The duties of mediaeval heralds were many and varied. From envoys and jurisconsults to couriers and funeral directors, heralds are to be found all over the chivalrous landscape in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. This webpage is a quick tour of the history of the office of the herald, from its origins until the 1600's.

Before the Middle Ages, the Greeks and Romans had various professions that did portions of a mediaeval herald's job. In the Iliad, for example, both the Greeks and the Trojans had people who came and went between the two armies, delivering challenges and calls for truces, whom most modern translators gloss as heralds. The Romans, in their bureaucratic way, had three offices that could be seen as performing a herald's duties:

• praecones: town criers
• fetiales: the priests who decided upon declarations of war and peace treaties
• caduceatores: the messengers who delivered ultimatums, declarations of war, truces and requests for negotiation

However, by the time the empire fell in the West, these offices disappeared. We must look elsewhere for the rise of the herald.

It appears that the predecessors of the heralds were minstrels who specialized in chansons de geste-the many poems about Charlemagne, his son Louis, their vassals, and the wars that united them and drove them apart. Often, these men were hired to tag along on military campaigns, to keep up the spirits of the troops. When tournaments arose in northern France in the twelfth century, the minstrels were hired on then, as well, since twelfth century tournaments were very much like preplanned battles.

The minstrels made new songs and cheers, not just for the heroes long dead, but for the new heroes of the tournament and the battlefield. Eventually, their betters decided that it would help their reputation and appearance on the field if one of these minstrels would go before them on the tournament field, declaring their employer's lineage and deeds. Also, the minstrels were hired to announce and help organize new tournaments. They were partially paid for their labors with the bits of broken armor left on the field, to be sold as scrap iron or as spare parts. When coats of arms were developed, either for use on the battlefield or the tournament, the minstrels were the natural people who would be most interested in keeping track of them, and made the leap from being proto-heralds to heralds.

The first person identified as a herald in the Middle Ages is a fictional character, who didn't even rate a name, in Knight of the Cart, a poem by Chrestien de Troyes, who lived at the same time as Richard Coeur de Lyon (and, indeed, was supported by Richard's half-sister, Marie, Countess of Champagne). After having pawned some of his clothes to pay off a tavern debt, he comes upon a shield he doesn't recognize hanging in front of the tavern. As it turns out, it is a shield carried by Sir Lancelot, who, for the purposes of this tournament, is going incognito. The herald went into the tavern, paid his debt, and saw Sir Lancelot, who asked him to keep his attendance at the tournament a secret. The herald agreed, but went out declaring that a great knight was in town, just refusing to name him. Other chivalric texts also count heralds into the ranks of the judges of the tournaments, deciding who acted in the most knightly fashion.

The herald's military role also became important. Since the heralds had a comprehensive knowledge of coats of arms and the deeds of their bearers, they were able to tell their employers about the other sides' probable troop strength and the characteristics of the commanders. Heralds would also start learning martial law as a ntural extension of their role as tournament judges.

As the twelfth century faded into the thirteenth, heralds separated themselves from the ranks of minstrels. Their role as announcers for the next tournament gradually evolved into the role of being messengers and ambassadors, and the herald's tabard bestowed a form of diplomatic immunity, since he served the general cause of chivalry, as opposed to a specific master, at this time. Even though most heralds in the early part of the thirteenth century would have been temporary employees, like their minstrel predecessors, they were developing a professional literature, the roll of arms, and a jargon, blazon. The oldest rolls of arms in England date from the reign of Edward Longshanks, less than a hundred years after Knight of the Cart was written.

There are two kinds of rolls of arms: The occasional roll, which recorded the knights present at a battle or tournament, possibly for accounting purposes. The other kind of roll can be further divided into ordinaries and armorials, which were (and are) heraldic references. They are often blazoned in a way that we would find recognizable today, although blazon would never be quite as formal through much of our period as it would be in the centuries afterwards. Near the end of the thirteenth century, the first heraldic manual was written in French. Its contents, speaking as they do of the necessity of knowing about the properties of herbs and jewels, point to the rise of secular learning. A new kind of herald was entering the picture, no longer the quasi-minstrel of the previous century, but an educated and courtly man, who, because of his links to the tournament, still retained links to the profession's minstrel heritage.

