Coat of arms
heraldic design on a shield, surcoat or tabard
A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in its whole consists of a shield, supporters, a crest, and a motto. A coat of arms is traditionally unique to the armiger (e.g. an individual person, family, state, organization, school or corporation). The term "coat of arms" itself, describing in modern times just the heraldic design, originates from the description of the entire medieval chainmail "surcoat" garment used in combat or preparation for the latter.
Rolls of arms are collections of many coats of arms, and since the early Modern Age centuries, they have been a source of information for public showing and tracing the membership of a noble family, and therefore its genealogy across time.
History
Heraldic designs came into general use among European nobility in the 12th century.
Systematic, heritable heraldry had developed by the beginning of the 13th century.
Exactly who had a right to use arms, by law or social convention, varied to some degree between countries.
Early heraldic designs were personal, used by individual noblemen (who might also alter their chosen design over time).
“Coat of arms” enters the record as heraldic design on a shield, surcoat or tabard. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Coat, arms and heraldic can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Coat of arms” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Coat, arms and heraldic provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q14659. The Library of Congress control number is sh85060322. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Coat of arms” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.