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Introduction to Polish Heraldry

Courtesy of The Suligowski Heraldic Research Library
Transcribed by Chev. Rik Sulima-Suligowski Fox

Polish heraldry is sufficiently different in its usage and design from that of Western Europe to warrant some additional explanation. Due to the fact that Poland did not develop feudalism, and its nobility was organized into a clan or tribal system, Polish heraldry may be described as “tribal.” As a general rule, one clan (Rod) had one Coat-of-Arms (Herb) for all its members. When a clan was divided into families, all of them retained the original arms without brizures or cadency marks.

Apart from heraldic devices the clans had war-cries, strongly linked with their Arms. In origin, the war-cries varied. Some were topographical, while others were derived from the names, sobriquets or totems of their founders, or yet again, they were sometimes ideological in origin. The Arms usually had names alluding either to the charges of the field or to the crest. Sometimes the old war-cries were considered as ‘sui generis’ names of the Arms involved; indeed quite a few still are.

There were two kinds of clans, the ones connected by blood, and the ones based on other criteria. The second type was formed, for example, by the union of a number of smaller clans having similar Arms (Jastrzębiec) or by immigrants with the same ethnic background (Prus, Sas).

The clans were not equal in size or importance; some contained a few hundred families and others were comprised of one family only. Quite often noble clans absorbed or adopted certain families of lower status. There was also a tendency for smaller and poorer clans to merge into more powerful ones, especially when their heraldic devices were much the same.

The Polish nobility did not follow blindly foreign examples and kept a local pattern of design, originating from the ancient clan property marks, (Tamgas) older than heraldry itself. These marks were quite simple, as they represented combinations of straight or curved lines, later transformed into charges which could be described in heraldic terms. Straight lines became lances, arrows, crosses or swords, while curved ones evolved into crescents, horse-shoes, scythes, annulets, and the like. Even the Arms which followed the Western pattern depicting animals, birds, trees or flowers, incorporated local objects, which were, as often as not, the extremely ancient totems of the clans. Foreign and exotic objects or fantastic beasts were rarely used. Partition lines, quarterings, ordinaries, etc. were uncommon in the original Polish heraldry and were introduced from abroad. Gules and Azure (red & blue) were usually used to cover the field, whereas the charges were depicted in one of the metals. The crests (above) were also very simple; unfortunately in the 16th century many of them were replaced by the standard form of ostrich or peacock feathers.

After the union of the Kingdom of Poland with the Great Duchy of Lithuania, noble families of the latter (boyars) were adopted by Polish clans and consequently started to use their Arms. Some boyars followed the Polish example and transformed their old property marks into heraldic devices.

Until the end of the Polish Commonwealth (1795) adoption into a clan was always the most common form of ennoblement even when this right was reserved for the Parliament (Sejm). Foreign families, naturalized or ennobled in Poland from the 16th century onwards, usually retained their own family Coat-of-Arms. The same applies to the nobility of Royal Prussia, or Livonia after their union with the Polish Commonwealth. Cassubian Arms of Polish Pomerania are very similar to those of Poland. The nobility of Silesia, in great part Polish in origin, yet politically separated from Poland since the beginning of the 14th Century, maintained certain Polish heraldic characteristics despite much stronger Western influence. The same Polish characteristics are also present in the heraldry of Western Pomerania and East Prussia.

On the whole, Polish heraldry may seem simple and relatively poor in its design. Its rules were much less rigid than the rules developed in Western Europe. Without the maintenance of an institution of heralds, which disappeared in the 15th Century, without heraldic visitations and with the disintegration of the clan system in the 16th Century it degenerated. The old Polish terminology was eventually forgotten and foreign influences were introduced without control.

As a result of the tribal system, which influenced all the countries of the Polish Commonwealth, the nobility, consisting as it does of more than fourty-thousand families, uses about seven-thousand Arms, including those family Coats-of-Arms of Western origin. A second result of this system was than homonymous families, with surnames derived from estates with identical names, bear different Arms, depending upon the clan to which they belong.

The Polish section of this Armorial contains sixty-six Arms, fifty-eight of them belonging to the nobility. It is agreed that Sire de saint-Remy copied these Arms from contemporary and older rolls of Arms which certainly existed in medieval Poland. Probably F. Piekosinski was nearest to the truth, when he described this section as “The Lord Marshal’s Roll of Arms.”

We know that at the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th Century, Poland had the office of Herald who was subordinate in his duties to the Royal Court Marshal, and we can therefore presume the existence of official Rolls of Arms in this period. Such Rolls certainly reflected the Polish heraldic system which did not take into consideration individual families or their members.

The Polish Rolls of Arms, when copied by foreign heralds, were adapted to the Western patterns by adding information concerning contemporary representatives of the clans involved. The results of this procedure were often quite poor. They lacked uniformity and were full of gaps and errors. Some Arms have no inscriptions, some have only the names of the Arms or war-cries of the clans concerned, and some the names of estates belonging to certain families. In one case, the title of office is mentioned (for Lanckoroński, Marshal of Poland). Only in a limited number of cases has it been possible to identify the individuals with certitude. There are also five Arms of provinces or lands and three dynastic ones. The Roll can be dated for the period of 1430-1436. In 1434, Sire de Saint-Remy met in Arras, the Polish ambassador to France, Mikołaj Lasocki, an eminent church dignitary who could have been his informant as far as Polish Arms are concerned. To help English readers I have tried to fill all these gaps and correct all the errors as far as possible. Heraldic commentaries are limited to those cases where the pictures in this Armorial differ from the versions which today are considered correct.

-Bernard J. Klec-Pilewski-

-Source-
A EUROPEAN ARMORIAL; An Armorial of Knights of the Golden Fleece and 15th Century Europe. From a Contemporary Manuscript, Edited by Rosemary Pinches & Anthony Wood.
With an Introduction to Polish Heraldry by Bernard J Klec-Pilewski.
HERALDRY TODAY 10 Beauchamp Place, London, S.W. 3 © 1971

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Last Updated on October 12, 2011