Heraldry: Myth, Realities & Opportunities

Robert Watt, Chief Herald of Canada, describes the earliest origins of heraldry and its relevance today with numerous examples of recently issued coats of arms.

The Appeal and Origins
If some coats of arms are only months old, what does this mean for the genealogist? Indeed, how can a family historian make sense of heraldry and use it carefully and properly?

The arms of Jacques Duchesneau honoring his career as a police officer.

Heraldry fascinates many family historians who are attracted by its beauty, the apparent mystique of great age, perhaps also the promise of noble blood and exciting news of illustrious ancestry. To understand the nature and significance of heraldry more fully, we need to begin with a brief look at its origins. To ensure we are exploring using the same map, we must spend a few minutes with definitions and terminology.

In this article, the term heraldry is used in its widest sense, not only to refer to the study of and uses of coats of arms and related devices, but to the work of heralds, the specialists who create new heraldic symbols, who study existing arms and who administer heraldic systems in official state authorities. At the core of this definition is the older term armory, what the current senior heraldic officer of the College of Arms in England, Peter Gwynn-Jones, refers to as the “hereditary use of an arrangement of charges or devices on a shield”.

From simple beginnings, the structure of coats of arms became more elaborate, a special language was developed to describe them, together with terms for the various parts. Now centuries old, these terms, with certain changes and elaborations, remain in constant use today.

The Canadian heraldic system shares with the Scottish system the requirement that the undifferenced coat of arms is borne by one person at a time. Children and grandchildren of a grantee are assigned differences; a good example of this is the grant to Judge James Thomas Robson on top with the differences of his five children shown below.

A coat of arms with all the component parts is called an achievement of arms. At the centre is the shield, the most important single element, without which the rest cannot exist. Above the shield is the helmet to which is fixed the mantling, the decorative cloth flowing downward and outward. It is held to the helmet by the torse or wreath, typically composed of twists of two colors, frequently identical to the colors of the mantling. Above the torse is the crest. At either side of the shield are the supporters. These, and the shield, rest on the compartment. At the base and, less frequently, above the achievement is the scroll containing the motto.

The Earliest Days
Several of these parts of the coat of arms, notably the shield, are found from the earliest period of heraldry’s development. It is now widely believed that heraldry first appeared in the second quarter of the 12th century in Western Europe, perhaps in the area of present day northeastern France and Belgium. There is clear evidence of its rapid spread to other parts of Europe so that by the middle of that century it was in widespread use in England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

The arms of Dr. Helen K. Mussallem incorporate a number of elements borrowed from her Lebanese heritage.

Why did heraldry appear at this time and what purpose was it meant to serve? Until fairly recently, the most generally accepted explanation was that heraldry was invented to meet the need to distinguish warriors on the medieval battlefield as armor came to cover more and more of the body. But in fact, as Gwynn-Jones and his colleagues Thomas Woodcock and John Robinson have pointed out, the real reason probably lies in the cultural phenomenon known as the 12th Century Renaissance, when, as Gwynn-Jones notes, “the sheer exuberance of spirit and self confidence inspired by this movement was manifested in a delight in visual decoration which found an obvious outlet on the personal shields of individual knights.” In other words, the motivation to adopt this sort of emblem, was more a matter of personal pride and a love of display than the need to distinguish oneself on the battlefield. Indeed, in such motivation, we can probably find the reason why heraldry has so successfully weathered the dramatic social, political and economic changes of the eight centuries from its birth to our era and the secret of its enduring popularity. As the great Scots heraldist, Sir Thomas Innes of Learney, has remarked, “As a system of decoration and identification which appeals to the best and deepest sentiments of human nature, heraldry is a science not of the past but of the present and future.”

The coat of arms of Dr. Wallace Breck reflects his Scots heritage.

The arms of David Tsubouchi, a Canadian of Japanese ancestry.

A clear Chinese influence can be seen in the arms of Dr. David Lam.

If the principal motivation for heraldry’s creation was an individual love of display, it certainly possessed other attributes which ensured its rapid spread throughout the knightly and noble classes that were its first constituency. Most importantly for genealogical studies, the great landowners who were near the apex of the feudal system found heraldry immediately useful as a form of identification, not only on the battlefield but on seals, as a method of attesting to property and other transactions. Very quickly also, it was perceived that the adoption of a father’s heraldic mark by his son was an effective and sensible way, in a largely illiterate society, to visually underscore continuity of land ownership and all the related responsibilities owing to the feudal overlord.

