventures. Consequently, when he goes in search of the Green Chapel, Gawain takes with him a shield with his personal coat of arms, the “shield of peace.”

In general, when going on travels and returning from them (this was especially true for the Crusades), knights placed special symbols on their coats of arms. Usually these were small birds, similar to swallows and depicted in profile, without a beak and without legs. These migratory birds were supposed to indicate that the knights were wandering and homeless. The coat of arms of Galahad, the perfect knight who achieved the Grail, is also associated with the Crusades - a red cross in a white field originally served as an identification sign of all the crusaders, participants in the first crusade, which began in 1096.

It is worth mentioning another sign that is often found in romances of chivalry - the white shield. With a white shield, that is, a shield with an empty field without any coats of arms or emblems or any other images, the knight entered the tournament if for some reason he wanted to remain unrecognized. In general, descriptions of tournaments in knightly novels are replete with references to how one or another hero, in order to remain unrecognized, “changes colors,” that is, appears with a shield of different coat of arms colors. Such a “masquerade” or reluctance to travel with one’s well-known shield, however, often turned into a tragedy. For example, Perceval and Bors fought without recognizing each other, who went in search of the Holy Grail, placing migratory swallows on their shields. Only the miracle of the Grail saved them both from death. In ignorance, Gawain killed his sworn brother Yvain the Desperate, who was traveling with a white (empty) shield, in a duel.

Although the coats of arms of Arthur's list were recognized as authentic and were given in all textbooks on heraldry until the end of the 19th century, only one of them found its way onto the pages of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur - the coat of arms of Galahad.

Paul worked on the creation of coats of arms (according to the above-mentioned encyclopedia),

edited by Narwen (using WHP graphics - Heraldry Gallery)

The invention and use of all kinds of signs and symbols is characteristic of man. The custom of choosing a special distinctive sign for oneself or for one’s clan and tribe has very deep roots and is widespread throughout the world. It comes from the tribal system and a special worldview characteristic of all peoples in the primitive period of their history.

Ancestral signs and symbols are called totems; they are the closest relatives of coats of arms. The term "totem" comes from North America, and in the Ojibwe Indian language the word "ototem" means the concept of "its kind." The custom of totemism consists in the election by a clan or tribe of any animal or plant as the progenitor and patron from whom all members of the tribe trace their origin. This custom existed among ancient peoples, but is also accepted today among tribes leading a primitive lifestyle. The ancient Slavs also had totems - sacred animals, trees, plants - from the names of which some modern Russian surnames are supposed to originate. Among the Asian peoples of Turkic and Mongolian origin, there is a similar custom of “tamga”. Tamga is a sign of tribal affiliation, an image of an animal, bird or weapon, adopted by each tribe as a symbol, which is depicted on banners, emblems, burned on the skin of animals, and even applied to the body. The Kyrgyz have a legend that tamgas were assigned to individual clans by Genghis Khan himself, along with “urans” - battle cries (which were also used by European knights, which is why they later appeared on coats of arms in the form of mottos).

Prototypes of coats of arms - various symbolic images placed on military armor, banners, rings and personal belongings - were used in ancient times. In the works of Homer, Virgil, Pliny and other ancient authors there is evidence of the use of such signs. Both legendary heroes and real historical figures, such as kings and generals, often had personal emblems. Thus, the helmet of Alexander the Great was decorated with a sea horse (hippocampus), the helmet of Achilles with an eagle, the helmet of the King of Numibia Masinissa with a dog, the helmet of the Roman Emperor Caracalla with an eagle. The shields were also decorated with various emblems, for example, the image of the severed head of Medusa the Gorgon. But these signs were used as decoration, were arbitrarily changed by owners, were not inherited and were not subject to any rules. Only a few emblems of islands and cities of the ancient world were used constantly - on coins, medals and seals. The emblem of Athens was an owl, Corinth - Pegasus, Samos - a peacock, the island of Rhodes - a rose. In this one can already see the beginnings of state heraldry. Most ancient civilizations had some elements of heraldry in their culture, for example, a system of seals or stamps, which would later be inextricably linked with heraldry. In Assyria, the Babylonian Empire and ancient Egypt, seals were used in the same way as in medieval Europe - to authenticate documents. These signs were squeezed into clay, carved into stone and imprinted on papyrus. Already in the third millennium BC, there was a “coat of arms” of the Sumerian states - an eagle with a lion’s head. The emblem of Egypt was a snake, Armenia - a crowned lion, Persia - an eagle. Subsequently, the eagle will become the coat of arms of Rome. The “coat of arms” of Byzantium was actually a double-headed eagle, which was later borrowed by some European states, including Russia.

The ancient Germans painted their shields in different colors. Roman legionnaires had emblems on their shields, which could be used to determine their belonging to a particular cohort. Roman banners were decorated with special images - vexilla (hence the name of the science of flags - vexillology). To distinguish legions and cohorts, the troops also used badges - signa - in the form of various animals - an eagle, a boar, a lion, a minotaur, a horse, a she-wolf and others, which were worn in front of the army on long shafts. Military units were sometimes named after these figures, often relating to the history of the city of Rome.

So, various systems of insignia and emblems have always existed everywhere, but heraldry itself, as a special form of symbolism, arose in the process of the development of the feudal system in Western Europe.

The bright and colorful art of heraldry developed during the dark times of cultural and economic decline that occurred in Europe with the death of the Roman Empire and the establishment of the Christian religion, when feudalism arose and a system of hereditary aristocracy emerged. Several factors contributed to the emergence of coats of arms. First of all, feudalism and the crusades, but they were born from the destroying and life-giving fire of war. It is believed that the coats of arms appeared in the 10th century, but it is difficult to find out the exact date. The first coats of arms depicted on seals attached to documents date back to the 11th century. The oldest armorial seals are placed on the marriage contract of the year 1000, concluded by Sancho, Infante of Castile, with Wilhelmina, daughter of Gaston II, Viscount of Béarn. It should be borne in mind that in an era of widespread illiteracy, the use of a coat of arms for a signature and to designate property was for many the only way to certify a document with their name. Such an identification mark was understandable even to an illiterate person (it is quite possible that coats of arms appeared first on seals, and only then on weapons and clothing).

Undoubted evidence of the existence of heraldry appears only after the Crusades. The earliest such evidence is a French enamel drawing from the tomb of Geoffroy Plantagenet (died 1151), Count of Anjou and Maine, depicting Geoffrey himself with a coat of arms, where on an azure field there are supposedly four rearing golden lions (the exact number of lions is difficult to determine due to the position , in which the shield is drawn). The Earl was the son-in-law of Henry I, King of England, who reigned from 1100 to 1135, who, according to the chronicle, granted him this coat of arms.

The first English king to have a personal coat of arms was Richard I the Lionheart (1157-1199). His three golden leopards have since been used by all the royal dynasties of England.

"WHO WHO IS SORRY AND POOR HERE WILL BE RICH THERE!"

The Crusades, which lasted from 1096 to 1291, constituted an entire era in European history. The beginning of this two-hundred-year war was provoked by the Turks, who had established themselves in Palestine - fanatical Muslims, who, armed with their irreconcilable religion, began to desecrate the shrines of Christianity and create obstacles for Christians who wanted to make a pilgrimage to Palestine and Jerusalem. But the true reasons lay deeper and lay in the centuries-old confrontation between Europe and Asia, which continues to this day. Asian tribes, united under the banner of Islam, began a grandiose expansion, as a result of which they conquered Syria, Palestine, Egypt, North Africa, Spain, threatened Constantinople and were already approaching the very heart of Europe. In 711, an Arab army of 7,000 men led by Tariq ibn Ziyad crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to the European continent. Thus began the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula (the rock on the Spanish coast has since been called Mount Tariq, or in Arabic - Jabal Tariq, which in Spanish pronunciation became Gibraltar). By 715, almost the entire Iberian Peninsula was in Muslim hands. In 721, the Umayyad forces, who ruled a vast caliphate from 661-750, crossed the Pyrenees, captured Spain and began the conquest of southern France. They captured the cities of Narbonne and Carcassone. Thus, new strongholds arose for attacks on Aquitaine and Burgundy. The ruler of the Franks, Charles of the Carolingian family (689-741), defeated the Arabs when they reached the Loire. This happened in 732 at the Battle of Poitiers. The victory earned him the nickname Martel - "hammer" - because he stopped the Muslim advance across Western Europe. But the Arabs held power in Provence for several more decades. The military expansion of the Muslim conquerors contributed to the penetration of Arab art and philosophy into Europe during their brief heyday. Arab culture gave impetus to the development of medicine and natural sciences in Western Europe. In Byzantium, Muslims were crushed by Emperor Leo III the Isaurian. The further spread of Islam was stopped by the beginning of the political disintegration of the Muslim world, until then strong and terrible in its unity. The caliphate was fragmented into parts that were at war with each other. But in the 11th century, the Seljuk Turks began a new offensive towards the West, stopping just under the walls of Constantinople.

