Sometimes submitters know that they want a device that looks authentically like the period arms of a particular time and place, but aren’t sure where to start.
My general advice for this situation is to spend an hour flipping through a couple of armorials from that culture to get a feel for the range of arms typical in that environment.
You can find armorials on this site, grouped by region and sorted by century:
https://caerlaverockroll.com/period-armorials-online/
Pick a few sources from your region and jump in, flipping through pages and getting a high-level impression of the arms that you see. Look at a few dozen pages of one source, and then bail out and choose another to flip through to see what’s similar and what’s different.
As you page through, take screenshots of your favorite elements — charges, arrangements, color schemes, etc.
After you’ve collected a dozen or so items that appeal to you, you can combine and remix them to produce something that’s uniquely yours.
Resist the temptation to shoehorn everything in, creating a monster with a dozen types of charge and all of the possible tinctures — your new design should have a complexity that’s comparable to the examples you are working from.
The result of this process is likely to be something that looks historically plausible, reflects the aesthetics of your chosen culture, and that meets the Society’s requirements for submissions, or is at least close enough that it serves as a good starting point.
However, while browsing period armorials for inspiration, there are a couple of caveats to be aware of:
- Firstly, many armorials start with a pages of notable figures, which can include royalty of other kingdoms, or attributed arms of historical/mythical figures; you can usually just skip past the first quarter or so of the armorial to reach arms that are more representative of the populace at large.
- Secondly, you’ll often find marshaled arms (especially in those opening sections of royalty) in which two or more arms are combined into quarters; when viewing those, treat each quarter as an independent device.
