Medieval and Manuscripts

Armorial of the House of Plantagenet

The House of Plantagenet was the first truly armigerous royal dynasty of England. Their predecessor, Henry I of England, had presented items decorated with a lion heraldic emblem to his son-in-law, Plantagenet founder Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, and his family experimented with different lion-bearing coats until these coalesced during the reign of his grandson, Richard I (1189–1199), into a coat of arms with three lions on a red field, formally Gules, three lions passant guardant or (armed and langued azure), that became the Royal Arms of England, and colloquially those of England itself. The various cadet branches descended from this family bore differenced versions of these arms, while later members of the House of Plantagenet would either quarter or impale these arms with others to reflect their political aspirations.

Also on this shelf

See also

• ▸Christ Church Detroit
• ▸Ceremonial drum
• ▸Cathedral of San Fernando (San Antonio)

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Text from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.