The Bavarian Greater Arms

Moving on from Munich temporarily (at least until my copy of Die Epitaphien an der Frauenkirche zu München arrives in - I hope - a few weeks) we come to the last stop on my friend Katie's river cruise in Europe, the city of Schwangau, Germany.

Where we find two different depictions in two different media in two different artistic styles of the Greater Arms of the King of Bavaria, or to give him his full set of titles, King of Bavaria, Count of the Rhein-Pfalz, Duke of Bavaria, Franken, and Schwaben.

Now, the arms to be shown here are not the currrent version of the Bavarian arms. No, the modern arms have some quarters which do not appear in the older arms. The modern arms are a combination of the lion of the Pfalz, representing the area of the Oberpfalz ; the arms of Franken (Franconia); the panther of the Counts of Ortenburg in Niederbayern; the three lions of the Dukes of Schwaben and the escutcheon with the arms of the Wittelsbach family (the longtime ruling family in Bayern).

So compare those quarterings to the ones found in these two images, the first in a pretty standard heraldic depiction,* and the second in more of a modern style, not quite Art Deco, but heading in that direction.** (As always, you can click on the images below to go to the full-size photograph to see these arms in greater detail.)

The Kingdom's arms (from 1835 to 1918) were: Quarterly: 1, Sable a lion rampant queue-forchy or crowned or (should be gules) (Pfalz); 2, Per fess indented gules and argent (Franconia); 3, Bendy sinister argent and gules overall a pale or (Burgau, for Schwaben); and 4, Argent a lion rampant silver (should be azure) crowned or (Veldenz); an inescutcheon Paly bendy argent and azure (Wittelsbach).

The second image is the same arms as the first, though a couple of the quarters are harder to make out because the carving is not deeply etched, and the Wittelsbach inescutcheon only mimics without duplicating the Paly bendy argent and azure.

So there we are, the final two coats of arms from Katie's trip, at least until the book I ordered arrives from Germany to let me finish identifying and writing about the remaining arms from memorials affixed to the exterior of the Frauenkirche in Munich.

But for next time, who knows? Whatever the next post will be, you can know that it will be about heraldry in one form or another!

* For those of you interested in it, the date painted above the achievement of arms is 1844. As AI told me, the "old-style Gothic or Fraktur-like script, where the “4"s have a distinctive looped, ribbon-like shape that can look unusual at first glance."

** I will admit to having a fondness for seeing coats of arms in different artistic genres, with an especial weakness for those done in an Art Deco style.