English coat of arms?

[Skomatth]

Just wondering how the english got their coat of arms that are depicted in the game. Was it used in real life? and if yes how did they know about lions, I thought everyone was pretty reclusive back then.

[Hakonarson]

The 3 gold lions on red is the traditinoal English coat of arms - William of Normandy's (William the Conquerer) personal badge was 2 lions - it's not strictly speaking a coat of arms at hat stage tho becuse heraldry wasn't invented for another 50 years or so

Geoffrey Plantegnet, Count of Anjou, was knighted by King Henry I in 1127. His shield was adorned with three golden lions and is thought to be the first example of a coat of arms.

Lions weer wel known world wide - there used to be wild lions in Europe althuogh I'm not sure if thye weer known at this time.

[Sigurd]

The three lions;

The adoption of these arms can be dated to within two or three years by the fact that they make their first appearance on the second Great Seal of Richard I, which was cut in 1195 and came into use in 1198.
They are depicted on a shield carried by the king on horseback.

By contrast, the first Great Seal of Richard I, produced on his accession in 1189, shows a shield with what appears to be a single lion rampant, although conceivably the complete device could be two lions rampant combatant.
Why Richard changed his arms only a few years into his short reign is unclear.
Indirect evidence suggests that Richard's father, Henry II, may have borne both 'Gules a lion rampant or' and 'Gules two lions passant (or passant guardant) or' at various times during his reign.
Certainly, Richard's brother John (later King John) bore the latter coat as Lord of Ireland and Count of Mortain.
The theory that either Henry II or Richard I derived the third lion from the arms of Henry's wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, is not supported by the evidence as to the arms actually used by the House of Aquitaine at this time.

However, whatever their origins, from the time of their adoption they became accepted as the arms of the English sovereign and were borne in their simple form by Richard's successors until 1340. In this year, Edward III quartered them with the arms of France in order to advertise his claim to the French throne through his mother Isabella, only daughter and eventually sole heir of Philip IV of France. Thus began the long series of marshallings and remarshallings with other royal and princely arms which have culminated in the Royal Arms of the United Kingdom in their current form.

The Norwegian coat of arms as is depicted in my signature is among the oldest in Europe (11th century) and it seems that it was a practice among the European courts of having lions as the royal symbol.


Notes on the heraldic terms used: gules means red; or means gold; passant means walking; guardant means looking out of the shield; rampant means standing erect with one hind paw on the ground and the other three raised; combatant means facing each other like two boxers.

Edit: Oh I forgot about; how did the Europeans know about lions?
This is where one uses common sense/one word: Romans

[BlackWatch McKenna]

Great post, Sigurd

[Heraclius]

also who knows lions may have been sent as gifts to European rulers in France or England. There are records of Charlemagne receiving a troupe of elephants from the caliph of Baghdad in the eigth century He was so taken with them that he had embroideries of elephants hung all over his palace in Aachen.