By that time, the lands of Western Europe were divided between secular and church feudal lords. The feudal system strengthened, replacing the communal one with its military democracy. The oppression and impoverishment of the people intensified - there were practically no free cultivators left, the peasants were enslaved and subject to tribute. The feudal lords came up with more and more taxes, competing in extortions with the church - the largest feudal owner, whose greed knew no bounds. Life became unbearable, which is why the population of Europe, impatiently awaiting the end of their torment in connection with the end of the world promised by the church and the advent of paradise on Earth, was in a state of religious exaltation, expressed in the desire for all kinds of spiritual achievements and readiness for Christian self-sacrifice. The flow of pilgrims increased. If the Arabs in former times treated them tolerantly, now the Turks began to attack pilgrims and destroy Christian churches. The Roman Catholic Church decided to take advantage of this, hatching plans for world domination, which first of all required subjugating the breakaway eastern - Byzantine - church and increasing its income through the acquisition of new feudal possessions - dioceses. In the latter, the interests of the church and the feudal lords completely coincided, since there were no more free lands and peasants sitting on them, and according to the rule of “majority,” the land was inherited from the father only to the eldest son. So the call of Pope Urban II to protect the Holy Sepulcher fell on fertile ground: the painful socio-economic conditions in Europe led to the emergence of many desperate people who had nothing to lose and who were ready to go on a risky journey to the ends of the world in search of adventure, wealth and the glory of the “soldiers of Christ.” In addition to the large feudal lords driven by aggressive motives, the idea of ​​going to the East was accepted by numerous small feudal knights (younger members of feudal families who could not count on receiving an inheritance), as well as merchants of many trading cities, hoping to destroy their main competitor in trade with the rich East - Byzantium . But the greatest enthusiasm was, of course, experienced by ordinary people, driven to despair by poverty and deprivation. Huge masses of people were inspired by the speech of Pope Urban in Clermont on November 24, 1095 and vowed to go to war against the infidels for the liberation of the Holy Sepulcher and the Holy Land. They sewed crosses cut from fabric (often taken from the attire of the priests themselves, who called on the masses to heroism) onto their clothes, which is why they received the name “crusaders.” To the shouts of “God wants it this way!” many set off straight from the Clermont Plain, following the pope’s propaganda call: “The land that you inhabit has become crowded with your large numbers. Hence it happens that you bite each other and fight with each other... Now your hatred, enmity will fall silent and civil strife will fall asleep. Take the path to the holy tomb, wrest that land from the wicked people and subjugate it to yourself. ...Whoever is sad and poor here will become rich there!"

The first crusade took place in 1096, but coats of arms could well have appeared a little earlier. The problem is that the first documentary evidence of coats of arms appeared at least two hundred years after their origin. Perhaps the close connection of the Crusades with the birth of heraldry is explained by the fact that it was during this period that the use of coats of arms became widespread. This required the creation of an ordered system of symbolic images as a means of communication, since the coat of arms served as an identification mark that carried some information about the owner and was clearly visible from a distance.

Since the 12th century, armor has become more and more complex, the helmet covers the entire face of the knight, and he himself dresses in armor entirely, from head to toe. In addition, with some differences, all the armor was of the same type, so it became impossible to identify the knight not only from afar, but also up close. This situation gave impetus to the massive use of the coat of arms as an identification mark. In addition to the coat of arms depicted on the shield, additional coat of arms gradually appeared, which were designed to help knights recognize each other from a distance and in the heat of battle: the pommel (kleinod) - a decoration made of animal horns and bird feathers fixed on the top of the helmet (this element received development during knightly tournaments), as well as heraldic pennants and standards. The combination of two types of generic signs - a shield and a pommel - later formed the material basis of the coat of arms.

But let's return to the Crusades. Much in heraldry indicates that it developed during the conquest of the East by the Crusaders. These are the signs. The term enamel, which denotes heraldic colors, is of Eastern origin. The word comes from the Persian "mina", meaning the blue color of the sky (the first enamels were blue). The unique technique of enamel painting came to Europe from Persia, Arabia and Byzantium. It was in this way - by applying enamel - that steel armor, shields and special coat of arms were painted, which heralds exhibited at tournaments. The blue color or azure - "azur" - was brought to Europe from the East - its very modern name ultramarine (overseas blue) reminds of this. The heraldic name "azur" comes from the Persian "azurk" - blue. This is also where the name lapis lazuli (lapis lazuli), a stone found mainly in Afghanistan, comes from, from which this paint is obtained. The name of the red color - "guelz" (gueulez) - comes from the purple-dyed furs with which the crusaders trimmed their marching clothes around the neck and sleeves (in the section "Rules of Heraldry" it will be discussed that heraldic figures were often made from pieces of fur stuffed on the shield). The name comes from the word "gul" - red, which in Persian means the color of a rose. The origin of the green color "vert", also called "sinople", probably comes from dyes produced in the East. The color orange, more commonly found in English heraldry, is called "tenne" - from the Arabic "henne". This was the name of the vegetable yellow-red dye, known to us as henna. Asian and Arab chiefs have an ancient custom of dyeing the mane, tail and belly of their war horses, and the right hand holding a weapon with henna. In general, Easterners dye their hair and nails with henna. Of eastern origin, it is called a shield with a special semicircular cutout on one or both edges into which a spear is inserted. This shield is called "tarch" - just like its Arabic prototype.

Two important details of the heraldic design owe their origin to the Crusades - the mantle and the burlet. During the First Crusade, dozens of knights died daily from the heat as their steel armor became hot in the sun. The Crusaders had to borrow from the Arabs a method used by the desert inhabitants to this day: in order to escape from the hot sun and prevent the helmet from heating up, Arab and Persian warriors used a piece of cloth thrown over the head and shoulders and secured on the head with a hoop made of woven camel hair intertwined with silk. threads. The so-called kufiyya is still an integral part of the Arab costume. From it comes the mantle or lambrequin ("lambrequin", from the Latin "lambellum" - a scrap or piece of matter), as well as burlet (from the French "burrelet" - wreath). The mantle is an obligatory part of the coat of arms, and is depicted in the form of a cape with fluttering ends, attached to the helmet with a burlet or crown. The mantle can be either whole, with an ornamentally carved edge (especially in early coats of arms) or excised, with long, intricately intertwined flaps (probably, the mantle cut by saber blows indicated the courage of the owner of the coat of arms - a participant in the hottest battles).

During the Crusades, European feudal lords, who were well known to everyone in their homeland, joined a huge international army and, against the general background, lost their usually pronounced external individuality, which is why they felt the need to somehow distinguish themselves from the mass of the same knights , demonstrate their national, tribal and military affiliation. The conquests of the Crusaders were always accompanied by terrible robbery and robbery, so a rule was established according to which the knight who was the first to break into any house of the captured city was declared the owner of everything that was in it. The knights had to somehow mark the loot in order to protect it from the encroachments of their comrades. With the advent of coats of arms, this problem was solved by nailing a shield with the coat of arms of its new owner to the door of the house. This need was felt not only by individual crusaders, but also by major military leaders: the inhabitants of the houses and neighborhoods taken by their detachments hung the banners of these troops so as not to be robbed by other feudal lords. It should be noted here that conflicts over the division of booty, skirmishes and disputes over the honor of taking a particular city arose constantly among the crusaders. You can also add that all the crusades were very poorly organized. There was complete confusion in the preparation of military operations, and during the battles there was a general chaos. The secular and ecclesiastical feudal lords brought all their discord, greed, deceit and cruelty, from which Europe groaned, with them to the East. Later, this (like the traditionally treacherous policy of Byzantium) will lead to the collapse of the crusading movement and the expulsion of Europeans from the occupied territories, but for now there is a need to somehow streamline the situation. An example was before our eyes: Arab warriors used shield emblems, usually consisting of inscriptions or drawings of flowers and fruits. This custom, like many others, was borrowed by the crusaders and became one of the foundation stones of the emerging heraldry.

The consequence of the Crusades was the extinction of many noble families of Europe, all of whose male representatives died during the campaigns. Noble families, whose roots went back to the era of the conquest of Rome by barbarian tribes, simply disappeared. As a result, European monarchs for the first time were forced to grant grants to the nobility, creating a new aristocracy. Coats of arms played a crucial role in this, since often the only basis for claiming nobility and documentary evidence of noble origin was the coat of arms brought from the Holy Land.

So, the accumulation in one place of many feudal lords from different countries (an unusual situation for Europe), the international character of the crusader army, the need to recognize each other and (in conditions of illiteracy and language barriers) to assert their own name, as well as the features of weapons, the method of waging war and the borrowing of many inventions of eastern civilization - all this became the reason for the emergence and design of heraldry.

The coat of arms owes no less to knightly tournaments than to the crusades. Tournaments appeared before the Crusades. In any case, there is a mention of military games that took place in 842 in Strasbourg during negotiations between Charles the Bald and Louis the German. Probably, tournaments took shape in France in the middle of the 12th century and then spread to England and Germany. In some chronicles, the French Baron G. de Prelli is called the inventor of tournaments, but most likely he only developed the first rules for tournaments.

