My friend Katie (who sent me all the pictures of heraldry from her river cruise in Europe that I've been posting here) saw a map at her work (it is on loan to the facility) that had a coat of arms on it and she wondered if perhaps I might be able to identify it for her. Her impression was that the charges on the shield looked like a bear's paw or bear's claws.
I said that I would certainly try, but naturally could make no firm representations about doing that with any certainty until I could actually see the coat of arms.
Well, she sent me some pictures.
And ... down the rabbit hole I went!
First: the map is made by Willem (1571-1638) and Johannes (1596-1673) Blaeu, father and son cartographers from Amsterdam.
Second: Sibenburgen. Siebenbürgen (note the extra "e", as well as the umlaut) is the German name for Transylvania, now a part of the country of Romania. It translates to "Seven Fortresses" or "Seven Towns", the seven major medieval walled cities built and settled by Transylvanian Saxons (German colonists who arrived in the region starting in the 12th century):
1. Brașov (Kronstadt)
2. Sibiu (Hermannstadt)
3. Cluj-Napoca (Klausenburg)
4. Sighișoara (Schässburg)
5. Mediaș (Mediasch)
6. Sebeș (Mühlbach)
7. Bistrița (Bistritz)
And, indeed, the modern arms of the region of Transylvania include on them seven red towers representing the seven towns. Which I think is a really nice nod to the history of the area. Just sayin'.
With all that now as background information, neither the arms of Transylvania nor the arms of any of the seven towns or of the regions in which they are located come even close to matching the arms on the map.
More research into the arms of the principality of Transylvania and its rulers led me to this conclusion: the arms on the map appear to be at least based on, if they are not meant entirely to represent, the arms of the Báthory princes of Transylvania: Stephen Báthory, 1576–1586, who was Voivode (military governor, warlord, or regional ruler) of Transylvania 1571–1576; Sigismund Báthory, 1586–1598, abdicated 1599; and Andrew Báthory, 1599.
The Báthory arms are Gules three wolves’ teeth issuant from (usually sinister, but sometimes from dexter, as on the map) argent.
The arms on the map are Azure three wolves’ teeth issuant from dexter argent, and the shield is surmounted by a princely cap. All of the coloring on the map is done by hand, so there is lots of room for miscoloration of the arms. Or perhaps someone was trying differentiate the arms of the province (Transylvania) from the arms of its prince (Báthory). Or they didn’t really know what the color of the field should be, and just made it what they wanted. This map was done back in the early 17th Century, after all!
And while the charges on the shield do look a bit like bear’s claws, they are much closer to the German heraldic charge of wolves’ teeth. The image immediately below is of the Báthory arms from a 1595 portrait of Zsigmond [Sigismund] Báthori, surrounded by the emblem of the Order of the Dragon.* You can clearly see the similarity.
Here, too, the field is hatched for heraldic red (gules), rather than the heraldic blue (azure) that it is on the map.
* The Order of the Dragon (Societas Draconistarum) was a monarchical chivalric order founded in 1408 by King Sigismund of Luxembourg (later Holy Roman Emperor) and his queen, Barbara of Cilli. It was created to defend Christian Europe -- particularly Hungary and the Balkans -- against the expanding Ottoman Empire and to secure political loyalty among the aristocracy.
Vlad II Dracul was a prince of Wallachia who joined the order in 1431; his membership earned him the surname Dracul ("the Dragon"). His son, Vlad III (Vlad Țepeș, or in English, Vlad the Impaler), became known as Dracula ("son of the dragon"), whose brutal reputation later inspired Bram Stoker's vampire novel, which in turn inspired a slew of horror movies.
And it is just this sort of history that makes researching heraldry not only interesting, but so much fun!
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