But men only began to adopt the full coat-of-arms, as it stands to this day, about the twelfth century. Of course the science did not spring into being full-grown in a night, and it was older and farther advanced in France and Italy than in England. But even abroad very early heraldry was extremely elementary.

William the Conqueror and his train had no real coat-of-arms; they were only supposed to bear them by mediaeval heralds, those strange persons who even made knights in armour out of King Arthur and his primitive chieftains. Doubtless, Norman William and his followers had some cognisances, but not the full insignia.

The simpler a coat-of-arms, the older it is. This is tolerably obvious, for the first people to assume arms naturally took all the plainest charges first - a single beast, a simple "ordinary," as the lines and squares on a shield are called. Later, as more coats-of-arms were granted, they were forced to become more complicated, till at a late date they appear perfect marvels of ingenuity.

It may be as well to explain clearly what a coat-of-arms is, for the benefit of those who are in the habit of calling all heraldic objects indiscriminately " crests."

A coat-of-arms consists of a shield, the crest, the motto, the supporters (if any), and sometimes the mantling, or decorations intended to represent a mantle, with which the whole is surrounded in the more elaborate heraldic drawings.

The shield, as is obvious, was that weapon of defence which the knight carried on his arm. The crest was worn upon his helmet. Women are not entitled to the use of a shield or a crest, because they are not supposed to have worn armour. They frequently did so in mediaeval emergencies, as witness Joan of Arc and Black Agnes of Dunbar, but armour was no more a womanly appurtenance in their day than trousers are in ours. The sex is not, however, debarred from bearing arms, but it must wear them on a diamond-shaped object technically called a lozenge. Women are entitled to a motto, which is an even more personal thing than the arms.

Son of an heiress

Married woman's arms

Supporters - the beasts, men, or angels who stand on either side of the shield - belong only to peers, to the knights grand cross of the older orders, and to the heads of certain families.