Tournaments have long become an integral part of Western European life. Only knights with an impeccable reputation were allowed to participate in them. Violation of the chivalric code threatened terrible shame. Around 1292, new, safer rules for tournaments were introduced - "Statutum Armorum". You could only use blunt weapons. Each knight was allowed to have only three squires. In duels, special spears were now used that easily broke upon impact. It was forbidden to fight out of turn, to wound the enemy’s horse, to strike other than in the face or chest, to continue the fight after the enemy raised his visor, to act as a group against one. Violators were deprived of weapons, horses and imprisoned for up to three years. Special tournament armor appeared, so massive that the knight and his horse could hardly bear their weight. The horses themselves also wore armor from the 13th century. Just like the shields of knights, horse blankets had heraldic coloring. Two more important details should be mentioned. The knight should have been clearly visible from above, from the stands, especially during a general battle. That is why the already mentioned pommels appeared (or at least spread widely) - figures mounted on the top of the helmet, made of light wood, leather and even papier-mâché (later - from more expensive materials). The famous 14th-century German knight-errant Ulrich von Lichtenstein, who took part in several tournaments dressed as the legendary King Arthur, introduced the fashion for complex pommels: he wore a helmet decorated with a figure of Venus holding a torch in one hand and an arrow in the other. The tents or tents in which knights prepared for competitions, stored weapons and rested between battles (the same tents were used by the crusaders on campaigns) will also later be reflected in the art of heraldry - they will turn into a heraldic mantle and a “canopy” tent.

From wild, bloody carnage, tournaments evolved into colorful theatrical performances, where formalities became increasingly important, and the actual fight became less important and more conventional. For example, in the "Tournament of Peace", held in Windsor Park in England in 1278, swords made of whalebone covered with parchment and silvered, helmets made of boiled leather and shields of light wood were used. For certain achievements in the competition, the knight received points (for example, bonus points were awarded for knocking down a pommel). The winner was determined by crowned heads, senior knights or specially appointed judges (often heralds); sometimes the question of the winner was decided by the ladies in whose honor the knights fought. Tournaments were traditionally imbued with an emphatically reverent attitude towards women, which formed almost the basis of the knightly code. The winner of the tournament received the reward from the hands of the lady. The knights performed decorated with some badge received from their ladies. Sometimes ladies brought their knights tied with a chain - the chain was considered a symbol of special honor and was given only to a select few. In each competition, the last blow was struck in honor of the lady, and here the knights especially tried to distinguish themselves. After the tournament, the ladies led the winner to the palace, where he was disarmed and a feast was held in his honor, where the hero occupied the most honorable place. The names of the winners were included in special lists, and their exploits were passed down to descendants in minstrel songs. Victory in the tournament also brought material benefits: sometimes the victor took away the enemy’s horse and weapons, took him prisoner and demanded a ransom. For many poor knights, this was the only way to earn a living.

From Friday to Sunday, when tournaments were permitted by the church, there were fights every day, and in the evenings there were dances and celebrations. There were several types of competitions: horse riding, when a knight had to knock the enemy out of the saddle with a blow of a spear; sword fight; throwing spears and arrows; siege of wooden castles built specifically for tournaments. Another way to show courage, besides the tournament, was to "defend the passes." A group of knights announced that in honor of their ladies they would defend a place from everyone. So, in 1434, at Orbigo, in Spain, ten knights defended the bridge from sixty-eight rivals for a month, having fought more than seven hundred duels. In the 16th century, foot fights with short spears, maces and axes became popular. In Europe, only persons of noble birth were allowed to participate in tournaments. In Germany, the requirements were more liberal: sometimes, in order to obtain permission, it was enough to refer to an ancestor who took part in a knightly tournament. We can say that the main pass to the tournament was the coat of arms, proving the high origin of the owner and his position in the family hierarchy. For experts, such as heralds, the presented coat of arms contained all the necessary information. That is why the most important part of tournament etiquette were coats of arms, of which there were so many that it was time to restore order in this area.

The heralds systematized the knowledge about coats of arms, developed general principles and rules for their compilation and recognition, and ultimately created the science of “arms of arms” or “heraldry”
There are two options for the origin of the terms “heraldry” and “herald”: from the late Latin heraldica (from heraldus - herald), or from the German Herald - spoiled Heeralt - veteran, as people were called in Germany in the Middle Ages who had a reputation for valiant and brave warriors who were invited as guests of honor and judges at various celebrations, and, in particular, at tournaments. These veterans had to preserve the customs of chivalry, develop the rules of tournaments, and also monitor their compliance.
The predecessors of heralds were representatives of several related professions, whose duties were combined and clarified, which led to the emergence of heralds in the classical sense of the word - heralds, courtiers and traveling minstrels, as well as the veterans mentioned above.
Heralds or parliamentarians were used in ancient armies, as they are still used today - for negotiations with the enemy, for announcing decrees and various kinds of announcements.

Minstrels (French menestrel, from the medieval Latin ministerialis) are medieval singers and poets. In any case, this term acquired this meaning in France and England at the end of the Middle Ages. Initially, in all feudal states, ministerials were people who were in the service of the lord and performed some special duty (ministerium) under him. Among them were poets-singers, who, unlike their traveling brothers in the craft, were constantly at court or at a high-ranking official. In France in the 12th century, minstrels sometimes referred to the king's servants in general, and sometimes to his court poets and singers. The function of court minstrels was to sing and glorify the exploits of their feudal lords. And from here it’s not far to the function of managers of court ceremonies and, in particular, knightly tournaments. It is likely that the traveling minstrels, whose art was in demand at the courts of European feudal lords, gained experience in recognizing the coats of arms that constantly surrounded them. The oldest known poet-herald was Conrad of Würzburg, who lived in the 13th century. The functions of veterans, who by the nature of their activities were directly related to coats of arms, have already been mentioned.

It is possible that representatives of all three professions were called at a certain historical moment by one common term - heralds. One way or another, the spread of knightly tournaments contributed to the emergence of special officials who were supposed to announce the opening of the tournament, develop and observe the ceremony of its holding, as well as announce all fights and the names of their participants. This required special knowledge - the herald had to be well aware of the genealogy of the noble families whose representatives took part in the battles, and be able to recognize the coats of arms of the knights who gathered for the tournament. Thus, the profession of heralds gradually acquires a purely heraldic character, and heraldry itself is born at tournaments.

The French name for heraldry - "blason" - comes from the German "blasen" - "to blow a horn" and is explained by the fact that when a knight rode up to the barrier enclosing the tournament site, he would blow a horn to announce his arrival. Then the herald came out and, at the request of the tournament judges, described aloud the knight’s coat of arms as proof of his right to take part in the tournament. From the word “blasen” comes the French “blasonner”, the German “blasoniren”, the English “blazon”, the Spanish “blasonar” and the Russian word “blazonirovat” - that is, to describe a coat of arms. Heralds created a special jargon to describe coats of arms (and is still used today by heraldry specialists), based on Old French and medieval Latin, since chivalry itself, as well as much associated with it - the chivalric code, weapon developments, tournaments and, finally, heraldry - originates from France, or rather from the empire of Charlemagne (747-814), inhabited by Franco-Germanic tribes. Much of the heraldic terminology is denoted by quasi-French, obsolete words. During the Middle Ages, French was used by the ruling classes in most of Western Europe, so the rules of heraldry had to be drawn up in this language. However, some heraldic terms are so ornate that they seem deliberately designed to puzzle the uninitiated. The special terms developed by the heralds will be discussed below.

It is assumed that the Russian word "coat of arms" is borrowed from the Polish "herb" and is found in many Slavic and Germanic dialects (herb, erb, irb) meaning heir or inheritance. The Slavic name of this identification mark directly indicates its hereditary nature. The English term "coat of arms", denoting a coat of arms, comes from the name of a special piece of clothing "surcoat" - a linen or silk cape that protects a knight's armor from the sun and rain (the word "knight" comes from the German "ritter" - horseman).

So, coats of arms are becoming increasingly important in Western European countries. In England, since the 12th century, heralds have been held in high esteem at the court of kings. Edward III (1312-1377) established a heraldic college that functions to this day (this institution - "The College of Arms" - is located in London on Queen Victoria Street). In France, Louis VII (1120-1180) established the duties of heralds and ordered all royal regalia to be decorated with fleurs-de-lis. Under the French king Philip II Augustus (1165-1223), heralds began to be dressed in knightly dress with the coat of arms of the owner and were assigned certain duties at tournaments. The duties of heralds were precisely formulated by the middle of the 14th century. The title of herald becomes honorary; it is elevated to it only after some battle, tournament or ceremony. To do this, the sovereign poured a cup of wine (sometimes water) on the head of the dedicatee and gave him the name of the city or fortress associated with the dedication ceremony, which the herald kept until he received the next highest degree - the title of king of arms (French "roi d" armes", German. "Wappenkoenig"). The duties of the herald were divided into three main groups: 1) they were entrusted with declaring war, concluding peace, offering to surrender the fortress, etc., as well as counting the killed and wounded during a battle or tournament and assessing the valor of the knights; 2) they were required to attend all solemn ceremonies - the coronation or burial of the sovereign, the elevation to knighthood, ceremonial receptions, etc. 3) they were assigned purely heraldic duties - drawing up coats of arms and genealogies.
The work of heralds was paid very well; there was a tradition not to let the sent herald go without a gift, so as not to show disrespect to the sovereign who sent him.

Each state was divided into several heraldic marks, which were under the supervision of one “king of arms” and several heralds. For example, France in 1396 was divided into eighteen such marks. In Germany in the 14th century, individual provinces also had their own heralds.
True, since the 18th century, heralds have lost their medieval meaning, but they do not disappear without a trace, and are still used at ceremonies - coronations, weddings, etc.

