page_title: History of heraldry
section_title: Precursors
hierarchical_section_title: History of heraldry / Precursors
caption_attribution_description: Fragment of Bayeux Tapestry displaying Romanesque shields during the conquest of England's Normandy in 1066
context_page_description: Heraldry is the system of visual identification of rank and pedigree which developed in the European High Middle Ages, closely associated with the courtly culture of chivalry, Latin Christianity, the Crusades, feudal aristocracy, and monarchy of the time. Heraldic tradition fully developed in the 13th century, and it flourished and developed further during the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. Originally limited to nobility, heraldry is adopted by wealthy commoners in the Late Middle Ages. Specific traditions of Ecclesiastical heraldry also develop in the late medieval period. Coats of arms of noble families, often after their extinction, becomes attached to the territories they used to own, giving rise to municipal coats of arms by the 16th century.
  Western heraldry spread beyond its core territory of Latin Christendom in the 17th century, Western heraldic traditions being adopted in the Russian Empire.
context_section_description: Traditions of field signs, personal emblems or seals go back to at least the Bronze Age. The ekphrastic description of shield designs in particular is found as a topos in classical literature. Units of the Roman army were sometimes identified by distinctive markings on their shields.
  Heraldry developed in the high medieval period, based on earlier, "pre-heraldic" or "ante-heraldic", traditions of visual identification by means of seals, field signs, emblems used on coins, etc. Notably, lions that would subsequently appear in 12th-century coats of arms of European nobility have pre-figurations in the animal style of ancient art (specifically the style of Scythian art as it developed from c. the 7th century BC).
  Western heraldry is an innovation of the 12th century. Certain members of the high nobility began to display animals, specifically lions on their shields beginning in c. the 1140s. Prior to this, western military shields of the 11th to early 12th century did sometimes show simple decorations, but not apparently tied to the personal identification of the bearer.
  The Bayeux Tapestry, illustrating the Norman invasion of England in 1066, and probably commissioned about 1077, when the cathedral of Bayeux was rebuilt, depicts a number of shields of various shapes and designs, many of which are plain, while others are decorated with dragons, crosses, or other typically heraldic figures. Yet no individual is depicted twice bearing the same arms, nor are any of the descendants of the various persons depicted known to have borne devices resembling those in the tapestry. Frankish or German round shields of the 11th century (Ottonian, Salian) are sometimes depicted with simple geometric ornamentation, but not with figurative emblems.
  Similarly, an account of the French knights at the court of the Byzantine emperor Alexius I at the beginning of the twelfth century describes their shields of polished metal, utterly devoid of heraldic design. A Spanish manuscript from 1109 describes both plain and decorated shields, none of which appears to have been heraldic. The Abbey of St. Denis contained a window commemorating the knights who embarked on the Second Crusade in 1147, and was probably made soon after the event; but Montfaucon's illustration of the window before it was destroyed shows no heraldic design on any of the shields.
caption: Proto-heraldic shield decorations shown in the Bayeux Tapestry (c. 1077).
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "200", "Image YResolution": "200", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2007:06:18 12:42:12", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8732", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "989", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "700"}