Polish heraldry

The history of Polish heraldry is an integral part of the history of the, the Polish.

History
Unlike in Western Europe, the Polish szlachta did not emerge from the class of under, but rather from a  class of Free Warriors or. These were often hired by Princes to form guard units ( Drużyna) and were eventually paid in land. There is, however, a lot of written evidence from the Middle Ages showing how the Polish nobility does emerge from the knights under the chivalric law (ius militare).

Only a small number of szlachta (:  Rody) can be traced all the way back to the traditional  system. Most, since at least the , were not related and their unions were mostly voluntary and based on and  rather than. Since emerged almost at once as a relatively unified  in the, it was the Prince or, later, the  who was considered the patron of all the s. He granted privileges and land to clan members rather than to clans as such and was allowed to assign new s to the clans of his choice, in theory. In practice, it would require a formal adoption from the bloodline members of a clan and was later forbidden anyway. As a result, a stable system of strong and wealthy groups of relatives never developed in Poland, as in Scotland. The Polish clans, perhaps, were much more like the s. So they were much more unstable than their western counterparts. Historic evidence, however, shows clans even fighting wars one against the other like the famous domestic war between the Nalecz and the Grzymala in late XIV cent. Greaterpoland.

Heraldic symbols began to be used in Poland in the. The generic term for a coat of arms, herb, dates from the early, originating as a translation of the  erb, which in turn came from the  Erbe - heritage.

Under the (1413), the noble families of the, such as the s, were adopted  en masse  into the various Polish noble clans and began to use Polish coats of arms. Evidence shows however that the Mielzynski family are native Polish and simply the lords of Mielzyn near Gniezno.

Peculiarities
Although the Polish heraldic system evolved under the influence of French and German heraldry, there are many notable differences.

The most striking peculiarity of the system is that a coat of arms does not belong to a single family. A number of unrelated families (sometimes hundreds of them), usually with a number of different family names, may use a coat of arms, and each coat of arms has its own name. The total number of coats of arms in this system was relatively low – ca. 200 in the late Middle Ages. The same can be also seen in Western Europe, when families of different surnames but sharing clan origin would use similar coats-of-arms, the fleur-de-lis of the many Capetian families being perhaps the best known example.

One side-effect of this unique arrangement was that it became customary to refer to noblemen by both their family name and their coat of arms name (or clan name). For example: herbu  means  Jan Zamoyski of the Jelita coat of arms  (though it is often translated as  ... of the clan Jelita ). From 15th to 17th centuries, the formula seems to have been to copy the ancient : praenomen (or given name), nomen gentile (or /Clan name) and cognomen (surname), following the Renaissence fashion. So we have: Jan Jelita Zamoyski, forming a (nazwisko złożone, literally compound name). Later, the double-barrelled name began to be joined with a hyphen: Jan Jelita-Zamoyski. (See ). The Polish émigrés of 19th century sometimes used adaptations of their names according to the Western European (mainly French) style, becoming (to use the same example): Jan de Jelita-Zamoyski or Jan Zamoyski de Jelita. Some would also keep the Latin forms of their surnames, as Latin was the official language of the Kingdom of Poland. Hence the popularity of Late-Medieval or Early-Modern forms such as "de Zamosc Zamoyski".

A single coat of arms could appear in slightly different versions, typically in different colours, depending on the custom of the family using it. Such modifications ( odmiany ) are still considered to represent the same coat of arms.

One of the most visually striking characteristics of Polish heraldry is the abundance of (red) fields. Among the oldest in Poland, nearly half use a red background, with blue  coming in a distant second. Nowhere else in Europe, shows such a strong bias towards a particular color scheme. It follows however the well known heraldic custom of all Europe that the vassals would follow the colour-scheme of their overlord. It had even a practical meaning in the battlefield.

Other typical features used in Polish heraldry include horseshoes, arrows,, scythes, stars and crescents. There are also many purely geometrical shapes for which a separate set of heraldic terms was invented. It has been suggested that originally all Polish coats of arms were based on such abstract geometrical shapes, but most were gradually "rationalized" into horseshoes, arrows and so on. If this hypothesis is correct, it suggests in turn that Polish heraldry, also unlike western European heraldry, may be at least partly derived from a kind of -like symbols: the  used by nomadic peoples of the Steppe, such as the or the, to mark property. However, the evidence about the origins of the system is scanty, and this hypothesis has been criticized as being part of the Polish noble tradition of romanticizing their supposed Sarmatian ancestry. On this matter, research and controversy continue.

A Polish coat of arms consists of:, , and. The 18th and 19th centuries fashion includes the. , s and s normally do not appear, although certain individuals used them, especially in the final stages of the system's development, partly in response to French and German influence. Preserved medieval evidence shows Polish coats-of-arms with and.

Shield
Polish coats of arms are divided in the same way as their. However, since coats of arms were originally granted to clans rather than to separate families, there was no need to join coats of arms into one when a new branch of a family was formed. Thus Polish s are rarely parted. There is however a lot of preserved quartered coats-of-arms. These would most often show the arms of the four grandparents of the bearer. Or also the paternal-paternal great-grandmother in the 5th field if the male-line coat-of-arms goes in the heart field.

The tradition of differentiating between the proper and a  granted to women did not develop in Poland. Usually men inherited a coat of arms from their fathers (or a member of a clan who had adopted them), while women either inherited a coat from their mothers or adopted the arms of their husbands. The was rarely used. All children would inherit the coat-of-arms of their father.

Heart-shaped shields were mostly used in representations of the coats of arms of royalty. Following the union between Poland and Lithuania, and the creation of the elective monarchy, it became customary to place the coats of and  diagonally, with the coat of arms of the specific  placed centrally on top. Research continues to find out what a "heart-shaped" shield is. Most likely, the coat of Poland was placed on the left-right diagonal and Lithuania on the right-left diagonal (as evidenced in the crest at the top of this page). The specific monarch crest then being placed in the "heart" position.

In addition to these seven basic tinctures, which were standard in English heraldry and elsewhere in western Europe, many more tinctures were used in Poland and (after the union with Poland) Lithuania, including grey, steel, brunatre, weasel and carnation.

Bibliography and Listings of Coats of Arms
Traditionally coats of arms were published in various listings of and in s, known in  as herbarz. Some of the most notable among such publications are:


 * , Gniazdo cnoty.,.
 * 1) Bartosz Paprocki, Herby rycerstwa polskiego; Kraków,  (II ed. Kraków, ).
 * , Orbis Polonus; V. 1-3. Kraków,.
 * , Poczet herbów szlachty Korony Polskiey i Wielkiego Xsięstwa Litewskiego; Krakow,.
 * 1) rev., Herby i familie rycerskie tak w Koronie jako y w W.X.L.; ,.
 * 2) rev. Kacper Niesiecki, Korona polska; Lwów, –.
 * 3) rev., Zbiór krótki herbów polskich, oraz wsławionych cnotą i naukami Polaków; ,.
 * 4) rev Kasper Niesiecki, Herbarz Polski;, -.
 * , Złota księga szlachty polskiej;, -
 * , Herbarz polski;, -.
 * 1) hr., Almanach błękitny. Genealogia żyjących rodów polskich; ,.
 * , Genealogie niektórych polskich rodzin utytułowanych; -,.
 * , Jerzy Kochanowski Herby szlachty polskiej; ,
 * 1)  Insygnia, symbole i herby polskie; ,
 * , Herby szlachty Rzeczyposolitej; ,