Few serious historians have dared venture deep into the secret garden of heraldry. Maybe the fabulous beasts, strange blazons, family legends, and exotically titled heralds have scared them off. Maurice Keen has displayed no such timidity and he has amply and eloquently demonstrated that the subject has much to tell us about the social values, culture and aspirations of the upper echelons of medieval society. In England the heralds (acting as agents of the crown and under their own seals) only began to grant new arms or confirm existing coats from the late 1430s. Indeed, they were not formally incorporated as a collective body (now known as the College of Arms) until 1484, when they were given their own house, Coldharbour, in London. Before the mid-fifteenth century arms were simply adopted without reference to a higher authority, or were given by private licence or individual grant. Those few bestowed by the king himself not surprisingly carried the greatest dignity and weight. Such heraldic patronage from the highest authority in the land could be used to gain political favour, express friendship, reward allies, and help elevate court favourites or close kinsmen. In short, royal grants of arms were a signal honour.

The treatises of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries make it clear that the most prestigious arms were those given by the emperor, a king, or a prince. Heraldry had appeared in England during the 1130s and it is possible that as early as the second half of the twelfth century Henry II gave some sort of express permission for certain of his close associates (including his favourite son John) to use differenced versions of a coat that he almost certainly bore himself, namely two lions passant or passant guardant. We know that in 1258 St Louis I X specifically gave his royal consent for Bohemond VI, prince of Antioch, to quarter his arms with those of France, and further afield the emperor Louis IV is known to have granted arms by letters patent to an individual in 1338. Between 1366 and 1369 the Chancery of his successor, Charles IV, spoke of titles of nobility proceeding from the imperial throne as rays from the sun. All ensigns of that nobility, therefore, proceeded from the one fount of honour – the emperor himself.