Centuries after the appearance of coats of arms, the first scientific works on heraldry and armorials themselves begin to appear, the earliest of which, apparently, is the "Zuricher Wappenrolle", compiled in Zurich in 1320.

In France, Jacob Bretex at the end of the 13th century describes tournaments and the coats of arms of their participants. But the earliest work outlining the rules of heraldry is considered to be a monograph by the Italian lawyer Bartolo, whose “Tractatus de insigniis et armis” was published in 1356.
Berry, the chief herald of France at the court of Charles VII (1403-1461), on the instructions of the king, traveled throughout the country, visiting castles, abbeys and cemeteries, studying images of coats of arms and compiling genealogies of ancient noble families. Based on his research, he compiled the work “Le registre de noblesse”. After him, French heralds began to keep regular genealogical records. A similar task was received from the kings in the period from Henry VIII (1491-1547) to James II (1566-1625) by English heralds who carried out so-called “heraldic visits” - inspection trips around the country for the purpose of censusing noble families, registering coats of arms and checking their eligibility . It turned out that most of the ancient coats of arms that appeared before 1500 were appropriated by the owners without permission, and not granted by the king. It was not difficult to invent a simple coat of arms. The situation in which three unrelated nobles had identical coats of arms was not uncommon, but only proved that these coats of arms were adopted by them arbitrarily. When a dispute arose on this basis between the owners of identical coats of arms, everyone appealed to the king as the last resort. It is noteworthy that when the dispute was resolved, the nobleman, forced as a result to abandon his coat of arms, consoled himself by inventing a new one for himself.
The materials collected during the "heraldic visits" formed the basis of English genealogy and heraldry.

CITY EMBRACES

The basis of city and state emblems are the seals of feudal lords, which certified the authenticity of documents sent by them from their possessions. The family coat of arms of the feudal lord was thus transferred first to the seal of the castle, and then to the seal of the lands belonging to him. With the emergence of new cities and the formation of new states, the requirements of the time and legal norms led to the creation of coats of arms, either completely new, not borrowed from the family coats of arms of the nobility, but bearing symbolic images indicating local attractions, historical events, the economic profile of the city, or mixed. An example is the coat of arms of Paris, in which a ship and an azure field with golden lilies coexist. The ship symbolizes, on the one hand, the Isle de la Cité on the Seine River, located in the very center of the city, which has the shape of a ship, and on the other, trade and trading companies, the main component of the city economy. An azure field with golden lilies is an old emblem of the Capetian dynasty, under whose patronage Paris was.

From the end of the 13th and during the 14th centuries, heraldry penetrated into all areas of public life, and heraldic terminology became commonly used in cultural strata of society. Heraldry is becoming fashionable in literature, art, and everyday life. Coats of arms appear everywhere, from knights' armor to the collars of their favorite dogs. The knights who returned from the Crusades began, imitating the luxurious clothes of the eastern rulers, to wear special coats of arms, matching the colors of their coats of arms and decorated with embroidered armorial figures and mottos. Servants and squires receive clothes with the coat of arms of their masters, ordinary nobles put on a dress with the coats of arms of their lords, noble ladies begin to wear dresses with images of two coats of arms: on the right is the husband’s coat of arms, on the left is their own. Under the French king Charles V the Wise (1338-1380), clothes painted half in one color and half in another came into fashion. From the nobles and their squires, this fashion passed on to representatives of the urban classes. Thus, heraldry becomes an important component of the culture of Western Europe.

Along with individual heraldry, other areas of heraldry also developed in the Middle Ages - urban and corporate, including church. Urban artisans and merchants created guilds, registered as “legal entities” and provided with coats of arms accordingly. It was customary for guild members to wear clothing in the heraldic colors of their association - special liveries. For example, members of the London Butcher Company wore blue and white liveries, bakers wore olive green and chestnut colors, and wax candle merchants wore blue and white liveries. The London Furriers' Company were allowed to use ermine in their coat of arms, although according to medieval norms this heraldic color could only be used by royal and noble families as a sign of their exclusivity and superiority. Mainly tools of labor were placed on corporate coats of arms.

Similar coats of arms, called vowels - "armes parlantes", in which the name of the craft was conveyed by heraldic symbols, are received by many guilds and guilds. Here, for example, is what the coats of arms of the workshops of Ghent, one of the largest craft centers of the Middle Ages, looked like: coopers depicted a working tool and a tub on the shield of their coat of arms, butchers - a bull, fruit merchants - a fruit tree, barbers - a razor and scissors, shoemakers - a boot, fishmongers - fish, shipbuilders - a ship under construction. The workshop of goldsmiths in Paris received from King Philip VI (1293-1350) a coat of arms depicting royal gold lilies, connected to a gold cross and the emblems of their craft - gold sacred vessels and crowns, with the motto "In sacra inque coronas". Pharmacists depict scales and a lancet on their coats of arms, nailers - a hammer and nails, wheelwrights - wheels, manufacturers of playing cards - symbols of card suits. In addition, corporate coats of arms contained images of the patron saints of the respective crafts. The French king Louis XIII, wanting to raise the importance of the merchants, granted coats of arms to the six merchant guilds of Paris, in which the ship from the Parisian city coat of arms was adjacent to the symbols of the corresponding crafts and mottos.

Rich townspeople wishing to imitate the aristocracy used family insignia like coats of arms, although they were not official. But the French government, in need of money, decided to turn the spreading fashion to its advantage and allowed everyone to acquire coats of arms, but for a fee. Moreover, greedy officials even obliged townspeople to acquire coats of arms. As a result of the introduction of a tax on the right to have a personal coat of arms in 1696, the treasury began to receive significant income, since a huge number of coats of arms were registered. But as a result, the value of coats of arms in France fell greatly - the incredibly proliferating coats of arms became worthless.

Educational institutions have also used coats of arms for centuries. Universities often received the coats of arms of their founders, such as Christ's College, Cambridge, founded by Lady Margaret Beaufort. Eton College received a coat of arms in 1449 from its founder, King Henry VI (1421-1471), a pious hermit whose failure to rule was one of the causes of the Wars of the Roses. The three white lilies on this coat of arms symbolize the Virgin Mary, in whose honor the college was founded. Many private and commercial firms today strive to obtain a coat of arms, since the presence of such a coat of arms gives the company solidity and reliability. For example, the famous English trading company Herrods received a coat of arms relatively recently.

From the first days of its existence, the church laid claim to the highest and absolute power in this world, and therefore appropriated to itself all the attributes of secular power, including coats of arms. The coat of arms of the papacy in the 14th century became the crossed gold and silver keys of the Apostle Peter - “permissive” and “knitting”, tied with a gold cord, on a scarlet shield under the papal tiara. These symbols have received various interpretations, which we will not dwell on here. Let’s just say that the coat of arms indicates the rights received by Peter to “decide” and “knit” all the affairs of the church and that these rights were inherited from him by his successors - the popes. This coat of arms is today the official coat of arms of the Vatican, but each pope receives his own coat of arms, in which the keys and tiara frame the shield. For example, the current Pope John Paul II has a coat of arms that he received while still Archbishop of Krakow from the hands of a heraldry specialist, Archbishop Bruno Heim. The cross and the letter "M" on the coat of arms symbolize Christ and the Virgin Mary. It should be said that placing any inscriptions other than mottos in the coat of arms is considered bad form, but the author of the coat of arms justifies himself by referring to the traditions of Polish heraldry (which will be discussed later), where runic writing was originally used. Indeed, the letter “M” resembles a rune of a similar design.

The flag of the Vatican shows the small coat of arms of the city-state, which lacks the scarlet shield, but this color is transferred to the cord that binds the keys. Obviously, the colors of the keys chosen for the flag are gold and silver.

The Church, which was the largest feudal lord of the Middle Ages, early began to use coats of arms for practical purposes - to identify and demonstrate the territorial affiliation of church organizations. Coats of arms have been found on the seals of abbeys and bishops since the 12th century. The most common symbols of church heraldry are the keys of St. Peter's, St.'s eagle John and other signs symbolizing various saints, details of church life, and a wide variety of crosses. In Great Britain, there are certain rules for the coats of arms of church leaders, showing their status in the church hierarchy. For example, the coats of arms of archbishops and bishops are decorated with miters (the coat of arms of the Pope is crowned with a tiara), and on the coats of arms of lower-ranking priests, in accordance with their status, special hats of different colors are placed, equipped with multi-colored cords and tassels. A dean, for example, might have a black hat with two purple single cords with three red tassels on each. Priests of the Roman Catholic Church are not under the jurisdiction of official heraldic bodies, but the coats of arms they use have been regulated by special decree since 1967. For example, the coat of arms of a Catholic archbishop may contain a green hat with two green single cords, each equipped with ten green tassels.

All state emblems of European countries were based on the family coats of arms of the ruling dynasties. Many modern European state emblems in one form or another feature lions and eagles - traditional symbols of power and statehood.