The rapid spread of heraldry was also linked to two other phenomena, the tournament and the code of behavior called chivalry whose tenets were often expressed, notionally and visually on the tournament field.

The tournament, which began as a training ground for the battlefield, evolved from the 12th century with largely unregulated and dangerous jousting to a highly controlled and stylized context and finally near its end in the 16th century, a bloodless pageant. Throughout the centuries of its popularity, it was perhaps the supreme theatre for communal heraldic display. In fact, tournaments undoubtedly gave rise to the popularity of the crest, a three dimensional symbol often made of boiled leather, fully colored and fitted to the knight’s helmet. Since some knights are known to have travelled from tournament to tournament rather like 20th-century rodeo contestants, they were active agents in the spread of heraldry. At the same time, tournaments were the settings where we first meet heralds, whose function and evolution have been aptly summarized by Henry Bedingfeld, York Herald. “The job of heralds,” he notes, “was to proclaim the venues of tournaments, where they emerged as the first recorders of heraldry. They had to announce the lists of combatants by name and so needed to be able to recognize the insignia of the individuals. Heralds became experts in advising knights on the appropriate insignia to adopt and, from being mere recorders, grew to be controllers and, eventually, creators of armorial bearings.”

In this passage, we glimpse another important element of heraldry’s rise and evolution, the control exercised by heralds. This control was increasingly exercised on behalf of the great overlords and ultimately the kings and princes who employed them. In its earlier phases, heraldry was self-assumed, that is the great magnates and lesser knights who adopted these devices did so themselves without reference to any other authority. However, such a situation could and did lead to duplication. Perhaps more importantly, as monarchs and others came to see heraldry as a royal gift conferring knightly and sometimes noble status, the leaders of medieval society were determined to have exclusive control over the power to grant arms. Such control evolved in the 13th and 14th centuries and was substantially confirmed by the 15th.

The achievement of arms of Roméo LeBlanc, Governor General of Canada.

The coat of arms of Dr. Ashok Muzumdar honoring his family’s roots in India.

The arms of Katharina Fahlman Schaaf linking the Canadian praires with Eastern Europe.

Coterminous with this was the evolution of heraldry aesthetically, the refinement of the special language used to enshrine the content of a coat of arms and the basic rules regarding color and placement of elements in the shield and elsewhere. These two developments, increasing royal control and evolution of the artform itself came together in the increasing importance of the heralds who were, by the 15th century, appearing as royal officials in many European countries. Among other responsibilities, heralds were required to determine who had proper title to a particular coat of arms and to record the evidence. In some countries, notably England, the herald’s systematic investigations of armorial title produced an extremely important body of pedigree and pictorial records which remain to this day, an important resource for genealogical investigation.

In this same span of time from roughly 1150-1500, we can identify two other significant developments that have important repercussions for genealogists dealing with heraldry in the present day. Firstly, while heraldry was in its beginnings, for various social and economic reasons the preserve of the feudal nobility, titled and untitled, it rather rapidly spread beyond that class. Indeed in the states of the Holy Roman Empire and in adjacent regions such as Scandinavia and the Low Countries where Germanic influence was strong, a phenomenon known as burgher arms appeared. These arms were self-assumed and unregulated, adopted in emulation of those borne by the feudal nobility.

Secondly, as might be expected, heraldry did not ultimately evolve in the same way in every part of Europe. Important aesthetic emphases and structural distinctions and differences in regulatory systems emerged as the unity of Latin Christian civilization which gave early heraldry a widely shared aesthetic and similar legal status disappeared and stronger national monarchies emerged. As Woodcock and Robinson note “the heraldry of individual countries absorbed and developed its own local characteristics and practices, and emphasized individual aspects of the armorial achievement.” It is vital for genealogists in Canada and the US to keep this particular development in mind because any search for heraldic heritage may lead in quite different directions depending on the country of origin of the ancestor.

As we turn to consider the situation of heraldry in the present day, it is also important to emphasize that many of the various aspects just highlighted are still evident or in use today. Heraldry remains first and foremost, a system of identifying individuals at a point in time, and through time, their ancestors and heirs across the generations. The form of these symbols, including those created in our own day, is described in a language whose roots can be directly traced to the first century of heraldry’s existence. “Gules a maple leaf Argent” which is how a red shield with a white maple leaf is blazoned, uses Norman French very similar to that of the first heraldists. Such symbols are indeed, once granted, inherited according to a formula set out in the granting document.

