This week's collection of whimsical and curious stories will dive into the wondrous world of heraldry. However, in keeping with the theme of this series, we will do our best to ignore the many depictions of rampant lions and proud eagles and instead have a look at some of the more obscure coat of arms and their stories.
Before diving any deeper into this topic, a fair warning to all readers; the following is going to be rather silly (even by the standard of this series). Since heraldry also turns out to be a rabbit hole as deep as the Marianas Trench, we will revisit this with a second edition early in the new year when this newsletter will return after a two-week holiday break.
Part I: Europe
The arms of Hensbroek - We will start our tour of European coats of arms in the Low Countries which was a great centre of heraldry in medieval times. The Dutch heraldist and genealogist Cornelis Pama (1916-94) described his country's particular style as "simple" and "sober". However, "sobriety" might not be the first word that comes to mind when looking at the coat of arms of the small Dutch town of Hensbroek. Introduced in 1817, the story of this design is in fact a cautionary tale to always check the etymology before creating your local town's arms. You see, the word "broek" in Dutch normally refers to "trousers" while "hen" shares its English meaning. However, the town was actually founded as "Heynsbroec" meaning the marshy wetland of Heyn*. Arguably, this would make for a much worse coat of arms and so luckily we are today left with this:
The Beyeren Armorial - Staying in the Netherlands, one of the most famous genealogical documents produced there is the Beyeren Armorial. Created in the 15th century, it contains 1096 coat of arms of the most important kings and knights in Europe of the time. However, one of them might as well be a very early depiction of a certain US superhero franchise (or alternatively, the inspiration for Pacman)
The Przyjaciel arms - The Polish knight who was granted the below coat of arms by King Bolesław in the 12th century never had the honour to display it at a tournament or in battle. This is because the arrow shown on it was not that of Cupid metaphorically piercing his heart but instead belonged to some very angry Prussians who did so in a very real sense. You see, a coat of arms often depicts the great achievements of its bearers and this particular knight was credited with retrieving the slain body of the king's brother during a battle. However, rather than focusing on the part of the engagement that went heroically well, the shield instead depicts the exact way in which it all went horribly wrong. 800 years later, the coat of arms is still in use by a number of Polish and Belarusian families (Wikipedia has a list of notable bearers: Link)
--
*For all you Dutch speakers who are keen to learn more, here is an article with the details: https://www.westfriesgenootschap.nl/archivering/speelwagen/1949/speelwagen_1949_112_115.php
Comments