HERALDRY 101

Jul 4, 2007 by El Heraldo

The first sign of heraldry was in the form of shields with symbols representing an army and its core values or a kingdom. At the beginning, heraldry was not used to represent a single person or family. But later this changed and people started using heraldry to visually represent their name and family as well as their core values but mostly their military or social status. Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Arabs and others in some parts of Europe utilized symbols in heraldry on a very simple manner. Then, the Romans started to adopt as a last name the name of the tribe or family they belonged to. For example, if the tribe or the family head’s name was Livio, then the rest of the family members would adopt that name. “Livio”. This was only applied to important and powerful people. The common man instead, attached a nick name to their name. For example, John had red hair so people would call him Red John. Also they would use their trade or ocupation instead of the nick name, for example, John the cook.

During the early days, “Herald” was the messenger of the king and notified everybody in the kingdom the king’s decisions. Today we call that person, “spokesman” the person that notifies the decisions of the President. The herald was also in charge of the coat of arms or blazon of the person he served. You can recognize the herald in the movies by identifying the person, usually behind the leader, holding a flag pole instead of sword and shield. Then the “King of Arms” position was created and the person holding that position was also called, “Herald”.

The king of arms was in charge of the proper implementation and distribution of the procedures and rules regarding the design of a coat of arms. If someone requested permission to create a coat of arms, the king of arms had to make sure this person was eligible for a coat of arms as well as worthy of the symbols this person wanted to use. They used to use symbols in their coat of arms to represent military achievements or episodes they were proud of.

Heraldry is the science that studies and establishes the rules of the proper interpretation of the blazon or coat of arms. During the X century they had places in charge to regulate the use as well as the enhancement of the proper implementation of the blazon but ultimately they did not do a good job. Then, during the XV century the position of “King of Arms” was created. Until then, more specific norms and rules were created for the proper interpretation of the coat of arms. Also, a special language was developed in order to reduce the need to use symbols. This made the art of heraldry an exclusive trade since only the person familiar with that language was able to design a coat of arms.

Colors were part of this language (most of them are still used in today’s heraldry)

Azur = Blue
Gules = Red
Purpura = Purple
Sable = Black
Sinople = Green
Oro = Gold
Plata = Silver

Also, as part of this special language, the elements and symbols used in the coat of arms they created were labeled so a native of that land would not recognize or understand the meaning of those elements or symbols.

According to some authors and experts on this topic, heraldry was present Before Christ when the Greek and Romans used coat of arms to display their social status. Other authors claim that heraldry was present during the crusades. They started with shields with symbols representing their army and then they continue to add more symbols to represent their military achievements. Most of these achievements were not necessarily a good deed since they use to stick a knife to all the defeated and prisoners. Making it worst, they conducted a religious mass to “thank God” for their success over the “unworthy”. They used to have a saying among the crusaders upon their arriving to Europe, “kill and unworthy and go to heaven”.

Written by Eduardo J. Farias Ramos
Translated by EJ Jr.