Academic literature on the topic 'Heraldic'

Every European country now has some distinctive heraldic conventions and traditions embodied in the designs and artistic representations of the emblems forming part of its national corpus. This paper deals with these matters in the period from independence in 1991 to the recent change of name in 2019. It deals with the successive designs proposed for the emblem of the state itself, some of which conformed to international heraldic conventions closely enough to be called “arms” or “coats of arms”, not including the emblem adopted in 2009. Special attention is given to the distinctive conventions created for municipal heraldry, including its novel legal framework, as well as those governing personal heraldry developed in the twenty-first century. The paper examines the evolution of heraldic thought and practice in Macedonia in the three decades in question, especially in the context of the Macedonian Heraldic Society and its journal, The Macedonian Herald, and its Register of Arms and the Civic Heraldic System it created.

The display of a “family crest” to signal family identity is prevalent in the contemporary United States. However, during the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century, many American commentators perceived the widespread use of heraldry by the high bourgeoisie as at best a mark of social pretension and at worst a symptom of an un-American predilection for aristocracy. Over the course of a century, heraldic entrepreneurs sought to broaden the market for family crests, and in doing so Americanized heraldic practice. The early projects of Albert Welles, Frank Allaben and Frances M. Smith linked heraldry with new approaches to genealogical research and encouraged its use by a broad cross section of American society. In the late twentieth century, entrepreneur Gary Halbert sold millions of heraldic mementos that epitomized the modern commodification of history and identity. The result of a century of marketing is an American heraldry that is both more accessible than its European antecedents and less closely tied to verifiable genealogical relationships.

An important stage in creation and unification of title emblems of Muscovy is connected with the war between Russia and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and further changes of the title during the reign of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. At the turn of 1660s-1670s, a number of new title emblems appeared, while the old ones underwent yet another transformation. When creating new emblems, the Western European models were considered and in some ways the title emblems acquired a more pronounced heraldic character. Thus, some new emblems could have originated in the heraldry of the Scandinavian countries and the Holy Roman Empire, other, such as the Siberian coat of arms, combined heraldic symbols of the regions in the aggregate. In a number of earlier emblems Christian semantics were reinforced. Such Christian symbols as hand emerging from clouds, cross, gospel, banner with cross, etc. were added. Christian semantics of the titular heraldry are evident in the heraldic virsi (verses) written at the end of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich. Despite the fact that the finished complex of title emblems was presented in the “Titulyarnik” of 1672, the old or different versions persisted, which proves the variable nature of title heraldry in the second half of the 17th century. Images of the title coats of arms in three illustrated copies of the “Titulyarnik” display unity, but some differences in detail allow to work out ownership of each copy. “Titulyarnik” was probably the first Russian land coat of arms, even if images of title coats of arms on some regals (saadaks, plates) still retained features of the old visual tradition. The existing complex of the title coats of arms was recorded in the late 17th century in several written sources with heraldic images. The complex of preserved heraldic sources allows to reconstruct the history of the title heraldry in Muscovy in its entirety and to identify main stages in its evolution.

Milan Sunko (Zidani Most, 5 December 1860 – Zagreb, 9 March 1891) was a heraldic artist, numismatist, and collector, who studied and started his carrer in Vienna working with the most renowned heraldists of the “classical” Austrian heraldic period. He moved to Zagreb where he made number of well received paintings and graphics and was supported by the intelectual elite of the fastly developing city. His brief spectacular carrier was abruptly ended by laryngeal tuberculosis, and he died in his 31st year. His works are preserved in several museums and galleries in Zagreb, and his heraldic lithographs and ex libris bookplates are remembered in specialized bibliography. However, the Croatian heraldic historiography has forgotten all about him and this paper attempts to remedy this. After the establishment of the Brotherhood of Croatian Dragon Society – one of its founders being Emilij Laszowski, notable Croatian heraldist; it took upon a project to preserve Sunko’s grave, exhuming his remains and providing a modest but dignified grave for him at the Zagreb cemetary in 1910. To achieve that, the Draconian Society raised funds in an international action, activating his foreign friends and fans, documenting the project in respectable heraldic periodicals.

Every European region and country has some specific heraldry. In this paper, we will consider heraldry in the People’s/Socialist Republic of Macedonia, understood by the multitude of coats of arms, and armorial knowledge and art. Due to historical, as well as geographical factors, there is only a small number of coats of arms and a developing knowledge of art, which make this paper’s aim feasible. This paper covers the earliest preserved heraldic motifs and coats of arms found in Macedonia, as well as the attributed arms in European culture and armorials of Macedonia, the кing of Macedonia, and Alexander the Great of Macedonia. It also covers the land arms of Macedonia from the so-called Illyrian Heraldry, as well as the state and municipal heraldry of P/SR Macedonia. The paper covers the development of heraldry as both a discipline and science, and the development of heraldic thought in SR Macedonia until its independence in 1991.

