Why was heraldry important in the middle ages

On the day of the ceremony the squire was dressed by two knights with a white tunic and white belt to symbolise purity, black or brown stockings to represent the earth to which he will one day return, and a scarlet cloak for the blood he is now ready to spill for his baron, sovereign, and church.

It is distinct, recognisable, and the willingness to use it has made it more emblematic of the place it represents. Design matters. It represents and builds communities, whether as citizens, consumers, professions or social identities. Nowhere is this truer than a school logo.

It describes the values a school upholds as well as the origins of these values. A school logo design should represent the institution in the best possible light. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel. Skip to content Home Dissertation What was heraldry and how did it play an important role in medieval tournaments? Ben Davis March 8, What was heraldry and how did it play an important role in medieval tournaments?

Why was heraldry important in the Middle Ages? New York: Wiedenfeld and Nicolson, , 9. Nevertheless, even if marks by which knights and lords might be readily known were not absolutely called for by military needs, the social and military order of the twelfth century was such that, once invented, they found a ready market as military status symbols, and were popularised probably by the tournament rather than in real warfare.

The tournament is supposed to have been invented in the mid-eleventh century in France, and it developed as a popular form of regular training in the handling of weapons and horses. It rapidly became highly organised and hedged around with rules and elaborate pageantry. Ambitious knights travelled round Europe fighting in tournaments at fortnightly intervals.

It is probable that such itinerant participants in tournaments helped to spread the usages and conventions of heraldry across Europe. Later in the Middle Ages the bearing of arms came to be accepted as an essential prerequisite of participation in a tournament. Thus, arms came to be seen as a mark of noble status, and were granted by the Holy Roman Emperor and the European kings as a corollary to ennoblement.

In early days, however, most arms were self-assumed, and their owners sometimes changed them at will but even in the twelfth century, and before the rapid proliferation of armorial devices led to a growing measure of royal control, there was some equation between nobility of blood and armorial bearings.

This clue suggests an alternative theory for the origins of heraldry. Although heraldry came to have strong military associations, it may have developed from the civil personal mark, the seal device, of certain north European ruling families descended from Charlemagne, who perpetuated some of the administrative organisation and possibly the symbolic devices of his court.

Heraldry New Jersey: Chartwell Books, , Consequently, the origin of heraldry was not Norman but Flemish. The Normans were not in a position to know about the symbolic devices of Charlemagne's court. It is most likely, therefore, that the origins of English and Scottish armory are to be found not in Normandy the Normans were of mixed Scandinavian and Frankish descent , but in the system adopted by certain ruling families descended from the Emperor Charlemagne, the military and political colossus who ruled the Frankish Empire of northern Europe from to These families perpetuated much of the administrative organisation of the Carolingian Empire, including the use of dynastic and territorial emblems on seals, coinage, customs stamps and flags.

There is evidence to suggest that these devices were common to families or groups linked by blood or feudal tenure, and were of necessity hereditary. With the redistribution of lands following the Norman Conquest, the cadets in England of Flemish families who were of Carolingian descent, and the devices used by them, became integrated in Anglo-Norman society. During the first Crusade, only thirty years after the Conquest, the mass cavalry charge of mail-clad knights remained the standard tactic of warfare.

Order was maintained in the ensuing fight by the use of mustering flags bearing the personal devices of commanders and it is clear that these were sufficiently distinctive to be recognised, even in the heat of battle.

It is likely that they also possessed a peacetime function - that of marking territory and symbolising authority - and that the devices used for this purpose also came to be engraved on seals by which documents were authenticated. Hereditary devices may have been known in , and symbolic banners seem to have been carried at the battle of Hastings and in the First Crusade. If the undoubted links of the ruling families of Flanders with Charlemagne had any heraldic connotations, the political decline of Flanders in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and the misfortunes that overwhelmed its ruing houses, would have given their descendants in England an additional urge to preserve their heritage and promote their armorial devices.

Whatever its origins, it is clear that what had been, in the late eleventh century, the inheritance of a small group of interrelated families in north-west Europe, spread through the upper ranks of society in the twelfth century. This widespread adoption of colourful devices and symbols was one aspect of the twelfth-century renaissance.

Once symbols were transferred to the shield, they gave rise to what is accepted as heraldry, and this practice spread across Europe in a period of less than thirty years. By the beginning of the thirteenth century, admission to the tournament was established as the prerogative of the knightly class. Heralds were attached to royal or magnatial households as advisers and emissaries and it was they who were responsible for arranging and supervising tournaments: they determined the eligibility of participants and declaimed their prowess, marshalled the contestants and adjudicated at the fight.

The heralds thereby acquired an expertise which was peculiarly their own. This was concerned, not only with the management of ceremonial and protocol, but also with the ordering and recording of personal devices used on seals, at tournaments and, increasingly, in warfare and because it was they who exercised this expertise, it became known as "heraldry. The earliest recorded seal showing an armorial shield dates from , and thereafter the increasing importance of the shield as a vehicle for armorial display had more to do with the development of armory as a well regulated system than with military expediency.