Before we talking about the appearance of heraldry, we need to determine what is the coat of arms. Since by this word often mean the emblem as such, and sometimes, without understanding of the essence of the coat of arms, talk about heraldry in ancient Russia, in Antiquity and other historical periods when no heraldry existed. The word “heraldry" comes from the word “heralds”, i.e. “heraldic." So-called the persons who were the stewards of the knightly tournaments, where, in fact, the knightly heraldry and appeared before the participants, and the audience in all its glory.
By heraldry means two things: firstly, it is a practical activity on the compilation of coats of arms, and the very set of coats of arms, and secondly, it is a scientific knowledge of coats of arms, historical science which is engaged in their research and analysis.
The word “coat of arms" in the Russian language through the intermediary of other Slavonic languages goes back to the German word with the meaning “inheritance." Thus, the name itself already contains a very important information about one of the “parts” of heraldry — the tribal one, where the coat of arms is inherited from ancestors to descendants.
In many European languages, the word “coat of arms” refers to the word “weapon”, which is demonstrated by the genesis of heraldry: the first heraldic images really appeared in service. Enlightened absolutism A coat of arms is a special case of an emblem, i.e. the visual embodiment of a symbol, but not every emblem is a coat of arms. A star with a different number of ends, a cross in all its variations, and the like - the emblems themselves are not, of course, coats of arms. To be a coat of arms, the emblem image must meet a number of conditions.
First of all, it must be created according to certain written or unwritten rules and traditions. Heraldry is a certain emblematic system in which the emblematic language has developed, the features of the image and the arrangement of the individual elements that have arisen in practice, the structure of the coat of arms, and the principles of its description has developed. In other words, it is not a chaotic set of images, but a clearly distinguished system with its own structure, internal logic and its own characteristics. For example, the main visually-identifying element of the coat of arms is the shield, and if you put an emblem in the shield, Then, already give it some heraldry. The symbolic language of heraldry is conditional. The task is not so much to depict something real (e. G. railway locomotives) as to reflect this reality with the help of certain conventional emblems (e. G. stylized silver horses with red eyes and waving manes, as on one of the Lithuanian city coats of arms). That's why it would be ridiculous to see in the coat of arms a computer monitor with a keyboard — try to denote the same thing, but with the help of other, mediated emblematic images. The second point because of which, in fact, and appeared heraldry - is the function of identification.
The coat of arms means the carrier, identifies it, is its visual sign and is therefore, individual. As such carriers (coat of arms) can be a specific person (personal coat of arms), clan (clan), corporation (corporate), city (city), administrative-territorial unit (territorial) and, finally, the state (state). Of course, the earliest personal coats of arms appeared, which then became clan coats of arms (although there may also be a personal coat of arms as such). Many of the old state emblems owe their origin also to the clan emblems, that is, the emblems of the dynasties that ruled in these countries. In any case, the coat of arms in one way or another has a certain symbolic meaning, has some semantics, often completely obvious, which in one way or another represents its owner: from the etymology of the name or name, often conditional, “naive” (the so-called vowel coat of arms), to the reflection in the coat of arms of the history and genealogy of the family, city or country. Approval of the coat of arms The coat of arms usually has to be fixed somewhere in a certain way.
Of course, heraldry has always been a huge number of unverified coats of arms. But this fact shows that, in theory, the coat of arms should be confirmed. This is done (and so too, of course, did not happen at once), as a rule, the highest authority, the monarch or other head of state, in which there are appropriate institutions engaged in heraldry. These are heralds (associations of heralds), which can exist under different names. It seems that the oldest currently existing heraldry is English, which exists almost since the War of the Roses. In Russia, its own heraldry called office was created under the Senate, the supreme governing body, in an era of Peter the Great in 1722. Later it received the status of a board, and then was transformed into the Department of Heraldry of the Governing Senate. In modern Russia, there is a Heraldic Council under the President of the Russian Federation which is headed by the State Heraldry Master.