Heraldry - is about showing people who you are.
In England, it started in the later 1100s, when knights began to wear helmets, and they couldn't be recognised. So they began to paint unique combinations of colours, shapes and animals, called their 'arms', on their shields and banners. Only one person was allowed to use these arms. When people saw a knight wearing them in a battle or tournament, they could tell who he was.
It is the science and the art that deal with the use, display, and regulation of hereditary symbols employed to distinguish individuals, armies, institutions, and corporations. Those symbols, which originated as identification devices on flags and shields, are called armorial bearings.
Strictly defined, heraldry denotes that which pertains to the office and duty of a herald; that part of his work dealing with armorial bearings is properly termed armory. But in general usage heraldry has come to mean the same as armory.
The 5 traditional colours are, with their heraldic names:
There are also 'furs', the most common being:
Ermine: representing the white winter fur of stoats, with their black tail tips.
Vair: representing squirrel skins, in blue and white.
If something (say a dog or badger) is shown in its natural colours, it's called proper.
Conventional representations of tinctures used when it is not possible to print the actual colors:
Ordinaries - the simple shapes used on heraldic shields, against a colour, metal or fur background. If you are making your own design, choose one of these main ordinaries:
Fess = horizontal stripe across the shield
Pale = vertical stripe down the shield
Chevron = like a house gable, pointing upwards
Saltire = a 'St. Andrew's cross'
Chief = bar across top edge of shield
Bordure = border round edges of shield
Pile = downward-pointing triangle
You can also divide your shield into two colours, either vertically or horizontally, or into four different-coloured quarters.
You don't have to use an ordinary, but if you do remember to never put a colour on colour or a metal on a metal. Try to remember this heraldic rule: colours don't show up well against colours, or metals against metals. This also applies to charges.
Charges - emblems added to the shield, on the background, the 'ordinary', or both.
There can be one big charge, or several smaller repeated ones. Here are some of the common charges you could use:
Crosses - of many different types
They can be any colour, but remember never put colour on colour, for example a green star on blue, or metal on metal, for example a white flower on yellow.
Many knights also used animals as charges.
Any animal - either one big one or several smaller - can be used as a charge. They can be shown in many different ways, for instance:
Rearing up (rampant) - like the lion and the hare in the pictures above
Standing (statant) - like the dog
For birds, with wings outstretched (displayed) - like the eagle
Walking along (passant) - like the other lion
If the animal is looking towards you, it is also guardant or 'on guard'. So the lion in the picture is passant guardant.
The ancient royal arms of England are 3 golden lions, one above the other, walking along on a red shield: or, in heraldic code, gules three lions passant guardant or.
Just to make things more complicated, lions passant guardant are also called leopards - but they don't have spots.
Animals symbolised different qualities. So for instance:
Dogs = faithfulness, reliability
Stags = wisdom and long life
Eagles = power and nobility
Badgers = endurance or 'hanging on'
You could also design your own animal charge.
For instance a cat, horse or other favourite pet.
Or you could choose a fabulous beast...
Though often used as 'charges', these fabulous beasts never really existed.
But some people believed they did, maybe because they'd heard about them in stories made up by travellers to distant lands, like crusading knights or merchant adventurers. Pictures of them also appeared in 'bestiaries', a popular kind of illustrated medieval story-book.
Here are some you could use:
Dragon: the earliest and most common fabulous beast, also used as a badge by Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Welsh. A brave and cunning defender of treasure.
Griffin: a combination of lion and eagle. Symbolises watchfulness and courage - and also guards treasure.
Cockatrice: a cross between a cockerel and a dragon, supposedly hatched from a cock's egg by a snake or toad. Could kill by looking at you, and symbolised protection.
Manticore or 'man-tiger': a fearsome man-eating creature with a lion's body, man's face, tusks, horns and a deafening trumpet-like voice.
Cadency - the use of various devices designed to show a man’s position in a family, with the aforementioned basic aim of reserving the entire arms to the head of the family and to differentiate the arms of the rest, who are the cadets, or younger members.
Heraldic works in the 16th century refer to cadency marks as:
a label for the eldest son during his father’s lifetime;
a crescent for the second son;
a mullet (five-pointed star) for the third;
a martlet (a mythical bird), the fourth;
an annulet (a small ring), the fifth;
a fleur-de-lis, the sixth;
a rose, the seventh; and so forth.
Sources: 1 2 3 4 ⚜ More: Writing Notes & References
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