Heraldry

The elaborate art of heraldry originates from the middle ages and earlier as a form of identification in battle. Over the centuries heraldry developed from simple icons into a complex system of meanings and codes associated with the coat of arms of a family, town, or country. The blazoning as it is called has it's own specific language to describe a coat of arms such as tinctures, ordinaries, charges etc all specifying sections each with their own rules and codes.

Some detailed examples that represent a complex relationship between large regions or countries.

The House of Schwarzenberg coat of arms, located in the Czech Republic. The church called the Sedlec Ossuary was decorated with the bones of 40,000 victims of the plague and wars in the 15th century. Frantisek Rint a woodcarver and artist for the Schwarzenberg family was given the task of creating artworks out of the bones, which including not only the coat of arms but a macabre chandelier which used every bone in the human body. An odd addition to the coat of arms in the 1500's was the crow pecking the head of a Turk, to symbolize the conquest of a Turkish fortress in Hungary.