[MR] Heraldry - why? (fwd)

[Craig Levin]

Mathilde:

> Let me clarify... I've heard a lot of people say that they're trying to get more
> people to register - all people, not just potential royalty. I can see logic
> behind potential royalty - somebody who is lower/middle class wouldn't be
> trying to be king anyway. :-) And on the field, it's a good identifier. But why
> for the rest of us?

To a certain extent, heraldry was used at all levels of late
mediaeval & Renaissance society, especially in the Holy Roman
Empire & the Italian city-states. In fact, in the Holy Roman
Empire, arms used by merchants & farmers had special names:
burgerwappen (for merchants, who mostly lived in town (the burg))
& bauernwappen (bauer-farmer).

The farmer or merchant would've marked the following things with
his arms:

- bales of goods

- a sign outside his house (if you look at title pages of early
books, the publisher's address is "at the sign of...")

- crockery

- a seal for contracts & other documents

Pedro