Heraldry Studies · The Archive
The Art & Science
of Heraldry
A comprehensive guide to the language of arms — from its origins on medieval battlefields to the living tradition of family identity that endures today.
The Origins of Heraldry
From the earliest times, people needed to identify themselves with a personal sign or device. Impressions in the seals on early documents grew into elaborate graphical representations, and eventually migrated to the battlefield shields of knights in armour — giving rise to the term coat of arms.
Travelling messengers — soon called heralds — accumulated encyclopaedic knowledge of their masters' devices. As duplication became inevitable, the heralds began to regulate identity. Their craft was eventually termed heraldry.
In 1127, Henry I gave a shield to Geoffrey Plantagenet as a wedding gift — the first formal appearance of heraldry as we know it. Impetus was given by the 12th-century Crusades, and by the Third Crusade in 1189 heraldry had broken out across Europe.
A Heraldic Timeline
Henry I gifts a heraldic shield to Geoffrey Plantagenet — the first recorded act of heraldry.
The Third Crusade accelerates heraldry across all of Europe.
Magna Carta signed by 25 Barons, each displaying their own coat of arms.
Richard III founds the College of Arms by royal charter.
"For those who can decipher it, heraldry is an algebra — a language"
— Victor Hugo
The Full Achievement of Arms
The shield is the essential element, but a full Achievement of Arms can consist of many parts. Each element carries meaning — together they form a complete declaration of identity, lineage, and honour.
The Rule of Precedence
Not every achievement includes all elements. A knight bears a different helm than a sovereign. Supporters are generally reserved for peers and corporations. The shield alone is sufficient to bear arms — everything else enriches the declaration.
Anatomy of the Shield
In an age when literacy was rare, a knight's shield was read at a glance. Its surface — called the field — was divided into named points, allowing heralds to describe any device with precision from a single written blazon.
The sides are described from the viewpoint of the bearer standing behind the shield — so Dexter (Latin: right) appears on the viewer's left, and Sinister (Latin: left) on the viewer's right.
Named Points of the Shield
The Ordinaries
Bold geometric shapes placed upon the field — the primary vocabulary of heraldic design.
Edges of these forms may be straight, wavy, engrailed, indented, embattled, raguly, or dancetty — each pattern carrying its own heraldic name.
Tinctures: The Colours of Arms
Heraldry employs a limited palette of formal tinctures — colours, metals, and furs — governed by strict rules of contrast. The result: arms readable at a distance, in dim candlelight, or through visor-slits on a battlefield.
The Five Colours
The Two Metals
The Furs
The Golden Rule of Tincture
A colour must never be placed upon a colour, nor a metal upon a metal. This fundamental rule ensures that arms remain legible at all distances and in all conditions. It does not apply to furs, nor to charges depicted in their natural (proper) colours.
Charges, Beasts & Monsters
Beyond geometric shapes, heraldry opened a vast array of graphical charges: anything seen or imagined could become a heraldic device — animals, celestial objects, human figures, mythological monsters. This is where heraldry becomes poetry.
Animals & Their Meanings
Lion
Courage, strength, and sovereignty. The most used charge in all of heraldry, never native to Western Europe yet universally recognised as the King of Beasts.
Eagle
Power, nobility, and imperial authority. Displayed with wings outstretched (displayed), a two-headed eagle denotes the Holy Roman Empire.
Stag
Wisdom, long life, and gentle strength. One who will not fight unless provoked. The stag rampant is among the most graceful charges.
Dog / Hound
Faithfulness, loyalty, and vigilance. A constant companion — the hound in arms speaks of unbroken devotion to lord or cause.
Bear
Strength and ferocity in protection. Often depicted with a ragged staff, as in the badge of the Earls of Warwick.
Serpent
Wisdom, eternity, and healing. In knot form, it represents a family's continuity through generations, unbroken as a circle.
Griffin
Dual nature of eagle and lion — mastery of sky and earth. A guardian of treasure and sacred things, combining speed and power.
Dragon
Sovereignty and fierce protection. The red dragon of Wales is among heraldry's most ancient and enduring charges.
Unicorn
Purity, fierce independence, and the untameable spirit. Only the worthy may approach a unicorn — hence its place in royal arms.
Heraldic Attitudes of Beasts
Rampant
Rearing upright on one hind leg, three paws raised. The most vigorous and common posture.
Passant
Walking with one foreleg raised. The three lions of England are passant guardant.
Salient
Leaping with both hind legs on the ground, forelegs raised. Common for stags.
Guardant
The head turned to face the viewer directly, regardless of the body's posture.
Couchant
Lying down with head raised — at rest but watchful. Also called lodged for deer.
Sejant
Seated with both forelegs upright. Often used for cats, foxes, and squirrels.
