Roll of arms

A roll of arms (or armorial) is a special book with pictures of shields. Each shield has a unique design called a coat of arms. Next to each shield is the name of the person who used that design. People have been making these books for many years.

The oldest books we still have today that show these shields are from the middle of the 1200s. People kept making them until modern times. One famous printed book from 1605 is called Siebmachers Wappenbuch. Some big books tried to list almost every coat of arms they could find. For example, a book made for Louis XIV of France in 1696 listed more than 125,000 different shields!

Rolls of arms can be made for special events, like tournaments, or for groups like orders of chivalry. Some books collect shields from one area, while others try to be like big encyclopedias. When shields are grouped by similar designs, this special kind of book is called an ordinary of arms. These books help people learn about the history and meaning behind these special shield designs.

Notable examples

Medieval

Scottish

• The Balliol Roll is a Scottish roll of arms from the 13th century. It was the earliest roll of arms in Scotland.
• Sir David Lindsay's Armorial is a 16th century Scottish Armorial.

English

• Glover's Roll is an English roll of arms from the 1240s or 1250s. It has the symbols of 225 coats of arms.
• The Matthew Paris Shields are pictures that go with a book by a writer. They date from around 1244–59, during the time of Henry III, and show drawings of shields with notes in Latin.
• Walford's Roll is an English roll from around 1275. It has 185 coats with symbols.
• _The Camden Roll is an English roll from around 1280. It has 270 painted coats, 185 with symbols.
• _The Dering Roll dates from the late 13th century. It has 324 coats of arms, painted on paper. It is 8+1⁄4 inches wide by 8 feet 8 inches long. It is now in the British Library.
• The Heralds' Roll is an English roll from around 1280. It has 697 painted coats.
• St George's Roll is an English roll from around 1285. It has 677 painted coats.
• Charles' Roll is an English roll from around 1285. It has 486 painted coats.
• The Lord Marshal's Roll is an English roll from 1295. It has 565 painted coats.
• Collins' Roll is a roll from 1296. It has 598 painted coats. It is now at the College of Arms in London.
• The Falkirk Roll is an English roll from around 1298. It has 115 coats with symbols. It lists the knights with King Edward I at Battle of Falkirk in 1298.
• _The Galloway Roll is an English roll from 1300. It has 259 coats with symbols.
• Roll of Caerlaverock or Poem of Caerlaverock is a roll from 1300. It has 110 poetical symbols without pictures.
• Stirling Roll is an English roll from 1304. It has 102 coats.
• Stepney Roll is an English roll listing the knights at Stepney Tournament in 1308.
• The Great, Parliamentary, or Banneret's Roll, around 1312, is an English roll with 19 paper pages. It has the names and symbols of 1,110 nobles, church leaders, knights and lords. It is now part of the British Library manuscript collection.
• Dunstable Roll is an English roll listing knights at Dunstable Tournament in 1334.
• Calais Roll is an English roll from 1346 to 1347. It has 116 shields in brown ink. This roll was probably made later from copies of records kept by Walter Wetewang, Treasurer of the Household 1346–7, showing money paid to participants at the Siege of Calais.
• Powell's Roll is an English roll from around 1345–1351.
• Salisbury Roll is an English roll in two versions: the "Original Roll" from around 1463, and the later "Copy A", made around 1483–5.

French

• The Bigot Roll is a French roll from 1254. It has 300 coats.
• The Armorial Wijnbergen is a French roll published in two parts (Part 1, around 1265–1270; Part 2, around 1270–1285). It has 1,312 painted coats.
• The Chifflet-Prinet Roll is a French roll from around 1285–1298. It has 147 coats with symbols.
• Armorial du Hérault Vermandois is a French roll from around 1285–1300. It has 1,076 symbols.
• Armorial Le Breton, with 580 coats of arms, around 1292, with additions made later.
• The Armorial of Gilles Le Bouvier, made for the Chief Herald of France Gilles Le Bouvier.
• Armorial Bellenville by Claes Heinen (1386), has 1,738 coats of arms
• Grand Armorial équestre de la Toison d'or, an armorial of the members of the Order of the Golden Fleece between 1429 and 1461.

