Medieval Knights and Coats of Arms
Medieval knights looked cool on their horses with a decorated shield, and in suits of armour with the top half decorated with the same design as on the shield. But all this decoration wasn’t for vanity. Imagine 20 or 30 knights fighting on a battle field, each having his own small band of men probably drawn from his lands; how would the men, most of whom were illiterate, tell which was their leader? So the knights or noblemen created their own coats of arms, also known as family crests. The cloth garment worn over the top half of the suit of armour was called a ‘surcoat’, a name that led to the term ‘coat of arms’.
Categorised as: Cosmos