For many of us an interest in heraldry has often been sparked by an interest in the broader sphere of history, but just as often the contrary is true. Heraldry has been described as the 'short-hand of history'  for the very good reason that until recently those who, by and large, 'made' history often belonged to, or soon joined, the armigerous nobility of the kingdom in which they served. There is a clear connection between those people who used, fostered and were effected by heraldry and the political, economic and especially social history of every century, from the twelfth to the twentieth, which we now study. Heraldry can be used by the historian as a tool for the study of such diverse issues as, for example, how past societies chose to visually display their beliefs regarding issues such as segregation between different social classes and the quality of the noble individual and his or her race', or lineage. It should not be forgotten that the noble individual was someone who was 'worthy of notice' by virtue of bearing, or being granted, armorial bearings by a heraldic authority and who was, by these 'tokens of honour', separated from the commonality.

I

Though much has been written about heraldry, and from many different angles, it has rarely been treated seriously by historians as a tool for historical study in its own right. While studies of other visual arts from the past, such as painted portraits, flourished as valuable tools for historical research the study of other historically important visual evidence like heraldry has clearly not received the same treatment.
Armorial bearings, like medieval shop and tavern signs, have been relegated to the sidelines of visual analysis for historical purposes tending to make their mark in historical works only as footnotes to the main text or as novelties.  This neglect is not justified. Just one example should suffice to prove this; in Scotland in the late-sixteenth and throughout the seventeenth centuries portraits were often painted by craftsmen whose speciality was interior visual decoration and who specialised in heraldic and, increasingly, portrait painting as part of their overall oeuvre of painted craftswork  with the result that many Scottish portraits from this period are crudely finished but heraldically significant.
It is time that heraldry was recognised for what it is; a tool which pre-industrial, aristocratic régimes used to perpetuate a medieval knightly ethos and an aristocratic and élite solidarity in by often newly affluent social groups in societies where medieval origins and chivalrous conduct were increasingly absent from the ancestry and actions of the new ruling élite.