The heralds of the fourteenth century were highly respected members of chivalrous society. At this point in time, kings and nobles were hiring heralds on a permanent basis, although their formal incorporation in colleges was not to happen for another century. The differentiation of heralds into ranks based in part upon their own learning and in part upon the status of their employers began at this time, when certain heralds working for kings or great lords were referred to as kings of arms. Also, kings of arms were considered experts on the coats of arms in use in a specific region, called a march (for example, Lyon in Scotland, Ulster in Ireland, etc.). The custom of hiring a herald spread from the kings and dukes all the way down to common mercenary captains, because of the usefulness of a herald. He was given diplomatic immunity, he was learned in martial law (which, at the time, covered more than just individual soldiers' behavior) and troop identification by number and nature.

The herald's role as an expert in ceremony expanded beyond the tournament in this period. Heralds became important figures in knighting ceremonies and ceremonies of induction into the orders of knighthood, like the Garter. As time wore on, heralds also became the undertakers for the nobility, arranging for the decorations, the procession, and other aspects of the funeral of an important person.

Often, a herald working for a member of the lesser nobility was referred to as a pursuivant, confusing the nice system of kings of arms, heralds, and pursuivants, since one might well find a very skilled herald in the employ of a mercenary. Heralds' records and recollections were used extensively by historians like Froissart to track the Hundred Years War and the conflicts between the various claimants to the thrones of the Christian states in the Iberian Peninsula.

Fifteenth century heralds continued the proud legacy of their predecessors, especially the heralds in service to kings and peers of the realm. The first documented use of a herald's staff of office since the demise of the caduceator dates from this period. The herald's staff, like the marshal's baton, is a sign of his position and authority in his lord's service. It started as a plain white staff, but became more elaborate as the years wore on, sometimes displaying the arms of the herald's lord or painted in his lord's livery colors.

A copy of the oaths of English fifteenth century kings of arms, heralds, and pursuivants of the royal household is in the Black Book of the Admiralty, which is really a code of martial and naval law. The pursuivant's oath is the shortest of the three oaths. He is simply required to be serviceable to the entire estate of nobility, obey the heralds and kings of arms, to live a clean life, and hope for further advancement.

However, one cannot imagine that the pursuivant of a military company would have had such simple duties-in sooth, he was a herald with all the duties and, one assumes, the privileges thereof. The herald had seven articles in his oath. The first was to report any treason against his employer that he discovered. The second was to remain serviceable to the nobility, and, as a "confessor of arms," guide them to a more chivalrous life. This would've required the herald to become familiar with chivalrous literature and in lay devotional works. The third was to seek out great assemblies where noble deeds would be done or spoken of (courts, military expeditions, tournaments, etc.) and report the deeds to his employer. The fourth was to aid poor knights who lost their wealth in his employer's service by giving or lending to him whatever goods he needed. The fifth was to keep silent about disputes between two knights, if he should happen to overhear them, and only to speak about them in court after the knights had given him leave. The sixth was to aid damsels and widows in distress, by going to the herald's employer and asking for redress. The last was that the herald live cleanly and avoid such vices as gambling.

A king of arms had five articles in his oath. First, he was to act as his employer's special and discreet messenger. Second, he was expected to expand his knowledge of heraldry, and execute any commands that a nobleman would command him to, saving only his loyalty to his employer. Third, he was to know all the coats of arms in use in his march, and to be able to assign marks of difference to them, along with tracking the feudal services each nobleman owed. Fourth, he was expected to teach the royal household's heralds and pursuivants, and when matters were too confusing, to take them to his superior (in England at that time, the Lord Constable, later, the Earl Marshal). Also, he was expected to hold chapters of heralds in his march to teach them. Fifth, he was to continue to keep his herald's oath, and to allow all deeds of honor to be recorded.