Canting Arms
When a graphical charge forms a visual pun on its bearer's name, the result is called Canting Arms. The arms of Eberbach ('Boar-Brook') display a boar and a brook; the arms of Bowes-Lyon include both bows and lions. It is heraldry's most playful dimension — wit preserved in permanence.
The Blazon: Language of Arms
A blazon is the precise written description of a coat of arms — a kind of heraldic DNA. It draws on a blend of English, Norman French, and Latin, providing instructions so exact that any skilled artist can reproduce the arms faithfully from text alone.
The description proceeds in a strict order: first the field, then the principal charge, then secondary charges, then details of each. It begins at the top-left and moves rightward, then downward.
How to Read a Blazon
An Example Blazon
"Azure, a lion rampant Or, armed and langued Gules, within a bordure compony Argent and Gules."
Decoded
"The blazon is the passport of its time — there was no room for ambiguity, since it was used not only to pinpoint identity but for faithful reproduction."
— Heraldry Society, London
Cadency & Family Arms
Arms descend through the male line. When a father's sons each bear his arms, duplication must be distinguished. The system of cadency assigns a specific mark to each son by birth order — small charges added to the shield, marking their generation.
Marshalling
When two armigerous families are joined by marriage, their arms may be marshalled — combined on a single shield. The husband's arms occupy the dexter (left) half; his wife's the sinister (right). If she is an heraldic heiress, her arms appear on an escutcheon of pretence at the centre.
Quartering
Upon the death of an armigerous mother with no brothers, her children may quarter her arms with their father's — dividing the shield into four sections. Each generation may add further quarterings, producing a rich heraldic genealogy encoded in a single shield.
Heraldic Glossary
The vocabulary of heraldry is its own language — precise, ancient, and expressive. These are the essential terms.
Achievement
The full display of all heraldic elements belonging to a bearer: shield, helm, crest, mantling, supporters, motto, and compartment.
Argent
Silver or white — one of the two heraldic metals, represented by a blank field.
Armiger
A person, place, or institution legally entitled to bear arms under Letters Patent.
Attires
The antlers of a stag or hart. Each prong is called a tyne.
Augmentation
An addition to arms granted by the sovereign to honour exceptional service.
Azure
Blue — the most common colour in heraldry, derived from the Persian lapis lazuli.
Blazon
The precise written description of a coat of arms, from which it may be reproduced by any heraldist.
Caboshed
An animal head shown full-face with no neck visible.
Canting Arms
Arms that form a visual pun or rebus on the bearer's surname.
Charge
Any device placed upon the field of a shield.
Compartment
The ground or platform on which supporters stand.
Couped
Cut cleanly — a head or limb severed with a straight cut rather than a ragged tear.
Counterchanged
Two tinctures reversed across a division of the field.
Dexter
The bearer's right — appearing on the viewer's left.
Difference
A mark added to distinguish the arms of a cadet branch from those of the senior line.
Displayed
A bird shown with wings fully spread and tips upward.
Erased
Torn ragged — a head or limb severed with a jagged, natural edge.
Escutcheon
The shield itself; also a small shield placed upon a larger shield.
Field
The surface of the shield, upon which all charges are placed.
Furs
Heraldic patterns representing animal pelts: Ermine (stoat) and Vair (squirrel).
Gules
Red — the most vigorous and frequently used heraldic colour.
Guardant
An animal whose head is turned to face the viewer directly.
Impalement
Two coats joined on a single shield, divided vertically.
Langued
Describing the colour of an animal's tongue when it differs from the standard.
Mantling
Decorative drapery flowing from the helm; originally a cloth sun-shield.
Motto
A phrase on a scroll below the shield, often in Latin, expressing a family's spirit.
Or
Gold or yellow — the more prestigious of the two heraldic metals.
Ordinary
A bold geometric shape on the field — the primary visual vocabulary of arms.
Passant
Walking with one foreleg raised; three paws on the ground.
Proper
Depicted in natural colours rather than heraldic tinctures.
Quarterly
A shield divided into four equal parts by a vertical and horizontal line.
Rampant
Rearing upright on one hind leg, the posture of supreme vigour.
Sable
Black — the deepest and most solemn of the heraldic colours.
Sinister
The bearer's left — appearing on the viewer's right.
Sub-Ordinary
A secondary geometric charge, less prominent than the Ordinaries.
Tincture
Any heraldic colour, metal, or fur used on a shield.
Torse
The wreath of twisted cloth covering the join between helm and crest.
Vert
Green — associated with hope and loyalty in nature.
Helmets & the Ranks of Arms
The helmet (helm) perched above the shield is far more than decoration — its material, style, and facing direction encode the precise rank of the armiger. A sovereign's helm faces the viewer and gleams in gold; a gentleman's turns in profile, forged in plain steel. Read the helm, and you have read the bearer's station.
