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Main => The Round Table => Topic started by: RackThor on 2013-03-05, 16:27:27
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For someone who has not touched Heraldry before where would I begin my search to understand it, and apply it for myself and others?
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A good basic intro is actually Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraldry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraldry)
Give it a read through. There are quite a few books on it, though I can't cite any titles since it's not something I'm well versed in.
If there's any specific questions, that will help. :)
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Thank you very much Sir.
A good basic intro is actually Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraldry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraldry)
Give it a read through. There are quite a few books on it, though I can't cite any titles since it's not something I'm well versed in.
If there's any specific questions, that will help. :)
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For the price, this is worth a look. It's hardly an end-all be-all book on heraldry, but it's not too bad either. There are much better, much more expensive tomes out there that can be recommended if your interest is deep.
http://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Heraldry-Men-at-Arms-ebook/dp/B007JCC1M2/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1362506370&sr=8-3&keywords=medieval+heraldry (http://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Heraldry-Men-at-Arms-ebook/dp/B007JCC1M2/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1362506370&sr=8-3&keywords=medieval+heraldry)
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For a very straightforward description of heraldry rules, here's the SCA's standardized way of doing things:
http://heraldry.sca.org/primer/ (http://heraldry.sca.org/primer/)
Historically, the rules changed a lot over the years, and varied between countries. But many groups (such as the SCA, and The Order of the Marshal, etc) will use this sort of standardized set of rules that are derived from historical English rules. I really like that "primer" from the SCA since it's a nice concise place to get an overview of the rules.
There are many websites that show what the individual charges, colors, divisions, and so forth can mean. Here's an example from some quick googling:
http://www.dksdesigns.net/symbolism.html (http://www.dksdesigns.net/symbolism.html)
Heraldry on shields started out as a simple way to paint up the shield to make a knight recognizable on the field. Up until the 13th century, it tended to be simple geometric patterns. During the 13th they started to get more complex, and particularly in the 14th century you tend to see a lot more animals and objects used as charges. By the 15th century, heraldic designs could by much more complex, with "marshaling" to combine the arms of multiple families, as the system had become more codified and more meaningful beyond just battlefield use.
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Also Heralds.westkingdom.org (http://Heralds.westkingdom.org) & Rolls.westkingdom.org (http://Rolls.westkingdom.org) can be helpful. :)
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To help narrow the focus, what aspect of it do you want to know about the most? How it evolved over time? The rules and terminology? How you might go about choosing options for yourself?
If you want to make heraldry for yourself, most of it will come down to personal taste and things that mean something to you. You can certainly bounce ideas off of us here, and we can make suggestions.
The links Thorsteinn suggested above are a great source of ideas.
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Quite honestly I am curious about all the things you just listed Sir Edward, and I would like to know what role Heraldry truly played with 16th century knights.
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Ah, that might be worth reading about. By the 16th century, knighthood had evolved to be more of a title, rather than a battlefield role. Heraldry at this point, I think, had evolved also, such that it was a form of formal identification not just for knights, but also for nobles and royalty. This is where we get more of the notion of a "family crest" rather than being a shield design to identify knights in battle.
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Heraldry in the 16th Century was used to explore family lineages, and to identity the Honorific Knights in the Renaissance. In essence, Heraldry was still practiced throughout the Renaissance until the 1700's. An example of this is the coat of Arms belonging to the famous Don John of Austria shown here.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/02/Coat_of_Arms_of_John_of_Austria_%281545-1578%29.svg/500px-Coat_of_Arms_of_John_of_Austria_%281545-1578%29.svg.png)
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It got way busier by that point.
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I found an interesting piece of heraldry I may use. My family once used a scorpion as heraldry. Being from southern Spain it was of the few places the creature existed in Europe.
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This is a large area unknown to me as well. I played in the SCA for some years and during this time I once asked a scribe about heraldry. His explanation was so amazingly complex he might as well have been lecturing on quantum mechanics!!! ;-) It sent me running for the border, so to speak and I have kind of hedged away from heraldry ever since :) I think I might delve into it again though...In my tradition we certainly have symbolic expressions, but nothing in the manner of heraldry as I have seen it in the Medieval sense.