Personal Heraldry

Within personal heraldry, I classify the arms of individuals, their families, or lineages.

When a coat of arms representing a person, such as in the case of a king, is also used to represent something else, such as their kingdom, I classify it as personal heraldry, prioritizing the representation of the individual over other possible uses, as this is the origin of heraldry.

The historical arms of Carlos de la Cerda or the current ones of Austin Charles Berry and of Stephan Urs Breu are examples of personal heraldry.

In Spanish, I use the name given by [Cadenas y Vicent, V. de; 1975; page 53] and in English «personal heraldry», which is the most commonly accepted term.

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Categories: Criterion and Personal.

Within governance heraldry, I classify the arms of states, as political structures, and those of their powers, their governing and administrative institutions, and their organizational substructures, such as regions, provinces, municipalities, etc.

The arms of Bosnia and Herzegovina, of Bunyoro-Kitara, and of Ceuta are examples of political heraldry.

This class partially coincides with what [Cadenas y Vicent, V. de; 1975; page 87] refers to as «institutional heraldry».

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Categories: Criterion and Civic.

Within military heraldry, I classify the arms of individuals, institutions, orders, military corps, and entities.

Although the military is an institution of the state, I dedicate a separate category to it in recognition of its special characteristics and history, as well as its particular functions of cohesion and identification, which are rooted in heraldry for the battlefield. The coat of arms of the Central Military Region and the Artillery Combat School of the Swedish Army are examples of military heraldry.

[Cadenas y Vicent, V. de; 1975; page 88] includes military heraldry within his «institutional heraldry».

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Categories: Criterion and Military.

Within religious heraldry, I classify the arms of individuals, offices, dignitaries, institutions, communities, orders, and religious entities, primarily, by tradition, those of the Church.

The arms of the Order of Mercy and those of the Oratorio de San Felipe Neri are examples of religious heraldry.

Being more general, this category encompasses what [Cadenas y Vicent, V. de; 1975; page 59] refers to as «ecclesiastical heraldry».

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Categories: Criterion and Religious.

Within socioeconomic heraldry, I classify the arms of all collectives not included in the previous categories, such as, for example, commercial societies, which may represent companies, their brands, and products, sports clubs and federations, associations, professional colleges, educational institutions, arms granted or assumed collectively, etc.

For example, the coats of arms of universities, both private and public, belong to this category, the former naturally and the latter considering their appropriate autonomy from state powers. In this way, the coat of arms of the IESE, as a business school, is an example of socioeconomic heraldry.

Also included are the coats of arms of associations, like the Norsk Heraldisk Forening, and of companies, such as the arms of Alea Capital.

This category partially coincides with what [Cadenas y Vicent, V. de; 1975; page 119] refers to as «representative heraldry».

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Categories: Criterion and Socioeconomic.

Within imaginary heraldry, I classify the arms attributed to persons, entities, or things, real, mythical, or imaginary, that could not or cannot possess them, or if they did, their existence is unknown, or due to various circumstances, they neither could nor can assume them.

For example, the coat of arms of Odysseus of Ithaca, legendary hero of Greek mythology, of Brutus of Britain, mythical hero of Troy and founder of Britain who never existed, of Seneca, who historically existed, but could not have had arms as he lived before heraldry, of Hufflepuff at Hogwarts from the Harry Potter books, of the Holy Trinity, of logic, of arithmetic, or of the categories of heraldry.

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Categories: Criterion and Imaginary.

Alfonso X of Castile, The Wise, «The Seven-Part Code», its estimated completion year is 1265.

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This is the copy I can consult, as it is available in the Hispanic Digital Library, it is a manuscript measuring 42 by 30 centimeters that once belonged to Álvaro de Zúñiga y Guzmán, first Duke of Arévalo, which later came into the possession of the Catholic Monarchs, initially Queen Isabella I of Castile, and after her death, King Ferdinand reclaimed it for the price of 5,251 maravedis. The original is housed in the National Library, in display case 4/6.

This copy, in addition to its numerous capital letters, has 8 illustrated pages, which according to its subsequent hand-numbering in pencil are:

• Page 6, among its illustrations can be seen 2 coats of arms of the Zúñiga family «Argent, a bend Sable, over all, a chain in orle Or», in this case formed by 16 links, 8 round and 8 more elongated placed in profile.
• Pages 106 and 191, on the latter can be seen a curious bishop-lizard climbing.
• Pages 294 and 331, on the 2^nd at the bottom, a maiden is seen walking a monkey to relieve itself and to her right a fight of men with beast bodies.
• Page 379 and on its previous unnumbered page, and finally, on page 415 which begins with a tournament where the 2^nd knight bears the ancient arms of France «Azure, semy of fleurs de lis Or».

The coat of arms that illustrates this bibliographic reference is that of Álvaro de Zúñiga y Guzmán. For the creation of his chain, I followed the illustration of his 2 coats of arms on the already mentioned page 6 of this manuscript.

It is one of my favorite manuscripts and, perhaps, the one with which I have created the most things.

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Bibliographical reference of century XIII.

Classification: Castilian language, Manuscript and In color.

The author is Alfonso X of Castile.

External resources:

• National Library of Spain.
• Indirect access to the Library of Congress of the United States of America.
• Direct access to the Library of Congress of the United States of America.

Internal resources: AlfonsoXDeCastilla1265.7Partidas.10642.pdf.

Sigue por: Guimera López, C.; 1987.