On the coat of arms of Denmark - three azure leopards on a golden field decorated with scarlet hearts - this is how the coat of arms of King Canute VI Valdemarsson looked like around 1190. Along with the English one, this coat of arms can be considered the oldest European state emblem. In the great royal coat of arms of Sweden, lions support the shield and are also present in the second and third quarters of the shield. Around 1200, the ruler of Norway got his own coat of arms, which depicts a golden crowned lion of St. on a scarlet field. Olaf, clutching a battle ax in his front paws. The lion of the Finnish coat of arms gradually took shape by the 16th century. The coats of arms of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg also feature a lion - the old emblem of the Dukes of Burgundy. The coat of arms of the Netherlands features a golden lion with a silver sword and a bunch of arrows in its paws. This is the federal emblem of the Republic of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, which gained independence in 1609. The Republican coat of arms was generally preserved after the creation of the kingdom in 1815. The coat of arms took its modern form in 1917, when, on the initiative of Prince Consort Heinrich of Mecklenburg (1876-1934), the royal crown on the lion’s head was replaced with a regular one, a mantle with a canopy and shield-holder lions appeared. By decision of the Congress of Vienna, which established a new European order after the collapse of the Napoleonic empire, the Netherlands gained independence. The son of the last stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, William VI of Orange, became King of the Netherlands under the name of William I. But the southern provinces of the Netherlands decided to defend their own independence. In 1830, an uprising occurred in Brabant, and since then the Brabant golden lion in a black field began to be perceived as a symbol of the independence of the union of the southern provinces. In 1831, the Kingdom of Belgium was proclaimed, the coat of arms of which became the coat of arms of Brabant. The coat of arms of Luxembourg was approved by King William I of the Netherlands in 1815, as he was also the Grand Duke of Luxembourg. The lion can be seen on other state emblems. In international state heraldry, the lion is adjacent to another symbol of supreme power - the eagle. It can be seen on the coats of arms of Austria, Albania, Bolivia, Germany, Indonesia, Iraq, Colombia, Libya, Mexico, Poland, Syria, USA, Chile and many other countries. Unfortunately, the space of this article does not allow us to pay attention to each of them, so here we will look at only a few examples.

The Austrian three-stripe (red-white-red) shield was the coat of arms of the Dukes of Babenberg, who ruled this country until 1246. His image appeared on the seals of the dukes in the 20s and 30s of the 13th century. Earlier, in the second half of the 12th century, the image of a black eagle, a very common heraldic emblem, first appeared on the seal of the first Austrian Duke Henry II of Babenberg. The Austrian knights, led by Duke Leopold V, set out on the third crusade under the black eagle flag. Soon, in 1282, Austria came under the rule of the new Habsburg dynasty, whose family coat of arms was a red lion in a golden field. From 1438 to 1806, the Habsburgs occupied the throne of the Holy Roman Empire almost continuously, whose emblem was traditionally the double-headed eagle. It became the coat of arms of Austria, and later the Austrian Empire (1804) and the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1868). The same eagle can be seen on the shield of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

Plants can be seen at the base of the UK coat of arms. These are the unspoken (silent) mottos or symbols of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. In different versions of the coat of arms, they can be depicted either separately or combined into one fantastic plant, a kind of hybrid consisting of a Tudor rose, a Caledonian thistle of Scotland, an Irish clover shamrock and a Welsh onion.

The Tudor rose was formed from the scarlet rose of Lancaster and the white rose of York, who fought among themselves for the English throne. After the Wars of the Roses, which lasted from 1455 to 1485, the founder of the new dynasty, Henry VII (1457-1509), united the emblems of the warring houses into one. The shamrock joined the rose-thistle hybrid in 1801 to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

The rose, thistle, shamrock and bow illustrate another area of ​​heraldry. Various badges attached to clothing, which could symbolize a specific person, country or some concept, appeared even before coats of arms, in antiquity, and gained great popularity in the Middle Ages. With the development of heraldry, these badges began to acquire a heraldic character. The badge usually represented one main emblem of the family coat of arms, many of which were very complex and consisted of many details. These badges were intended to show that their owners belonged to a person’s circle or to a whole family. During the Wars of the Roses, many soldiers, especially foreign mercenaries, dressed in the heraldic colors of their lord. For example, at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, soldiers in the Earl of Richmond's army wore white and green jackets, soldiers in Sir William Stanley's army wore red, and so on. In addition, they wore the personal badges of their commanders. This was a prototype of a military uniform. In all modern armies, along with elements of heraldry, there are special badges. The owner of the coat of arms could have several badges, and also change them arbitrarily at will.

Apart from Western Europe, only Japan had developed a similar heraldic system called "mon" by the 12th century. In some European languages ​​this is erroneously translated as "coat of arms", although it is not a coat of arms in the European sense of the word. As an example, we can consider the emblem of the imperial family - a 16-petal chrysanthemum. Similar signs were also placed on helmets, shields and armor breastplates, but unlike coats of arms, they were never depicted so large that they could be recognized from a distance. If such identification was required, "mon" was depicted on flags. Just like the European coat of arms, “mon” is used in art - for the design of clothing, furniture, and interior design. Just like in European royal families, the younger members of the Japanese imperial family had an image of a chrysanthemum modified according to certain rules. Just like in Europe, in Japan it was necessary to legally formalize "mon". Both hereditary heraldic systems arose independently of each other, but their similarity is not surprising, since feudal societies developed according to the same pattern. Like European, Japanese heraldry survived the era of chivalry and is widely used in our time.

SOME CONSIDERATIONS

In Europe, as well as in the USA and other former colonies, heraldry continues to live, despite the fact that feudalism is a thing of the past, and the coats of arms themselves play a purely decorative role. But in these countries, heraldry, which has a long history, has become a good tradition and has been democratized to a large extent. Many people who have long had no connection with the nobility, having discovered the owner of a coat of arms among their ancestors, rush to decorate their home with a coat of arms with a certificate in a beautiful frame. As a result, new coats of arms are constantly appearing. In many countries there are official heraldic societies involved in the development and approval of coats of arms and genealogical research. The large number and solid status of these organizations testifies to the real need of society for heraldry, which today is not a mossy fragment of history, but a part of modern culture. It is obvious that as long as there are people interested in the past of their kind, there will also remain an interest in coats of arms - witnesses of cruel wars, heroic crusades and luxurious knightly tournaments (to be convinced of this, just read the small and, of course, incomplete list of national and international heraldic organizations, which you don’t even have to read, but just skim).

Unfortunately, the present and future of heraldry is not so optimistic in Russia, where the very basis for its existence is practically absent. In addition, the old Russian heraldry is not very rich in material: it includes several thousand noble and several hundred provincial and city coats of arms, most of which appeared at approximately the same time and in one place - in the corresponding administrative institution, that is, in the Senate department of heraldry. The “General Arms of Arms of the Noble Families of the All-Russian Empire,” which amounted to 20 volumes by 1917, contained only about 6 thousand coats of arms with a total number of noble families of about 50 thousand. Of course, this is a drop in the bucket compared to the resources of European heraldry. Although various kinds of emblems were used by the Slavs in ancient times, real coats of arms appeared in Russia five hundred years later than in Europe, and not out of practical necessity, but as a beautiful toy from the West. Therefore, without having time to take root, Russian heraldry was carried away by the whirlwinds of history.

In the process of creating website materials, the question sometimes arose - how detailed should they be? What to talk about in general terms, and what to consider in detail? The degree of detail was determined by common sense, since the purpose of the site is to give the reader only a general idea of ​​​​heraldry, which is to some extent reflected in its name. "An Excursion into Heraldry", of course, cannot claim to be a complete coverage of this vast area, since only the basic principles are presented here, illustrated by some examples. Nevertheless, the authors believe that these materials may be of interest to those who have just begun to be interested in heraldry and feel the need for basic information on this topic.
The efforts of modern heraldry as an auxiliary scientific discipline are aimed at studying coats of arms, namely at identifying their owners, clarifying the history of their origin and establishing the time of their creation. For serious historical research, of course, more detailed information and more reliable sources will be required than "An Excursion into Heraldry." But in order to understand what a coat of arms is, what it consists of, what its main elements mean and are called, and, finally, to try to create a coat of arms yourself, guided by the principles outlined and focusing on the examples given, you can successfully use our review. In any case, the authors hope that they have mentioned here all the basic points necessary for the first steps towards the practical study of heraldry.