The arms of Reinhard Zobrist show an amalgamation of old Swiss arms with elements of the new world.

The arms of Ronald Stuart are based on early English arms.

The arms of Myroslaw Ivan Welyhorskyj update the symbolism of an 18th-century Ukrainian grant.

While heraldry is no longer exclusively associated with the nobility and has for centuries been used by non-noble groups, families and corporations in society, it remains as a mark of a situation in the community, although the status may now be in relation to contribution to the public good rather than descent in a particular bloodline.

Heraldry’s long and fascinating evolution across time and now far beyond its European birthplace, has resulted in a vast corpus of symbols that exercise an inevitable fascination for the genealogist. He or she may well ask, what does heraldry have to do with me? In relation to heraldry that already exists, the answer to that question may be, perhaps nothing, quite possibly a good deal. There is a second aspect, however. If you are a Canadian or an American who has roots in England or Scotland or Ireland, countries where personal heraldry is both recognized and regularly created, you may consider celebrating your family heritage through a new coat of arms and be the founder of a new heraldic tradition.

Heraldic Myths
In considering these possibilities and opportunities, it is important to consider some myths and realities. Firstly, there is no such thing as a “family crest.” In most European heraldic traditions, a particular coat of arms was assumed and then confirmed to a particular family line or granted to a particular individual, descending to his heirs according to the terms of the grant or the heraldic customs and laws of the country. As noted earlier, these can vary and, in particular, the extent of inheritance can be narrow or wide. In Scotland, for example, where bearing of arms and descent of arms are most tightly controlled, only the chief of a Clan or the head of a Family or Name bears the undifferenced arms, that is the coat of arms in its original form. All other heirs must seek, and be formally assigned, a version of the coat of arms under the statutory authority of the Lord Lyon King of Arms. In dramatic contrast, in Poland, as Sir Conrad Swan has noted, whole groups or clans of the hereditary nobility frequently share undifferenced coats of arms, even though they have different family names. Thus, in Poland, the relationship to a heraldic symbol is not defined by a name as such but as part of a historic relationship to a clan grouping, a relationship that may have been originally a result of a link to particular estates. Overall, the most important thing for the genealogist to recognize, and accept, is that having a particular surname does not automatically bring with it the right to bear and use a particular coat of arms. With heraldic inheritance, what is true of every other aspect of genealogical research is profoundly true, there is no substitute for careful, well-documented research.

Historic Barvarian coat of arms form the basis of this modern grant to Michael Lerch.

Elements of his career and family heritage are highlighted in these arms of Dr. Joseph Segal.

The arms of Ernest Stoakley, a personnel consultant, sometimes colloquially known as a “head-hunter.”

Secondly, it is important to recognize that possession of a right to a coat of arms does not imply a noble status. While heraldry was originally the preserve of the feudal nobility, it has long since ceased to be the exclusive possession of nobles in any particular country or era. As European and European-based societies have continued to evolve, it has become increasingly separate from that status, in part, because the nobility now only survives in a legal sense in a limited number of countries. The reality here is that the genealogist should seek out heraldry in his or her own family past, not as a lodestone to blue blood but for its own value, accepting as in other areas of genealogical enquiry, whatever can be definitely established through research. The discovery of real heraldry in your past, whether assumed in the 15th century or granted in the 17th or the 19th century can reveal much about a particular ancestor or family line.

Perhaps it will be encouraging to realize that the effort you have put into the discovery of your own pedigree, gives you the essential data for the search for heraldic patrimony. Once you have established with as much certainty as possible where particular ancestors originated, their full names, dates of birth, marriage and death, place of residence and profession, you can contact heraldic authorities in Europe and seek their guidance. Addresses of the official heraldic authorities in England, Scotland and Ireland are given at the end of this article. As well, you can consult the “Addresses” entry in Stephen Friar’s excellent study, A Dictionary of Heraldry (New York, Harmony, 1987). This gives the most recent or current listings for heraldic and genealogical organizations around the world, but with a strong European focus for many countries including France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Portugal and Switzerland. Many of these organizations are not heraldic authorities as such, but at a minimum, a comprehensive enquiry which makes a clear statement about your pedigree and which asks a realistic question should allow their officials to direct you to the correct archival repository or a qualified genealogist who specializes in heraldic heritage. As you know from other areas of genealogical research, you need to be prepared to pay for a research enquiry that may be quite extensive.