The torse, or wreath, sits between helm and crest — six twists of cloth in the two principal tinctures of the shield. It likely began as a practical cover for the join, or perhaps as a lady's favour bound about a knight's helmet before battle. It endures as one of heraldry's most poetic ornaments.
The Hierarchy of Helms
The monarch's helm faces the viewer directly, grille open, crowned with the royal crest. Reserved for the sovereign alone.
Princes of the royal blood bear a gold helm facing the viewer, with a grilled visor denoting their proximity to the crown.
The highest peers bear gold helms facing the viewer with grilles of five or seven bars, topped by their ducal coronets.
Earls display a silver helm inlaid with gold, facing the viewer with a grilled visor — a visual mid-point between duke and baron.
The lower ranks of the peerage bear a plain steel helm turned toward the viewer, with a six-barred grille.
Knights and baronets bear the tournament tilting helm in profile — the war-helm of the medieval tourney, solid steel with a slit visor.
The common armiger bears a simple close helm in profile — unadorned steel, the mark of a private gentleman bearing lawful arms.
The Facing Conventions
A helm turned affronté (facing the viewer) signals nobility — the bearer's rank is on display for all to see. A helm turned in profile signals a private gentleman, whose arms are borne quietly, without the spectacle of high office. To misrender the helm is to falsely claim rank — a serious heraldic offence.
Divisions of the Field
The field of a shield is rarely a single blank surface. It is divided — by lines drawn in named patterns — into regions that carry their own tinctures and charges. These divisions, declared at the very start of a blazon with the prefix per, are the foundational architecture of heraldic design.
A shield divided per pale is split by a vertical line; per fess by a horizontal one; per bend by a diagonal from chief to base. Each division is named, and each line that forms it can itself be shaped — straight, wavy, engrailed, embattled — lending texture and meaning to the simplest arms.
The Principal Divisions
The Named Lines of Division
Engrailed
A series of outward-curving arcs — symbolising the sea or the earth.
Invected
The inverse of engrailed — inward-curving arcs, like scalloped edges.
Indented
Sharp zigzag teeth — denoting war, ferocity, or a frontier.
Dancetty
A broader, deeper zigzag — grander than indented, often only three peaks.
Embattled
Rectangular crenellations — the battlements of a fortress wall.
Wavy
Gentle undulating waves — reserved for water, rivers, and the sea.
Nebuly
A cloud-like line of bulbous curves — denoting clouds or the heavens.
Raguly
An uneven line with short diagonal stubs — suggesting a rough, broken branch.
The Bestiary, Expanded
Beyond the lion and the eagle lies a vast menagerie — birds of every feather, creatures of the deep, and monsters born of the medieval imagination. Each carried a precise symbolic meaning understood by every literate viewer of its day. To read a bestiary was to read a sermon carved in living form.
Birds of the Air
Eagle Displayed
Wings spread to their fullest, tips upward — the supreme emblem of imperial authority. A two-headed eagle marks the Holy Roman Empire, gazing East and West at once.
Falcon
Noble pursuit and the hunt. Often depicted belled and jessed, bearing small bells on its legs — the badge of a skilled falconer of high birth.
Swan
Grace, poetry, and devoted love. The swan was the badge of the de Bohun family and later of Henry IV, signifying constancy and refinement.
Martlet
A stylised swallow shown without feet, always in flight. It denotes one who must live by virtue alone, lacking the land to rest upon — a charge of the younger son.
Pelican in Piety
A pelican plucking her own breast to feed her young with blood — the supreme emblem of self-sacrifice and Christian charity, much used by colleges and bishops.
Phoenix
Rising from its own ashes — resurrection, rebirth, and triumph over death. A rare and exalted charge, reserved for the most aspirational arms.
Creatures of the Deep
Dolphin
Swiftness, charity, and the sea. In heraldry it is drawn in a stylised arched form far from nature — a decorative curve rather than a portrait.
Lucy (Pike)
A long freshwater fish, often shown naiant (swimming) or haurient (rising). It gave its name to Lucy and its many arms-playing families.
Whale
Strength in the deep and the mysteries of the ocean. Rare in heraldry, usually drawn as a great stylised curve with a spout.
Scallop Shell
The pilgrim's badge of Santiago de Compostela — travel, pilgrimage, and the warrior's spiritual journey. Among the most common of all heraldic charges.
Monsters & Fabulous Beasts
Wyvern
A two-legged dragon with wings and a barbed tail — distinct from the four-legged true dragon. It denotes fierce vigilance and the conquest of venomous foes.
Cockatrice
A serpent-tailed, winged rooster hatched from a cock's egg by a toad — death by its gaze. A charge of terror and deadly cunning.
Basilisk
The king of serpents, crowned and deadly. Even more fearful than the cockatrice — its mere breath was said to be fatal.