This article deals with the problem of research and attribution of heraldic stained-glass windows of the Swiss Union in the 16th century, when the art of stained glass was in its heyday. By this time, the formation of a new social class, the burghers, was being completed, whose wealthy families, thanks to the special historical conditions for the development of the Old Confederation, were able to have their own family coat of arms. In order to demonstrate their social status and services to society, coats of arms were placed in stained-glass windows, which were donated to churches. The purpose of the article: using the example of the heraldic stained-glass windows of the von Diesbach family, preserved in the church of the city of Worb, canton of Bern, is to show how the established rules of heraldry were transformed in the heraldic stained-glass windows of the Swiss Union. The study relies on sources in the form of surviving armorials, as well as official documents of the time, which depict the coat of arms of the von Diesbach family, which made it possible to conduct a comparative analysis of coats of arms in manuscripts and stained-glass windows. In the process of research, a technical and technological method was used to identify the possibilities of including heraldic symbols in stained glass compositions. As a result of the analysis of the heraldic stained-glass windows of the von Diesbach family in the church of the city of Worb, canton of Bern, it was concluded that they are a vivid example of the use of stable heraldic symbols, however, in the stained-glass windows of the Old Confederation (Swiss Union). the rules of heraldry were not applied too rigidly and consistently, they were interpreted in stained-glass windows taking into account the social structure of society, the location of stained-glass windows in architecture, as well as the technological possibilities of stained-glass art.

The article is devoted to the subjects and symbolism in the hunting heraldry of the Volyn and Kyiv regions in the 16th – early 17th centuries. Among the innovations of this time period is the appearance of atypical imagery in Ukrainian heraldry, namely that of wild animals and hunting horns. The author analyzes the well-known coats of arms associated with hunting, their prevalence and probable reasons for their obscurity in these areas compared to the Kingdom of Poland. In the early modern period, nobility used heraldic signs and legends to emphasize their ancient origins, land tenureship and political influence. The appearance of wild animals on Ruthenian coats of arms was symptomatic of the spread of Western heraldic tradition and hunting culture as such. There were multiple instances of symbiosis between the Ruthenian heraldic tradition and Western templates, the most striking of which is the “Korczak” coat of arms. It is believed that the mantling in the form of a dog of the Hungarian Vizsla breed, depicted sitting in a bowl is of Hungarian origin, but the image of the shield (an "escutcheon") of this coat of arms is actually Ruthenian, interpreted as three belts, logs or rivers. Less prolific than the “Korczak” coat of arms and its variations were the addendum of Western heraldic attributes to the old coats of arms, such as that of hunting horns. Most of the Western-style coats of arms known or relatively known in these areas belonged to those granted to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania nobility in 1413. Many of them were distributed mainly among the small gentry of Polish origin or Galician immigrants. Instead, in the Volyn and Kyiv regions, the gentry preferred their own historical coats of arms, created on the basis of ancient territorial symbolism. Conceivably, their commitment to ancient heraldic tradition was intended to accentuate their Ruthenian identity.

European heraldry presents itself as an intriguing collection of symbols that trace their roots to a number of sources, some of which are obvious to spot, while otters still lay in obscurity. When talking about heraldry, it is safe bet to assume that, for instance, the symbols that are collected from the animal kingdom underwent a process which transferred them a series of anthropomorphic qualities. The situation was no different for elements that were inspired by vegetation and celestial entities. Heraldry, as it is presented in academic environments, primarily traces its roots to the Old World – as a result, most heraldic symbols are directly linked to key-features, both cultural and environmental, that are native to the land. This turned into a major obstacle in the dawn of the early days of post-colonialism, marked by strong movement that aimed at restoring indigenous symbolism on coat of arms and flags of territories that earned their right to self-governance, or independence. This paper is focusing on giving an interpretation regarding the selection of heraldic symbols and vexillological chromatic schemes that were adopted by Russia’s federal subjects with a significant indigenous population. This will include an autonomous okrug, and autonomous republic, and a district from within a kray. We aim at determining if the used symbols reflect, or not, local indigenous identities, if the symbols that are used are entirely of European extraction, or if specific indigenous symbols made their way into the coat of arms of the featured territories. The research that was made concluded that the territories that are situated east of the Urals managed to customize their heraldic design through inserting element extracted from vernacular folklore, while the European territories have a more orthodox approach, using traditional heraldic motifs.

The article discusses the symbolic meanings of sheep and goats in heraldry and how heraldic material with symbols of sheep and goats convey various philosophical concepts and the meaning of human values.