In forwarding such an enquiry, some of you may be able to include photographs or line sketches of family heirlooms such as china, seal rings, or flatware or other pieces of silver featuring heraldic decoration. You need to view these records cautiously and accept the possibility that the shield of arms or the crest featured may have been assumed for use by an ancestor and not have been one to which he was entitled. In other cases, the use will have been legitimate and the illustration will certainly assist those giving you guidance.

Acquiring Arms
If enquiries result in the discovery of heraldry properly belonging to one or more of your ancestors, how can you use it? If you are intending to publish a family history, you can certainly feature an illustration of the coat of arms and an explanation of how it relates to your ancestor. You might well commission an artist to produce a new painting with an appropriate title with your ancestors’ name and dates and display it in your home. Depending on the heraldic customs of the country from which the coat of arms originates, you may have a right to bear and use these arms yourself, but before taking that step, it is vital that you receive clear guidance from the overseas authority or researcher on what these customs are and how they would relate to you. If you do have an inherited right, the next step is to recognize that you live in a country with no current regulation of personal heraldry, such as the US and quite a number of European countries, such as France or Germany, or are a Canadian, a Scot, or a resident of England or Ireland or South Africa where there is such regulation. In the case of these latter countries, you must bring your heraldic inheritance to the granting authorities who will work with you to establish the version of ancestral arms which you can bear yourself. It is also important to note for American genealogists, that if you have Scots or English roots among your paternal ancestors, you may be able to receive assistance from the Court of the Lord Lyon in Edinburgh or the College of Arms in London. Both authorities have particular procedures for potential candidates for arms resident in the US which their officials will be happy to describe.

The coat of arms of Arthur Potts reflects his Loyalist military roots in three family lines.

For Canadians, heraldic opportunities have increased dramatically since 4 June 1988. On that date, the Canadian Heraldic Authority was created within the Office of the Governor General of Canada. By Royal Letters Patent, Queen Elizabeth II as Queen of Canada transferred the exercise of her Canadian heraldic prerogative to the Governor General of Canada. As a result of this addition to the Governor General’s constitutional responsibilities, coats of arms, flags and badges and related heraldic devices have become part of the Canadian honors system. Most Canadian coats of arms are granted by the Chief Herald of Canada under authority received from the Governor General and are affirmed in a special document, a Letters Patent, which is recorded in a publicly accessible national armorial, the Public Register of Arms, Flags and Badges of Canada.

Any Canadian citizen can apply or “petition” for a coat of arms. However, eligibility is determined in relation to public service, as befits symbols created as part of an honors system. No particular status or title is attached to these arms, although they do descend to heirs both male and female. Thus, as generations unfold, the same Canadian arms will be borne by a number of persons having different surnames, but descending from a common ancestor. As well, the Canadian heraldic system shares with the Scottish system the requirement that the undifferenced coat of arms is borne by one person at a time. Children and grandchildren of a grantee are assigned differences; many of these being permanent and inherited in turn by their heirs.

During the first nine years of the Authority’s existence, my colleagues and I have recognized four main streams of activity in terms of developing new personal heraldry. A significant percentage of new grants represent the beginning of a new heraldic tradition in a family in which no earlier tradition has been discovered. Even in these cases, however, the Canadian heralds frequently work with colleagues overseas to identify heraldry of families from a particular region or of communities from the same region from which colors or elements can be borrowed to honor a part of family heritage. So while the coat of arms is new, parts of it incorporate earlier symbols. Several examples of this are illustrated.

Another approach has involved using colors and symbols to refer to regional or even national traditions. Examples here include grants to David Tsubouchi, Dr. David Lam, Dr. Ashok Muzumdar and Katharina Fahlman Schaaf.

A third approach involves a more direct recognition of heraldic inheritance in a new grant. In certain cases, it is clear that a Canadian is descended from a person or persons who bore arms lawfully or is a descendant of a person who used arms appropriately within the traditions of a particular country. In such cases, a new Canadian grant is made which varies the original in a modest way, but makes the link between the historic arms and the new grant clear. Examples of this approach are the grants to Reinhard Zobrist, based on historic Swiss arms, to Ronald Stuart, based on early English arms, to Myroslaw Ivan Welyhorskyj, based on 18th century Ukrainian arms, and to Hans Michael Lerch, based on historic Bavarian arms. Finally, we have instances where new arms are created with strong references to the interests and careers of the recipients and the Canadian heritage of the grantee, examples here include Dr. Joseph Segal, Ernest Stoakley and Jacques Duchesneau. In some of these cases, we have developed special symbols to identify certain types of ancestry. Good examples here include Canadians whose Loyalist ancestry is celebrated through use of the Loyalist civil or military coronet, as in the grant Arthur Potts.