II

A quite different factor in writing on heraldry is its intrinsic aesthetic appeal as distinction from its place as a heavily regulated aspect of everyday usage in pre-industrial élite societies. It could be said that heraldry has always inspired a level of appreciation for its aesthetic beauty; indeed this is one of the major reasons it continues to fascinate and intrigue people today. Many people, however, forget the true place and function of heraldry. When heraldry was a living science (as opposed to its current status as little more than an artistic novelty) it was a tool specifically designed for the regulation of the noble individual and the noble race or lineage. In the hayday of heraldry, when it was part of the European nobility's everyday life, a properly differenced  coat-of-arms, for example, could theoretically tell a well trained observer everything about a person's lineage - his or her family name, what branch of that family they belonged to and their place in that family's wider familial structure. Heraldry was, at one time, a functioning and useful system of noble signification. The only surviving heraldic body today to continue a tradition like differencing is the Court of the Lord Lyon King of Arms in Scotland where it is done with exactly this intention in mind today as existed two, three or four-hundred years ago - to differentiate one member of an extended noble kindred from another and, significantly, to make that individual pay for the honour of possessing armorial bearings (ratifying that noble status) through the process of levying fees on the recording of arms in order to make sure that his or her arms display their owners exact place within a wider kinship group.
The bearing of arms was, and is still, esteemed an honour (in the exact sense of the word). The strict regulations enforced upon armorial usage in Scotland by the Lyon Court, as we have seen, is illustrative of the original function of heraldry. This is what is one of the things which is meant when heraldry is called the 'short-hand of history', for it provided governments with a means of displaying a mentality of order, regulation and control of noble groups by refering one of the principle means by which they established and displayed their social status - arms - to a central, authoritative body which also governed not only the pretty decorations on their shields, but also the wider questions of honour and precedence which obsessed early modern nobilities - the Court of Chivalry and the College of Arms in England and the Court of the Lord Lyon in Scotland (after 1672) are just two examples of such institutions in the British Isles. The first of these, the Court of Chivalry in England, judged all matters dealing with precedence of noble people from the rank of duke to gentleman.  These mechanisms for noble conflict resolution, however, never operated efficiently enough to guarantee a lack of conflict amongst noble groups which all too frequently erupted into violence in the Early Modern period.
The popular notion that nobles led lives of opulent idleness is entirely false for the majority of people who were classed as noble or gentle from the twelfth to the early nineteenth centuries. In every country where the idea of 'noble' status existed this status was obtained and maintained by an aristocratic élite - or perhaps it would be better to say by a number of often competing political, social and economic élites - which attempted to display the legitimacy of their régime by recourse to a number of time-honoured visual symbols of noble rank and authority in exactly the same way as Dark Age rulers attempted to perpetuate the symbols of rulership which had been used in ancient Rome. In most of western Europe heraldry counted highly among these symbols of socio-political potency primarily because the use and possession of armorial bearings alluded to chivalric attributes of honour, gave the individual a hereditary 'title' of sorts and was a theoretical entrée into a prestigious international society - thus providing some level of psychological security to the armiger.  While the idea that European noble groups were continually infiltrated by wealthy members of the 'bourgeoisie' is highly contended, what certainly did occur is that people whose ancestry was not exclusively knighlty, but who may have possessed patrician  status, started to occupy government administrative posts in England, France and even Scotland in the Early Modern period. Nowhere is this better seen then in France throughout the entire Early Modern period (roughly 1450-1750) when the country was torn apart by noble factionalism, religious war, royal dynastic struggles and the ever present threat of foreign invasion. All of these factors allowed the propulsion of individuals of non-knightly ancestry into the centre of French royal government.
When Henry de Bourbon, King of Navarre finally secured the throne of France as King Henry IV of France and Navarre he brought with him a new administrative and fiscal élite. The new members of France's administrative and government apparatus were people upon whom he knew he could rely; they were largely unconnected with the old provincial nobility whose first loyalty was often to a powerful local dynasty as opposed to an often distant crown.  So it was that the grandsons, great-grandsons, or even great-great-grandsons of wealthy merchants often came to secure a place at the centre of French government. With the accession of Henry's grandson, Louis XIV, France's old rulers - the ancient, courtly aristocracy - again had a chance to reassert their self proclaimed right to serve the king. One of the great characteristics of Henry IV's administrative and judicial élite was their steady and voracious acquisition of titles, estates and other tradition attributes of France's ancient medieval aristocracy. Heraldry was of prime importance to their attempting to secure and legitimise there place in society.
This same situation occurred in other European countries at the same time. Scotland, for example, was a kingdom without a resident king for almost the entire seventeenth century. Scotland witnessed a steady change in the face of its élite as the scions of ancient landed houses had increasingly to integrate with an administrative and judicial élite of 'new men' who tried rapidly to secure their new status with the acquisition of estates, titles, and the augmentation of their usually already existing right to heraldry.  One of the greatest Scottish heraldic theorists of the time was among this group - the advocate Sir George McKenzie of Rosehaugh.
Sir George McKenzie was an advocate of solidly lairdly ancestry who combined a career in law with a deep interest in heraldry. It was in his lifetime that heraldry was put onto a firmly regulated basis in Scotland with a parliamentary reiteration of the powers of the Public Register of all Arms and Bearings in Scotland, in 1672, in which all arms used and born in Scotland had to be entered in order to be legitimate and legal. Similar trends can be found in other European kingdoms. These trends would seem to be indicative of an increasing desire by regulatory authorities to judge and control the use and assumption of armorial bearings on behalf of ruling monarchs. One example of this process can be seen in England; L.G. Pine in The Story of Heraldry has succinctly demonstrated the increasing omnipotence of the English College of Arms over all matters heraldic in England from the Visitations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to the propounding of the doctrine of the non-existence of a right to arms by 'right of user' in the nineteenth century.  Pine says that the College has even attempted to insist that it has the right to judge on armorial matters in the Channel Islands, which belong to the former Duchy of Normandy, not the Kingdom of England.
It should be obvious by now that heraldry traditionally functioned, and continues to exist, on a number of different levels. While heraldry represents a delightful and visually stimulating aspect of European aristocratic culture it remains an art form with a history. Heraldry possesses the power to represent the individual and this is the science of armory's most fascinating aspect. As a mark of ownership and as a symbolic entity a coat-of-arms represents its owner. An individual bearing the weight of six, seven, or eight hundred years usage of the same brightly coloured 'trade mark' can certainly be expected to have a deep emotional and perhaps even spiritual connection to that mark. This is the basic premise of this work - that an hereditary mono-mark, often known from birth and integral to an individual's understanding of his or her ancestry and lineage, family and societal position, contains within it some power over, and reflection of, that individual. It is precisely for this reason that the work includes arms from primary source material as these were the arms actually seen and used by the individual in his or her lifetime.