List of some foreign heraldic organizations:

• AUSTRALIA: The Heraldry Council of Australia; The Heraldry Society (Australian ranch); The Heraldry Society of Australia Heraldry AustraliaInc.
• AUSTRIA: Heraldisch-Genealogische Gesellschaft.
• ENGLAND and WALES: The College of Arms; The Heraldry Society; Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies.
• BELGIUM: Heraldique et Genealogique de Belgique; Musees Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire; L'Office Genealogique et Heraldique de Belgigue.
• HUNGARY: Magyar Heraldikai es Geneologiai Tarsasag.
• GERMANY: Der Herold; Genealogisch-Heraldische Gesellschaft; Wappen Herold; Deutsche Heraldische Gesellschaft.
• DENMARK: Heraldisk Selskab, Koebenhavn; Dansk Genealogisk Institut;Nordisk Flaggskrift.
• IRELAND: The Chief Herald of Ireland's Office; The Heraldry Scoiety of Ireland.
• ITALY: Aradico Collegio; Istituto Italiano di Genealogia ed Araldica.
• CANADA: Canadian Heraldic Authority; Heraldry Society of Canada.
• LUXEMBOURG: Conseil Heraldique de Luxembourg.
• NETHERLANDS: Koninklijk Nederlands Genootschap voor Geslact en Wapenkunde; Central Bureau voor Genealogie.
• NORWAY: Heraldisk Forening Norsk; Norsk Vapenring; Norsk Slekthistorik Forening; Kunstindustrimuseet i Oslo; Middelalderforum; Universitetet i Oslo, Historisk Institutt; Universitetet i Oslo Ethnografisk Museum.
• NEW ZEALAND: The Heraldry Society of New Zealand; The Heraldry Society (New Zealand Branch).
• POLAND: Heraldic Records Archive.
• PORTUGAL: Institutio Portuges de Heraldica.
• SCANDINAVIAN SOCIETY: Societas Heraldica Scandanavica.
• USA: New England Historic Genealogical Society; North American Institute of Heraldic and Flag Studies; American College of Heraldry; The Augustan Society Inc; Genealogical and Heraldic Institute of America; National Genealogical Society.
• FINLAND: Heraldica Scandanavia; Suomen Heraldinen Seura; Finlands National committee for Genealogi och Heraldik; Genealogiska Samfundet i Finland; Heraliske Sallskapet i Finland.
• FRANCE: Federation des Societes de Genealogie, d"Heraldique et de Sigillographie; La Societe Franeise D"Heraldique et de Sigillographie; La Societe du Grand Armorial de France.
• SCOTLAND: Lord Lyon King of Arms, and the Court of Lord Lyon; The Heraldry Society of Scotland; The Scottish Genealogical Society.
• SWITZERLAND: Heraldische Schweizersche Gesellschaft.
• SWEDEN: Swedish state herald: Clara Neveous, Riksarkivet - Heraldiska sektionen; Svenska Heraldiska Foreningen (Heraldry Society of Sweden); Heraldiska Samfundet; Skandinavisk Vapenrulla (SVR); Svenska Nationalkommitten for Genealogi och Heraldik; Voestra Sveriges Heraldiska Saellskap; Riddarhuset; Genealogiska Foereningen Genealogical Society).
• South Africa: The State Herald; Bureau of Heraldry; The Heraldry Society of Southern Africa.
• JAPAN: The Heraldry Society of Japan.
• INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS: Academie Internationale d'Heraldique; Confederation Internationale de Genealogie et d'Heraldique; International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Studies; International Fellowship of Armorists (Heraldry International); International Genealogical Institute; Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints.

Seal of Ivan III the Great

Each state has its own symbols that reflect its internal structure: power, territory, natural features and other priorities. One of the symbols of the state is the coat of arms.

The coat of arms of each country has its own history of creation. There are special rules for drawing up a coat of arms; this is done by the special historical discipline of HERALDICS, which developed back in the Middle Ages.

The history of the coat of arms of the Russian Empire is quite interesting and unique.

Officially, Russian heraldry begins with the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov (XVII century). But the forerunner of the coat of arms were the personal seals of the Russian tsars, so the primary sources of the Russian coat of arms should be sought in the 15th century, during the reign of Ivan III the Great. Initially, the personal seal of Ivan III depicted St. George the Victorious, striking a serpent with a spear - a symbol of Moscow and the Moscow Principality. Double headed eagle was adopted on the state seal after the wedding in 1472 of Ivan III the Great with Sophia (Zoe) Paleologus, the niece of the last emperor of Byzantium, Constantine Paleologus. It symbolized the transfer of the legacy of the fallen Byzantium. But before Peter I, the Russian coat of arms was not subject to heraldic rules; Russian heraldry developed precisely during his reign.

History of the coat of arms double-headed eagle

The eagle in the coat of arms dates back to Byzantium. Later he appeared on the coat of arms of Rus'. The image of an eagle is used in the coats of arms of many countries of the world: Austria, Germany, Iraq, Spain, Mexico, Poland, Syria, and the USA. But the double-headed eagle is present only on the coats of arms of Albania and Serbia. The Russian double-headed eagle has undergone many changes since its appearance and emergence as an element of the state emblem. Let's look at these stages.
As mentioned above, coats of arms appeared in Russia a long time ago, but these were only drawings on the seals of the kings, they did not obey heraldic rules. Due to the lack of knighthood in Rus', coats of arms were not very common.
Until the 16th century, Russia was a divided state, so there could be no talk of a state emblem of Russia. But under Ivan III (1462-
1505) his seal acted as a coat of arms. On its front side there is a picture of a horseman piercing a serpent with a spear, and on the back side there is a double-headed eagle.
The first known images of a double-headed eagle date back to the 13th century BC. - This is a rock carving of a double-headed eagle grabbing two birds with one stone. This was the coat of arms of the Hittite kings.
The double-headed eagle was a symbol of the Median kingdom - an ancient power in the territory of Western Asia under the Median king Cyaxares (625-585 BC). The double-headed eagle then appeared on the emblems of Rome under Constantine the Great. After the founding of the new capital, Constantinople, in 330, the double-headed eagle became the state emblem of the Roman Empire.
After the adoption of Christianity from Byzantium, Rus' began to experience the strong influence of Byzantine culture and Byzantine ideas. Along with Christianity, new political orders and relations began to penetrate into Rus'. This influence especially intensified after the marriage of Sophia Paleolog and Ivan III. This marriage had important consequences for the monarchical power in Moscow. As a spouse, the Grand Duke of Moscow becomes the successor of the Byzantine emperor, who was considered the head of the entire Orthodox East. In relations with small neighboring lands, he already bears the title of Tsar of All Rus'. Another title, "autocrat", is a translation of the Byzantine imperial title autocrator; initially it meant the independence of the sovereign, but Ivan the Terrible gave it the meaning of the absolute, unlimited power of the monarch.
Since the end of the 15th century, the Byzantine coat of arms - a double-headed eagle - appears on the seals of the Moscow sovereign; it is combined with the former Moscow coat of arms - the image of St. George the Victorious. Thus, Rus' confirmed the continuity from Byzantium.

From IvanIII before PeterI

Great state seal of Tsar Ivan IV Vasilyevich (the Terrible)

The development of the Russian coat of arms is inextricably linked with the history of Rus'. The eagle on the seals of John III was depicted with a closed beak and looked more like an eaglet. Russia at that time was still an eaglet, a young state. During the reign of Vasily III Ioannovich (1505-1533), the double-headed eagle is depicted with open beaks, from which tongues protrude. At this time, Russia was strengthening its position: the monk Philotheus sent a message to Vasily III with his theory that “Moscow is the Third Rome.”

During the reign of John IV Vasilyevich (1533-1584), Rus' gained victories over the Astrakhan and Kazan kingdoms and annexed Siberia. The power of the Russian state is also reflected in its coat of arms: the double-headed eagle on the state seal is crowned with a single crown with an eight-pointed Orthodox cross above it. Obverse side of the seal: on the chest of the eagle there is a carved German shield with a unicorn - the personal sign of the king. All symbols in the personal symbolism of John IV are taken from the Psalter. Reverse side of the seal: on the eagle’s chest is a shield with the image of St. George the Victorious.

On February 21, 1613, the Zemsky Sobor elected Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov to the throne. His election put an end to the unrest that took place in the period after the death of Ivan the Terrible. The eagle on the coat of arms of this period spreads its wings, which means a new era in the history of Russia, which at this time became a unified and fairly strong state. This circumstance is immediately reflected in the coat of arms: above the eagle, instead of an eight-pointed cross, a third crown appears. The interpretation of this change is different: a symbol of the Holy Trinity or a symbol of the unity of Great Russians, Little Russians and Belarusians. There is also a third interpretation: the conquered Kazan, Astrakhan and Siberian kingdoms.
Alexey Mikhailovich Romanov (1645-1676) ends the Russian-Polish conflict with the conclusion of the Truce of Andrusovo with Poland (1667). The Russian state becomes equal in rights with other European states. During the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov, the eagle received symbols of power: scepter And power.

Great state seal of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich

At the request of the tsar, the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I sent his king of arms Lavrentiy Khurelevich to Moscow, who in 1673 wrote an essay “On the genealogy of the Russian great princes and sovereigns, showing the kinship that existed, through marriages, between Russia and eight European powers, that is Caesar of Rome, the kings of England, Denmark, Spain, Poland, Portugal and Sweden, and with the image of these royal coats of arms, and in the middle of them the Grand Duke St. Vladimir, at the end of the portrait of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.” This work marked the beginning of the development of Russian heraldry. The eagle’s wings are raised up and fully open (a symbol of the complete establishment of Russia as a powerful state; its heads are crowned with three royal crowns; on its chest there is a shield with the Moscow coat of arms; in its paws there is a scepter and an orb.

Lavrenty Khurelevich in 1667 was the first to give an official description of the Russian coat of arms: “The double-headed eagle is the sovereign coat of arms of the Great Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich of All Great and Lesser and White Russia, the autocrat, His Royal Majesty of the Russian Empire, on which three crowns are depicted, signifying the three great Kazan, Astrakhan, Siberian glorious kingdoms, submitting to the God-protected and highest power of His Royal Majesty, the Most Gracious Sovereign... on the Persians is the image of the heir; in the box there is a scepter and an apple, and they reveal the most merciful Sovereign, His Royal Majesty the Autocrat and Possessor.”

