Foreign Arms and Flags in Copenhagen

Of course, Copenhagen being the the capitol of Denmark, we should not be surprised to find the flags and/or arms of other nations appearing there, as capitol cities will generally host the embassies and consulates of foreign countries there.

So, during our walkabouts in Copenhagen, we found the following (in alphabetical order), without really trying to look very hard:

The flag of Finland:

The flag and arms of the French Republic:

The flag of Georgia (the country, not the U.S. State of Georgia!): Argent a cross between four crosses patty gules.

The flag and arms of the Italian Republic:

On a ship in the harbor, the ensign of the Republic of Poland. This ensign is based on the naval ensign, but instead of the fly being swallowtailed, this is a standard flag shape. Per fess argent and gules in chief the arms of Poland in chief (Gules an eagle displayed argent beaked and crowned or). (The national flag of Poland is simply Per fess argent and gules.)

The flag of the Republic of Slovenia:

And, finally, the arms of Sweden

Quite the international tour, for simply walking about the streets of Copenhagen, Denmark!

Another Heraldic Website to Know

As part my on-going effort to keep you informed of websites of heraldic interest and on-line armorials and so on, I recently saw a short item (dated two years ago!  Well, I can’t keep up with everything!) about The National Archives of Finland updating its Europeana Heraldica database.  That article can be found at http://www.arkisto.fi/news/775/151/The-National-Archives-updates-the-Europeana-Heraldica-database

The Europeana Heraldica database is a compilation of the municipal coats of arms of Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and other states – both historical and in official use currently.  It includes more than 2,200 civic coats of arms (cities, provinces, regions) and over 1,000 wax and paper seals. The oldest seal is from 1309 and the most recent from 2009, so there’s a good range of examples to look up.

All of the arms can be searched by keywords categorized in terms of heraldic concepts, including the division of the shield, the colors of the coat of arms, and so on.  For example, the keyword "lion" returns 40 coats of arms from four countries. Coats of arms can also be searched as a text search according to the name of the possessor.

The database can be searched in 13 languages, so no one has the excuse of being unable to read Finnish (or Italian, or Dutch, or Polish, or …).

Anyway, I thought it an interesting website, and wanted to share it with you.  The English-language entry page for the database can be found on-line at http://extranet.narc.fi/heraldica/?kieli=en

Enjoy!

Heraldry in the News!

There’s an interesting little article published July 6, 2012, on the website 65° North: News and Views from Oulo, Finland, about Oulo’s coat of arms and heraldry in Finland generally.

In addition to touching upon the arms of Oulo (above), there are excerpts from interviews with several heraldry enthusiasts and what coats of arms mean and who can bear them.  (The short answer: In Finland, anybody.)

My favorite line was a quote from a Swedish heraldist who said that “What a surname is for the ears, the coat of arms is for the eyes.”  (I make a not terribly dissimilar point in some of my presentations introducing heraldry to genealogists, in that a coat of arms is like a name tag or a graphic ID; it says that “I am so-and-so” and, by extension, that “I belong to such-and-such a family.”)

It’s a nice little article, and something from a little farther north than I usually see.  You can find the article “Finns Still Taking Up Arms” on-line at: http://www.65degreesnorth.com/culture/finns-still-taking-up-arms/

Rules of Heraldry

It's always interesting to me to see some of the various sets of rules that different groups establish in order to encourage a particular heraldic style and philosophy.  I was reminded of this the other day when I ran across (again) a set of  the "Ten Commandments for a Designer of Finnish Heraldry", drawn up by Jukka Suvisaari and amended by a committee set up by the Heraldic Society of Finland in April 1990.  These rules are similar to the guidelines that are found for other Scandinavian heraldry in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.  The rules, along with other general information about heraldry in Finland, can be found on-line at http://www.thefullwiki.org/Finnish_heraldry

The Ten Commandments for a Designer of Finnish Heraldry are:


1.  Only heraldic tinctures are used. These are the metals, gold (Or) and silver (Argent); and the colors, red (Gules), blue (Azure), black (Sable) and green (Vert). In heraldic drawings yellow can be used in place of gold and white in place of silver. In flags and pennants this is almost always done nowadays. Heraldic colours are bright and clean; tones of the colours are picked from center of the scale.

2.  The use of only two tinctures, of which one is a metal, is preferred. The use of a third tincture requires good reasons, but a fourth is definitely bad heraldry.

3.  According to the tincture rule, one must not place colour on or next to colour or metal on or next to metal, unless the line of contact is very short.

4.  Letters, numbers or texts do not belong on a heraldic emblem.

5.  Figures (charges) must be as big as possible and fill the space intended for them as completely as possible.

6.  In figures natural presentation is not important, but characteristic is. (i.e the ferocity of the lion, majesty of the eagle, gracefulness of the deer)

7.  In principle the charges should be two dimensional. At a minimum they must be recognisable even when presented as coloured flat surfaces, without shading or extra borderlines.

8.  A heraldic emblem must be easy to remember. It should not be crowded with too many symbols, only the absolutely essential. The ideal is only one charge.

9.  It is forbidden to be repetitive in heraldry: one idea should not be symbolized with two or more charges. On the other hand, if one charge suffices to symbolize two or more ideas, it only strengthens the symbolism of the charge, and therefore the whole emblem.

10. The charges and the whole emblem must be such that they can be redrawn according to a written description (blazon) of the coat of arms or flag without a model. This means that the charge must be a general presentation of its kind. For example, a castle cannot be a specific castle, but only a stylized heraldic castle (although it can be explained as referring to, say, Korela Fortress). In other words, the description of the charge should not require the use of a proper noun.