Manticore
Body of a lion, head of a man, tail of a scorpion — a monstrous guardian from Persian myth, embodying the fearsome and unknowable.
Opinicus
A rare chimera — camel's head, lion's body, eagle's legs, and a serpent's tail. The badge of the Plumbers' Company of London.
Sphinx
Wisdom's riddle made flesh — a winged lion with a woman's face. Borrowed from Egypt and Greece, denoting enigma and vigilance.
The Condition of Beasts
A beast may be shown entire, or only in part. A head caboshed is shown full-face with no neck; a head erased is torn ragged from the body; a head couped is cut cleanly. Each carries its own emotional register — the erased head speaks of violence survived, the couped head of ceremony.
Plants, Trees & Celestial Charges
The natural world gave heraldry some of its most enduring symbols — the oak that withstands the storm, the rose that conceals the thorn, the sun that rules the day. Plants, trees, and celestial bodies appear on countless shields, each carrying a meaning drawn from folk belief, scripture, or the land itself.
Trees & Their Roots
Oak Tree
Strength, endurance, and deep roots in the land. An oak eradicated — shown pulled up by its roots — denotes an ancient lineage violently torn from its soil.
Pine Tree
Resolution and the ability to thrive in harsh places. A favourite charge of maritime and northern families, and of New England's early arms.
Laurel
Victory, triumph, and poetic achievement — the wreath of the Caesars. In heraldry it crowns those who have won, not by blood, but by deed.
Eradicated
A tree shown with its roots exposed — a charge meaning antiquity, origin, and the literal rooting of a family in its hereditary land.
Flowers of the Field
Rose
Grace, beauty, and secrecy. The rose was the private device of the Plantagenets — white for York, red for Lancaster, united as the Tudor rose after Bosworth Field.
Fleur-de-lis
The lily of purity and the royal flower of France. Said to have been given to Clovis by an angel, it became the supreme emblem of the French crown.
Cinquefoil
A five-petalled flower — hope, joy, and the five senses. Among the most common floral charges, often confused with the rose at a glance.
Trefoil & Quatrefoil
Three or four leaves — faith, hope, and charity (trefoil), or the four evangelists (quatrefoil). Common in ecclesiastical and Irish arms.
The Heavens Above
Sun in Splendour
The sun with a human face and rays of alternating straight and wavy beams — glory, power, and the sovereign eye that lights the world.
Crescent
The moon in its new phase — one elevated above the line of hope, the mark of a second son and of those who shine in adversity.
Estoile
A six-pointed wavy-rayed star — divine grace and heavenly favour. Distinct from the molet, whose rays are straight.
Comet
A star with a fiery tail — portent, rarity, and the sudden blazing of achievement. A rare charge reserved for the singular life.
The Family of Crosses
The cross appears in dozens of named forms, each a distinct charge. The plain cross pattee flares at its ends; the cross flory ends in fleurs-de-lis; the cross potent bears T-shaped ends; the cross calvary rises on three steps. Each carries its own meaning — crusading, martyrdom, faith, or office.
Civic, Corporate & National Heraldry
Heraldry was never the private language of knights alone. From its earliest centuries, cities, guilds, universities, churches, and nations bore arms of their own — collective identities rendered in the same grammar. This civic heraldry is, today, the tradition's most living branch: you see it on town halls, passports, and letterheads the world over.
Where personal arms speak of a bloodline, civic arms speak of a community — its trade, its geography, its history, its patron saint. The arms of a fishing port show a ship; of a wool town, a fleece; of an ancient see, the keys of its saint. These are arms meant to be read by every citizen, not merely the gentry.
National Arms
The great arms of kingdoms — the three lions passant of England, the lion rampant of Scotland, the eagle of the Empire. National arms are the most widely seen heraldry on earth, on coins, seals, and flags.
Civic & Municipal
Towns and cities bear arms reflecting their founding trades or local legends. The City of London's shield bears the dagger of St Paul and the dragon of the City's patronage — read by millions each day on its street signs.
Corporate & University
Universities, guilds, and regiments carry arms that encode their purpose and founding. The Livery Companies of the City of London — Goldsmiths, Mercers, Drapers — each display the tools of their ancient craft.
Ecclesiastical
Bishops, abbots, and sees bear arms with their croziers, mitres, and keys. The Papal arms display the crossed keys of St Peter — the most recognisable ecclesiastical arms in the world, redesigned with each pontificate.
The Modern Revival
Heraldry was pronounced dead a hundred times — and a hundred times it revived. Canada founded its own heraldic authority in 1988; South Africa grants arms to this day. New towns, new universities, and new regiments continue to receive grants. The language that began on a Crusader's shield is still being spoken, fluently, in the twenty-first century.
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