From Peter I to Alexander II

Coat of arms of Peter I

Peter I ascended the Russian throne in 1682. During his reign, the Russian Empire became an equal among the leading powers of Europe.
Under him, according to heraldic rules, the coat of arms began to be depicted as black (before that it was depicted as gold). The eagle has become not only a decoration of state papers, but also a symbol of strength and power.
In 1721, Peter I accepted the imperial title, and imperial crowns began to be depicted on coats of arms instead of royal crowns. In 1722, he established the office of the King of Arms and the position of King of Arms.
The state emblem under Peter I underwent other changes: in addition to changing the color of the eagle, shields with coats of arms were placed on its wings
Great Duchies and Kingdoms. On the right wing there were shields with the coats of arms (from top to bottom): Kyiv, Novgorod, Astrakhan; on the left wing: Vladimir, Siberian, Kazan. It was under Peter I that a complex of attributes of the coat of arms eagle developed.
And after Russia entered the “expanses of Siberia and the Far East,” the double-headed eagle began to symbolize the inseparability of European and Asian Russia under one imperial crown, since one crowned head looks to the west, the other to the east.
The era after Peter I is known as the era of palace coups. In the 30s of the 18th century. the leadership of the state was dominated by immigrants from Germany, which did not contribute to the strengthening of the country. In 1736, Empress Anna Ioannovna invited a Swiss by birth, the Swedish engraver I. K. Gedlinger, who engraved the State Seal by 1740, which was used with minor changes until 1856.

Until the end of the 18th century. There were no special changes in the design of the coat of arms, but during the times of Elizabeth Petrovna and Catherine the Great, the eagle looked more like an eagle.

Coat of arms of Catherine I

Paul I

Coat of arms of Russia with the Maltese cross

Having become emperor, Paul I immediately tried to modify the Russian coat of arms. By decree of April 5, 1797, the double-headed eagle became an integral part of the coat of arms of the imperial family. But since Paul I was the Master of the Order of Malta, this could not but be reflected in the state emblem. In 1799, Emperor Paul I issued a decree on the image of a double-headed eagle with a Maltese cross on the chest. The cross was placed on the eagle’s chest under the Moscow coat of arms (“the indigenous coat of arms of Russia”). The emperor is also making an attempt to develop and introduce a complete coat of arms of the Russian Empire. At the upper end of this cross was placed the crown of the Grand Master.
In 1800, he proposed a complex coat of arms, on which forty-three coats of arms were placed in a multi-field shield and on nine small shields. However, they did not have time to adopt this coat of arms before Paul’s death.
Paul I was also the founder of the Great Russian Coat of Arms. The Manifesto of December 16, 1800 gives its full description. The large Russian coat of arms was supposed to symbolize the internal unity and power of Russia. However, Paul I's project was not implemented.
Alexander I, having become emperor in 1801, abolished the Maltese cross on the state emblem. But under Alexander I, on the coat of arms, the eagle’s wings are spread wide to the side, and the feathers are lowered down. One head is more inclined than the other. Instead of a scepter and an orb, new attributes appear in the eagle’s paws: a torch, peruns (thunder arrows), a laurel wreath (sometimes a branch), a lictor’s bun intertwined with ribbons.

Nicholas I

Coat of arms of Nicholas I

The reign of Nicholas I (1825-1855) was emphatically firm and decisive (suppression of the Decembrist uprising, limitation of the status of Poland). Under him, from 1830, the armorial eagle began to be depicted with sharply raised wings (this remained so until 1917). In 1829, Nicholas I was crowned the Kingdom of Poland, therefore, since 1832, the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Poland has been included in the Russian coat of arms.
At the end of the reign of Nicholas I, the manager of the heraldry department, Baron B.V. Kene, tried to give the coat of arms the features of Western European heraldry: the image of the eagle should have become more strict. The coat of arms of Moscow was to be depicted in a French shield; the rider was to be turned, according to heraldic rules, to the left of the viewer. But in 1855, Nicholas I died, and Quesne’s projects were implemented only under Alexander II.

Large, Middle and Small coats of arms of the Russian Empire

Large state emblem of the Russian Empire 1857

The large state emblem of the Russian Empire was introduced in 1857 by decree of Emperor Alexander II (this was the idea of ​​Emperor Paul I).
The large coat of arms of Russia is a symbol of the unity and power of Russia. Around the double-headed eagle are the coats of arms of the territories that are part of the Russian state. In the center of the Great State Emblem is a French shield with a golden field on which a double-headed eagle is depicted. The eagle itself is black, crowned with three imperial crowns, which are connected by a blue ribbon: two small ones crown the head, the large one is located between the heads and rises above them; in the eagle’s paws are a scepter and an orb; on the chest is depicted “the coat of arms of Moscow: in a scarlet shield with gold edges, the Holy Great Martyr George the Victorious in silver armor and an azure cap on a silver horse.” The shield, which depicts an eagle, is topped with the helmet of the Holy Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky, around the main shield is a chain and the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called. On the sides of the shield there are shield holders: on the right side (to the left of the viewer) is the Holy Archangel Michael, on the left is the Archangel Gabriel. The central part is under the shadow of the large imperial crown and the state banner above it.
To the left and right of the state banner, on the same horizontal line with it, are depicted six shields with the connected coats of arms of the principalities and volosts - three to the right and three to the left of the banner, almost creating a semicircle. Nine shields, crowned with crowns with the coats of arms of the Grand Duchies and Kingdoms and the coat of arms of His Imperial Majesty, are a continuation and most of the circle that the united coats of arms of the principalities and volosts began. Coats of arms counterclockwise: the Astrakhan Kingdom, the Siberian Kingdom, the Family Coat of Arms of His Imperial Majesty, the united coats of arms of the Grand Duchies, the coat of arms of the Grand Duchy of Finland, the coat of arms of Chersonis-Tauride, the coat of arms of the Polish Kingdom, the coat of arms of the Kazan Kingdom.
The top six shields from left to right: combined coats of arms of the principalities and regions of the Great Russian, combined coats of arms of the principalities and regions of the South-Western, combined coats of arms of the Baltic regions.
At the same time, the Middle and Small state emblems were adopted.
The middle state coat of arms was the same as the Great one, but without state banners and six coats of arms above the canopy; Small - the same as the Middle one, but without a canopy, images of saints and the family coat of arms of His Imperial Majesty.
Adopted by decree of Alexander III on November 3, 1882, the Great State Emblem differed from that adopted in 1857 in that it added a shield with the coat of arms of Turkestan (became part of Russia in 1867), combined the coats of arms of the principalities of Lithuania and Belarusian.
The large state emblem is framed by laurel and oak branches - a symbol of glory, honor, merit (laurel branches), valor, courage (oak branches).
The Great State Emblem reflects “the triune essence of the Russian idea: For the Faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland.” Faith is expressed in the symbols of Russian Orthodoxy: many crosses, Saint Archangel Michael and Saint Archangel Gabriel, the motto “God is with us,” the eight-pointed Orthodox cross above the state banner. The idea of ​​an autocrat is expressed in the attributes of power: a large imperial crown, other Russian historical crowns, a scepter, an orb, a chain of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called.
The Fatherland is reflected in the coat of arms of Moscow, the coats of arms of Russian and Russian lands, in the helmet of the Holy Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky. The circular arrangement of the coats of arms symbolizes equality between them, and the central location of the coat of arms of Moscow symbolizes the unity of Rus' around Moscow, the historical center of Russian lands.

Conclusion

Modern coat of arms of the Russian Federation

In 1917, the eagle ceased to be the coat of arms of Russia. The coat of arms of the Russian Federation is known, the subjects of which were autonomous republics and other national entities. Each of the republics, subjects of the Russian Federation, had its own national emblem. But there is no Russian coat of arms on it.
In 1991, a coup d'état took place. Democrats led by B. N. Yeltsin came to power in Russia.
On August 22, 1991, the white-blue-red flag was reaffirmed as the State Flag of Russia. On November 30, 1993, Russian President B.N. Yeltsin signs the decree “On the State Emblem of the Russian Federation.” Once again the double-headed eagle becomes the coat of arms of Russia.
Now, as before, the double-headed eagle symbolizes the power and unity of the Russian state.