The sixteenth century herald was, like everyone else at the time, beset by the shifts that would move Europe towards modernity. The right of the nobility to make war was curtailed, if not wholly erased, in most of the countries to the west of the Holy Roman Empire. Even there, the big fish were devouring the small ones. Also, the technology of war shifted away from the knight, and even the archer, to the disciplined pikemen and arquebusiers from Switzerland and the similarly equipped tercios of Spain. These military units did not require a herald's services, for they all marched under their government's flags. With the exception of the powerful dukedoms, counties, and bishoprics of the Holy Roman Empire, most heralds would henceforth be royal employees.

As the utility of cavalry dropped, the reason for the tournament's existence disappeared. Although tournaments were great occasions for ruler and ruled alike to show off their wealth, there were other ways of doing so, including patronage of the fine arts and the sumptuous court festivals of the age that included fireworks displays, parades, balls, and masques. While heralds could have roles in these things, they did not organize them or play more than an ornamental role, however elaborate. The tournament had a last flowering under the Tudors and Stuarts in England and the Habsburgs in Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, but it had reached the end of the line.

The quality of diplomatic immunity spread from the herald to the professional diplomat, starting a century or more before in the Italian city-states, but leaping to the rest of Europe by the reign of Elizabeth I of England. Unlike the multitasking herald, the diplomat was a humanistically trained orator whose sole job was to sway a foreign ruler to friendship with his homeland.

As heraldry became less of a display of military rank, and more of a class marker, the question of who could use heraldry became important. Although heraldry was used by people in many walks of life by the fifteenth century, the now-demilitarized nobility saw this as an affront to their place. All over Europe, starting in the middle of the fifteenth century, but continuing in much of Europe until the overthrows of their monarchies, commoners were barred from the use of heraldry.

Each country took a different approach to their laws. In Portugal, for instance, it is hard to say if the law was ever enforced. In France, the heralds were orderd to look for infractions of the law and to bring the malefactors into the royal courts, although, again, it is hard to say if anyone was ever brought in on charges.

In the British Isles, however, things were taken seriously. The Scots heralds were ordered to make a full armorial, and Lyon King of Arms was placed in charge of his own court, with all of the power and money necessary to make his ruling stick. This court, the Court of Lord Lyon, has continued to sit to this very day.

The English took two approaches to the matter. The Earl Marshal's Court had been placed on a firm footing in the fourteenth century, as a sort of precursor to modern military courts. Given heraldry's importance in war at the time, the Earl Marshal's Court was the natural venue for cases involving the use of coats of arms, and there are several examples of such cases in its records, such as Scrope contra Grosvenor.

More importantly, at least in the long run, the Earl Marshal ordered the kings of arms to make visitations, that is, to go about the country on a shire-by-shire basis to examine the right of each gentleman in the shire to arms. While the kings of arms themselves could make these visitations themselves, more often than not, they asked one of the other heralds or pursuivants to do it form them. Usually, the heralds would as each gentleman in a shire for proof of his right to use his arms, like the gentleman's ancestors' arms as displayed on old gravestones and tombs and in stained glass windows in the parish church, or seals attached to old documents, and they would draw up a family tree of the gentleman, showing how he was descended from the people who used those arms. If a gentleman's evidence was insufficient, then he'd have to remove all public displays of his arms. The gentleman could also pay for a grant of arms and avoid this humiliation. Heraldic visitations were highly unpopular, since they touched so closely to a person's pride and possessions, and the last one happened in 1689. As onerous as they were to both the heralds, who would have had to travel to some really remote parts to the realm, and the gentlemen of England, the visitations are now useful for people tracing their family trees, for historians, and for artists, since the heralds would often make sketches of the tombs, stained glass, or gravestones.

By then, of course, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance were over. The political and scientific foundations of the modern world were established a couple of years before the last visitation, with the Glorious Revolution and the publication of Newton's Principia. The office of the herald would survive, but its role would never be as great as it was in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.