This page designed and researched by Snicker Furfoot, Esq., Wave Herald of the Kingdom of the Wetlands
Heraldry is a huge and beautiful subject, but ask any three people what it is, and you'll get three different answers. To me, it's wonderful look back into our past, but it's also a beautiful art form, and a fascinating language. In short, heraldry is many things. But it is also too large to completely cover under any single banner, so I won't even try. The real purpose of this site is not to be the ultimate authority on blazoning or heraldry, but rather, to provide the basic information necessary to understand what heraldry is, and to provide some useful examples, by blazoning existing Amtgard symbols, and finally, hopefully to instill the same sense of fascination into the viewer that I have. Since Amtgard is a fantasy group, however, many of the official conventions are overlooked or outright broken. When this is the case, I will try to do my best to make a notation, so that any strictly historical heralds won't get confused or upset (at least not too much...)
If you are an historical herald, or someone interested in just the facts, or historical examples, here are some links to sites you might find of use:
History
Historically, heraldry was simply a way for warriors to identify one another, under helmets and armour. Someone got the bright idea to put a personal symbol on their shields and their surcoats (which is where we get the term "coat of arms"). Later on, coats of arms became more elaborate, including crests, helmets, mantles, and even mottos and supporters. The practice quickly spread, and arms, though at first used by just the nobility, soon, were used by even the peasants. A system of rules was brought in to use, to govern who could use what symbols and how. The authorities of the rules, the heralds, developed their own language to describe the symbols in words, in such a way that another herald could accurately reproduce the arms. This practice was known as "blazoning," and in the British Isles, much of the terminology was taken from the Norman French. This is the language we will be dealing with.
It is important to remember that contrary to modern beliefs, a coat of arms was not given to a family, but was, rather, awarded to a single man, and changes were made when members of his family wore it. So when you see "The arms of the Suchnsuch Family," if they were even authentic, they more than likely belonged to an ancestor rather than the person displaying them. However, Amtgard being what it is, I will not go into any great detail on how to find your own family coats or researching one's heritage. Amtgard is about fantasy and having fun, so I will try to keep with that spirit with this site.
Topics covered here