Like the grant to Helen Maksagak mentioned at the beginning, all these grants honor the public contributions of individual Canadians while contributing many new pieces to the great pageant of heraldry, a pageant which continues to unfold after more than eight centuries. These new symbols are part of the most recent chapter in a book which will never be finished. Coats of arms have a dramatic appeal for genealogists because each of these symbols, old or new, is an expression of personal identity and the recording and understanding of individual identities bound together across time lies at the heart of genealogical studies. The pictorial symbols attached to many of these individuals is an important element of the whole so, the discovery of such symbols amongst your own ancestors amply repays the careful and systematic research required to locate them. But as you will now appreciate, for some of you there also exists the opportunity to celebrate the unique story of your own family through the creation of a new heraldic symbol. In time, your descendants and others will quite properly feel that has the same magic which many of us feel when we travel in Europe and see the brilliant heraldic emblems of earlier times in manuscripts, glass, metal and stone. As we approach the next millennium, heraldry is indeed a living art.

Robert D. Watt was appointed as the Chief Herald of Canada in 1988, the first person to occupy the post. A historian by training, with a Master of Arts from Carleton University in Ottawa, he was formerly City Archivist in Vancouver and Director of the Vancouver Museum. An associate member of L’Académie internationale d’héraldique, he is a Fellow and Past President of the Heraldry Society of Canada and Honorary Fellow of the Heraldry Society (in England).

Selected Heraldic Institutions Institute of Heraldic & Genealogical Studies 79-82 Northgate, Canterbury, Kent, England, CT1 1BA Mr. Cecil R. Humphery-Smith, F.S.A., Principal Tel. 011-44-1227-768664 Fax 011-44-1227-765617 New England Historical and Genealogical Society 99-101 Newbury Street, Boston, MA 02116 Heraldry Committee, Mr. Henry Beckwith, Chair Tel. (617) 536-5740 Fax (617) 536-7307 E-mail: nehgs@nehgs.org

Selected Heraldic Authorities Canada: Canadian Heraldic Authority 1 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0A1 Mr. Robert D. Watt, Chief Herald of Canada Tel. 1-800-465-6890 Fax (613) 990-5818 E-mail: rwatt@gg.ca England: College of Arms H.M. College of Arms, Queen Victoria St. London EC4V 4BT England Mr. Peter Gwynn-Jones, L.V.O., Garter Principal King of Arms Tel. 011-44-171-248-1188 Fax 011-44-171-248-6448 Ireland: Genealogical Office, National Library of Ireland, 2 Kildare Street, Dublin 2, Ireland Mr. Brendan O’Donoghue, Chief Herald of Ireland Tel. 011-353-1-6618811 Scotland: Court of the Lord Lyon HM New Register House Edinburgh, EH1 3YT, Scotland Sir Malcolm R. Innes of Edingight, K.C.V.O., Lord Lyon King of Arms Tel. 011-44-1-31-556-7255 Fax 011-44-1-31-557-2148 South Africa: Bureau of Heraldry Private Bag X236, Pretoria S.A. 0001 Mr. Frederick Brownell, M.A., State Herald of South Africa Tel. 011-27-12-323-5300 Fax 011-27-12-323-5287

Selected Reading Stephen Friar, ed. A Dictionary of Heraldry. New York, Harmony Books, 1987. Thomas Woodcock and John M. Robinson. The Oxford Guide to Heraldry. Toronto, Oxford University Press, 1988. Ottfried Neubecker. Heraldry: Sources, Symbols and Meaning. London, McGraw Hill, 1988. Henry Bedingfeld and Peter Gwynn-Jones. Heraldry. London, Bison Books, 1993. Sir Thomas Innes of Learney. Scots Heraldry. Edinburgh, Johnston and Bacon, 1978 (3rd ed. by Malcolm Innes, ed.). Strome Galloway. Beddoe’s Canadian Heraldry. Belleville, Mika Publishing, 1981.

All illustrations courtesy of The Public Register of Arms, Flags and Badges of Canada, The Chancellery, Office of the Governor General.

This article originally appeared in the January/February 1998 issue of Family Chronicle.