Anariel Rowan

Coats of arms by Tolkien

(Introduction to Tolkien's Heraldry)

The main sources of our knowledge about the coats of arms of Tolkien’s world are, firstly, the Professor’s texts, and secondly, his drawings published in “Drawings of J.R.R. Tolkien” and in the book by K. Scull and W. Hammond “J.R. .R. Tolkien: artist and illustrator." Almost all further information is drawn either directly from Tolkien, or from the comments of K. Scull and W. Hammond to his works, but we will mainly talk about those coats of arms that the Professor not only described, but personally drew. Apparently, the first in Arda to come up with and begin to use the coats of arms of the Eldar of Aman, as it is said in The Silmarillion: “And the Noldor decorated their shields with the signs of houses and clans.” The Noldor exiles brought this art to Beleriand, teaching it to the Sindar and people. The rules known to us for drawing up elven coats of arms are as follows: the personal female coat of arms had the shape of a circle, the personal male coat of arms had the shape of a rhombus, the family or clan coat of arms had the shape of a square. The inner part, the sign itself, had a shape similar to that of either a flower or a star, with the tips of the petal-rays touching the outer edge. The number of "touches" depended on the person's rank: four touches for a prince, six or eight for a king. Family coats of arms are often similar in color or design (the coats of arms of Finwë, Fëanor, Fingolfin and Finarfin). But sometimes a coat of arms is created to commemorate an important event in a person's life: for example, see the coat of arms of Finrod with a harp and torch, created to commemorate his meeting with people. As a rule, the coats of arms of the elves do not depict objects and phenomena of the visible world; they are abstract geometric forms. These coats of arms are symmetrical on all axes: this creates a feeling of non-stop rotation, which perhaps implies the immortality of the elves in the circles of the world. The emblem of King Finwe is called the "Winged Sun", and therefore it is believed that this coat of arms was created already in Belariand, after the rising of the Sun. But perhaps the coat of arms appeared in Aman, and in Belarian it was simply rethought and given a new name. This coat of arms has sixteen "touches" to signify that the descendants of Finwë were High Kings of the Noldor of Valinor and Beleriand. It is also interesting that, unlike other coats of arms (see below), Tolkien depicted this coat of arms in the form of a square, and not a rhombus (unfortunately, in the book “Drawings of J. R. R. Tolkien” it is reproduced precisely in the form of a rhombus , which is incorrect). The coat of arms of Feanor is eight flames emanating from a circle, which encloses an octagon - an eight-pointed star, symbolizing the Silmaril. The reproduction quality is very poor even in the printed edition, so I advise you to look at this coat of arms as depicted by Avahandelel (here: http://numen.tirion.su/gallery/emblem_westland.htm). There is also a separate coat of arms of the Silmarils themselves: "an ancient emblem representing the origin of the Silmarils from the Light of the Trees on Ezellohar." Most likely, the eight-pointed star was also a sign of the descendants of Feanor, since we see it on the Gates of Moria, in the creation of which Calabrimbor, the grandson of Feanor, participated. As we see and know from the text of the LOTR, the Gates of Moria bear several different emblems: “At the top - where Gandalf could still reach - intertwined elven writing curved in an arch. Below, although the lines of the picture disappeared or blurred in places, the outlines of an anvil and a hammer, topped crown with seven stars. Beneath them were two trees with crescent-shaped fruits. More clearly than anything else, in the middle of the door shone a single star with many rays. “These are the emblems of Durin!” exclaimed Gimli. “And the Tree of the High Elves!” said Legolas “And the Star of the House of Feanor,” said Gandalf.” In the drafts, the Gates of Moria and the emblems depicted on them looked like this:
Fingolfin's coat of arms is similar in colors to his father's, but the eight flames are similar to the image on the coat of arms of Fëanor. Five-pointed silver stars on a blue background are reminiscent of the blue and silver banners of Fingolfin's army that came to Beleriand, as well as Fingolfin's shield - blue and decorated with crystals. “Coat of arms of Finarfin and his House, especially Finrod”: not two circles, like Finarfin’s older brothers, but one, and the petal rays are straight, not curved. This may be a stylized version of the emblem on the Ring of Barahir: two snakes vying for a wreath-crown of golden flowers. Coat of arms of Erainion Gil-galad, High King of the Noldor of Middle-earth in the Second Age. King Erainion was given the name Gil-galad, "Shining Star", because his helmet, mail and shield, plated with silver and decorated with white stars, shone from afar like a star in the light of the Sun and Moon, and, standing on an eminence, the keen-sighted Elves saw him from afar. His colors were blue and silver, like those of his grandfather, Fingolfin. The Professor drew this coat of arms twice, however, these versions are very similar to each other. Similar to the coat of arms of Finwe (and drawn on the same sheet of paper) is the coat of arms of King Elu Thingol, King of Doriath - the Winged Moon on a black field surrounded by four five-pointed stars. The coat of arms of Maia Malian, Queen of Doriath, is very complex: concave and convex squares and circles superimposed on each other, star-flowers. Perhaps the coat of arms is intended to reflect the very nature of Maya Melian, who, being a spirit, took on the flesh and appearance of the Children of the One. The colors of the coat of arms - blue and grey-silver - recall that Melian was a spirit of twilight who emerged from the gardens of the Ramparts of Lórien.
Lúthien has two coats of arms, perhaps as a sign that she had Maiar and Eldar blood in her veins. Both coats of arms depict the niphredil snowdrops that bloomed in the forests of Doriath at the hour of her birth. The first of the coats of arms with its blue field color and complexity - either a flower with twelve petals, or four snowdrops - resembles the coat of arms of Melian, the mother of Luthien. In the center of the second coat of arms is an elanor, and with a black background and four five-pointed stars, this coat of arms resembles the coat of arms of Elu Thingol, the father of Lúthien. The heraldry of Gondolin is described in the texts - the early "Fall of Gondolin" and the later "On Tuor and his coming to Gondolin". According to the second, Turgon used the coat of arms of Fingolfin. According to both texts, the coat of arms of Tuor was a swan's wing, in the "Advent" the Swan is the coat of arms of Annael and the people who raised Tuor, the swan's wing on azure is the coat of arms on the shield left for Tuor in Vinyamar. The coat of arms of Idril, wife of Tuor and daughter of Turgon, is similar to the usual elven coats of arms. It is called Menelluin Irildeo Ondolindello (Cornflower Idril of Gondolin). This coat of arms has twelve touches, as befits the coat of arms of a royal daughter, and is quite complex: it depicts either twelve cornflowers on a black field, or small cornflowers are depicted in twelve black “petals” on a blue background. Drafts for this coat of arms: The image of this coat of arms was preserved on a decorative dish, which survived both the fall of Gondolin and Akallabeth, eventually ending up in the treasury of the Gondorian Kings. It can be assumed that the “cornflower Idril” became the prototype of many Númenórean circular ornaments, for example, this “Númenórean carpet”: There are two known coats of arms of Earendil, or, more precisely, two variants of his coat of arms: each depicts a six-pointed star, enclosing a hexagon representing the Silmaril. On one coat of arms, the star is enclosed in two circles, which symbolize the celestial spheres in which Earendil wanders. This coat of arms resembles the coat of arms of Idril - six rays facing inward, six rays facing outward. And on a black background, the phases of the moon are depicted in the corners. On the second, the star is enclosed in a blue circle, an image of the sky, and four four-pointed stars are depicted in the corners on a black background. This is practically all that can be said about the elven coats of arms drawn by the Professor. Among many other arts, the people who came to Belariand adopted the art of heraldry from the Eldar. Judging by the harp and torch, this coat of arms was created in honor of Finrod's meeting with the first people who came to Belariand. Most likely, this coat of arms was created by the people themselves when they first became acquainted with the art of heraldry, since the coat of arms depicts concrete objects and is unlike the abstract geometric coats of arms invented by the elves themselves. In contrast to the Elven ones, the coats of arms of humans are either symmetrical along a vertical axis or have a clearly defined horizontal axis. The movement is not circular, it seems to emanate from the center, trying to break through the boundaries. The coat of arms of Hador in its abstractness is reminiscent of the coats of arms of the Eldar, and in its colors - red and blue - it is similar to the Winged Sun and the coat of arms of Fingolfin, whose House the House of Hador served. Coat of arms of Beor. Coat of arms of Khalet. Baran's coat of arms depicts the peaks of Thangorodrim, a Silmaril and a severed hand. The coats of arms of Númenor or the personal arms of the Kings of Númenor are unknown. The only thing that can be added here is that the colors of the Armada's sails are black, gold and red, but what their symbolic or heraldic meaning is is unknown. The sails of the ships of the Exiles were black, their flags were black, seven of which were decorated with stars, according to the number of palantirs. These seven stars migrated to the coat of arms of Gondor, which is described in the LOTR as follows: "... a huge banner unfurled.... A White Tree blossomed on it - the sign of Gondor; but the Seven Stars were above it, and a high crown - the signs of Elendil, which neither the ruler alone did not appear for countless years." "On the black armor was embroidered in white a tree with flowers like snow under a silver crown and stars with many rays. This was the robe of the heirs of Elendil, and no one wore it now in all Gondor except the Guard of the Citadel before the Court of the Fountain, where the White Tree once grew." . “...but the royal banner was black, and on a black field was depicted a white tree in blossom under seven stars.” The Professor depicted elements of the Gondorian coat of arms on his version of the paper dust jacket for “The Return of the King”: A few words about the crown of Gondor. This is how it is described in the LOTR: “It was shaped like the helmets of the Citadel Guardians, but it was taller and all white, and the wings on both sides were made of pearls and silver and resembled the wings of a seabird, for it was the emblem of the kings who came from beyond the Seas; and seven adamantine gems were on her hoop, and at the top shone a single gem, and its light was like a flame." In the Appendices there is the following explanation: “The Crown of Gondor is shaped like a Númenórean military helmet. At first it was indeed an ordinary helmet; they say it was the helmet of Isildur, in which he fought during the Battle of Dagorlad... But in the days of Atanatar Alkarin it was replaced with a helmet decorated with gems, which was used at Aragorn’s coronation.” In the Letters the Professor adds the following: “I think that the crown of Gondor (the Southern Kingdom) was very high, like the crown of Egypt, only with wings that were bent back” and draws this:
Just in case of the crown of Egypt:
“From left to right: the white crown of Upper Egypt, the red crown of Lower Egypt, the “Pschent” - the United Crown of both Lands, the nemes scarf and the blue crown “Khepresh”” (from here.