Holy Roman Empire

• The oldest collections of coats of arms are pictures painted on walls or wooden beams. One of the oldest such pictures is at Valère Basilica, Valais, from 1224.
• The oldest collection of symbols of the Holy Roman Empire is Clipearius Teutonicorum by Conrad of Mure, from 1260–64.
• Turino armorial (1312), has descriptions of 119 coats of arms.
• The coats of arms in Codex Manesse are an important source for pictures from the early 14th century.
• The Zürich armorial was made around 1340 in what is now eastern Switzerland. It is now in the Swiss National Museum in Zürich.
• Gelre Armorial is a Dutch roll from around 1370–1414. It has about 1,700 coats of arms. It is now at the Royal Library of Belgium.
• The Beyeren Armorial is a medieval Dutch book with 1096 coats of arms, completed between 1402 and 1405. It is now at the National Library of the Netherlands.
• Wappenbüchlein E.E. Zunft zu Pfisten in Luzern (1408), has 5 pages with 59 Lucerne guild coats of arms.
• Hyghalmen Roll is a German roll made around 1447–1455 in Cologne. It is now at the College of Arms in London.
• Hans Ingeram's armorial (1459), has 280 pages with around 1,100 coats of arms.
• Wappenbuch der österreichischen Herzöge, around 1445–1457, has 50 pages with some 170 coats of arms.
• Wernigerode Armorial is a Bavarian roll from around 1486–1492. It has 524 pages, many with coats of arms.
• Stemmario Trivulziano is a Milanese roll from the second half of the 15th century. It has approximately 2,000 coats. It is now at Biblioteca Trivulziana, Milan, Italy.
• Scheiblersches Wappenbuch, around 1450–1480, has 624 coats of arms.
• Armorial of Conrad Grünenberg, Constance (1483), has some 2,000 coats of arms.
• St. Gallen armorial, 1466–1470, has 338 pages with some 200 coats of arms
• Eichstätt armorial, 1474–1478, has 351 pages with some 2,000 coats of arms
• Palatine armorial, around 1460, has 200 pages with 1,080 coats of arms.
• Heroldsbuch des Jülicher Hubertus-Ordens (1480), has 130 pages with some 1,000 coats of arms
• Leipzig armorial, around 1450s, has 96 pages with 602 coats of arms.
• Miltenberg armorial, late 15th century, has 85 pages with around 1,700 coats of arms.
• Berlin armorial, around 1470, has 254 pages with around 900 coats of arms.
• Innsbruck armorial, around 1460s, has 157 pages with 408 coats of arms.
• Gerold Edlibach's armorial of Zürich, 1490s.

Spanish

• The Book of Knowledge of All Kingdoms of around 1385 is a make-believe travel book. It gives an account of the geography of the known world and identifies lands, kings, lords and their symbols. The book's main purpose is that of an armorial.
• Armorial de la Cofradia di Santiago (Book of the Knights of the Brotherhood of Santiago), continuously updated from the order's start in 1338 into the 17th century.

Early Modern

• Livro do Armeiro-Mor is a Portuguese official roll from 1509. It includes almost 400 real and make-believe coats of arms.
• Livro da Nobreza a Perfeiçam das Armas is a Portuguese official roll from around 1521–1541. It follows the model of the Livro do Armeiro-Mor, but leaves out some parts.
• Virgil Solis' Wappenbüchlein (1555), has coats of arms of the nobility of the Holy Roman Empire.
• Fojnica Armorial is an early modern (16th or 17th century) Balkan roll of arms. It has 139 coats of arms.
• Korenić-Neorić Armorial (1595 copy of the slightly older, around 1590, Ohmućević Armorial), an "Illyrianist" armorial of the Balkans; the Belgrade Armorial II is an early 17th-century copy.
• Siebmachers Wappenbuch is a general roll of arms of the Holy Roman Empire, made by Johann Siebmacher around 1605.
• Thesouro da Nobreza is a general Portuguese roll, made by Francisco Coelho, India King of Arms, in 1675. It includes the real and make-believe arms of many groups and places.
• Armorial général de France, made for Louis XIV of France, by Charles René d'Hozier (1696), with 125,807 coats of arms.
• Tractat d'Armoria (16 to 17th century, not finished), by Jaume Ramon Vila, priest and leader of the church of Barcelona, and picture expert. It has four books with Catalan coats of arms.
• Stemmatografia is a book containing various coats of arms from Illyria, with their descriptions in poems, made by Pavao Ritter Vitezović, 1701
• The Gore Roll by Boston paint leader John Gore is the earliest known American armorial, 1750s

Modern

Further information: Ordinary of arms § Modern ordinaries

• Burke's General Armory: "The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales; Comprising a Record of Armorial Bearings from the Earliest to the Present Time," by Sir Bernard Burke, Ulster King of Arms was published in London in 1884. This roll includes a list of all known symbols ever used in the British Isles.
• J. Siebmacher's großes Wappenbuch (continuing the early modern Siebmachers Wappenbuch), edited by Otto Titan v. Hefner, Heyer v. Rosenfeld, A. M. Hildebrandt, G. A. Seyler, M. Gritzner and others, 7 volumes (1854–1967); vol. 1: National coats of arms and national flags, church leaders' arms, work-related coats of arms, university arms; vols. 2–3: nobility of Germany and Prussia; vol. 4: nobility of Austria-Hungary; vol. 5: family coats of arms (Germany and Switzerland); vol. 6: lost nobility of the Holy Roman Empire; vol. 7: extra volume.
• Armorial Général by Jean-Baptiste Rietstap, two volumes (1884, 1887), more than 100,000 coats of arms with pan-European range.
• Roll of Arms by the Committee on Heraldry of the New England Historic Genealogical Society (1914)
• Armorial of Little Russia (Малороссїйскїй гербовникъ, 1914): Ukrainian (Little Russian) family coats of arms within the Russian Empire.
• Georges Dansaert, Nouvel armorial belge, ancien et moderne, précédé de l'art héraldique et ses diverses applications, Brussels : Éditions J. Moorthamers, 1949.
• International Register of Arms, formerly Burke's Peerage & Gentry International Register of Arms_, an international roll of arms on the internet and published in book form sometimes (3 volumes so far).
• Armorial héraldique vivante, in: Le Parchemin, Genealogical and Heraldic Office of Belgium, 2003.
• Jean-Paul Springael, Armoiries de personnes physiques et d'association familiale en communauté française, edited by the office of Patrimoine culturel
• Carnet Mondain
• État présent de la noblesse belge
• Public Register of Arms, Flags and Badges of Canada: A digital roll of the arms, flags, banners, and other picture designs given by the Canadian Heraldic Authority