Portal:Heraldry

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Welcome to the Heraldry and Vexillology Portal!

Heraldry encompasses all of the duties of a herald, including the science and art of designing, displaying, describing and recording coats of arms and badges, as well as the formal ceremonies and laws that regulate the use and inheritance of arms. The origins of heraldry lie in the medieval need to distinguish participants in battles or jousts, whose faces were hidden by steel helmets.

Vexillology (from the Latin vexillum, a flag or banner) is the scholarly study of flags, including the creation and development of a body of knowledge about flags of all types, their forms and functions, and of scientific theories and principles based on that knowledge. Flags were originally used to assist military coordination on the battlefield, and have evolved into a general tool for signalling and identification, particularly identification of countries.

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Selected biography

Elias Ashmole was an antiquarian, collector, politician and officer of arms. He supported the royalist side during the English Civil War, and at the restoration of Charles II he was rewarded with several lucrative offices, including Windsor Herald of Arms in Ordinary. Throughout his life he was an avid collector of curiosities and other artifacts. Many of these he acquired from the traveller, botanist, and collector John Tradescant the elder and his son of the same name, and most he donated to Oxford University to create the Ashmolean Museum. He also donated his library and priceless manuscript collection to Oxford. Apart from his collecting activities, Ashmole illustrates the passing of the pre-scientific world view in the seventeenth century: while he immersed himself in alchemical, magical and astrological studies and was consulted on astrological questions by Charles II and his court, these studies were essentially backward-looking. Although he was one of the founding members of the Royal Society, a key institution in the development of experimental science, he never participated actively. (more...)

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Selected coat of arms

The coat of arms of Munich (Münchner Wappen) depicts a young monk dressed in black holding a red book. It has existed in a similar form since the 13th century, though at certain points in its history it has not depicted the central figure of the monk at all. As the German name for Munich, i.e. München, means of Monks, the monk in this case is a self-explanatory symbol who represents the city of Munich. Appearing on a document of May 28, 1239, the oldest seal of Munich has a picture of a monk wearing an open hood. While all seal impressions show the monk with the book in one hand and three outstretched fingers in the other, the monk has varied slightly, appearing in profile, then later full-faced and bare-headed. By the 19th century the figure was portrayed as youthful and became known as the Münchner Kindl or Munich Child. The coat of arms in its current form was created in 1957 and is still an important symbol of the Bavarian state capital. (more...)

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Selected flag

Flag of the Philippines

The national flag of the Philippines is a horizontal bicolor with equal bands of blue and red, and with a white equilateral triangle based at the hoist side; in the center of the triangle is a golden yellow sun with eight primary rays, each containing three individual rays; and at each corner of the triangle is a five-pointed golden yellow star. The flag is displayed with the blue field on top in times of peace, and with the red field on top in times of war. The design was conceptualized by Emilio Aguinaldo during his exile in Hong Kong in 1897, and formally adopted in 1898. The flag's colors have varying symbolism, and the shade of blue has changed over time. (more...)

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Selected picture

The Coat of arms of the British Antarctic Territory features a lion and Emperor penguin as supporters, and the RSS Discovery in the crest.

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Did you know...

...that the Italian mountain Cimon della Pala appears on the coat of arms of the Guardia di Finanza (pictured)?

...that Somerset Herald John Charles Brooke's parents originally sent him to London to study as a chemist?

...that the Seal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was first used on January 1, 1941 and represents the values, standards and history of the FBI and its agents?

...that the flag of New Mexico is designed after the Zia tribe's symbol?

...that in 2006 Devon County Council first raised the flag of Devon, which was designed by a member of the public in 2002 via an online poll on BBC Devon?

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