III

The original purpose of this Roll of Arms was to allow the student of history and the keen heraldist alike to rapidly discover the arms of 'great names' in history. While this could certainly have been done with the aid of a copy of Burke's General Armory and Reitstap's Armorial Général it was possible that the exact name and place of the individual in question or his (for they are predominantly male) full decorations and individual motto might not have been mentioned thus disallowing a full discovery of the actual arms that may have been used by the individual in question. The work endeavoured to uncover as much information about the full decorations and mottoes of individuals as possible with the aid of portraits, memoirs and assorted secondary sources it was possible to achieve this in many cases. Althought the evidence used for the Roll of Arms is now almost exclusively primary - using contemporary portraits, engravings, armorial carvings and illuminations -  all of the information which came originally from secondary source material has been retained.
One of the endeavours of this work has been to concentrate as much as possible on members of the lesser, untitled nobility because their arms are the most difficult to correctly attribute. Often the arms of great individuals have been specifically made note of by biographers and authorities - such is certainly the case with Washington, Lee, Pepys, Pascal, and to a certain degree Descartes and Voltaire - but too often the armorial bearings of an individual are ignored in original sources and only the most cursory family history is provided in many literary sources all of which adds to the difficulty of attributing the correct coat-of-arms to an individual. In the case of lesser nobles on what could be called the periphery of history - such as the Chevalier d'Éon and Giraud de Mauléon, two individuals who can be found in this work - the existence of a wide family structure and the relative lack of frequency of a particular surname married to a particular seigneurial title has allowed a clear connection to be made between the individual and the arms; though in all fairness it is often impossible to ascertain whether or not a minute difference mark was used by the individual in question. Also in the case of most noble German families it was common for a plethora of different crests to exist for the use of different branches of the one family. The bearings on shields themselves, however, were hardly ever altered. Thus while there may be doubt about the proper crest which was used by, for example, Baron Munchausen or Count Stauffenberg there can be no doubt about the nature of the device borne by these individuals on their shields.
An attempt has also been made to satisfy the heraldic curiosity of people who, even though they may possess a good understanding of heraldry, cannot understand contemporary French blazoning - as appears in Reitstap - or who have not had the opportunity to critically analyse a large number of portraits, engravings and other primary source material. Thus with a minimum of fuss and bother the student of history will be able to access the arms of many historic personage with the help of this work.
One example of the problems associated with retrospectively attributing coats-of-arms to individuals - in the rare cases where this does occure in this Roll - can be seen in the case of the Cromwell arms. These are given by Burke simply as sable a lion rampant argent, but they appear in at least one directly contemporary etching bearing six quarters, and appear on Cromwell's seal on the act for Charles I's execution bearing four quarters only. I am inclined to see this as being indicative of the fluidity of contemporary usage combined with the practical necessity of allowing arms to be legible in every context in which they appear.
One further problem with attributions of armorial bearings of this sort can be seen in the arms I have included for Casanova. This is worth mentioning in some detail. It is certain that Casanova made use of armorial bearings during his lifetime (by whatever right he may have devised) because an inventory of his possessions was made at one point in his journeys when he was held at a German border crossing for want of a passport. Among an inventory of his possessions was recorded a seal ring "bearing his coat-of-arms". What form these arms may have taken it is impossible to say as he never mentions them specifically in his memoirs and they do not appear on any of the contemporary portraits or etchings of him which survive (which is fully in keeping with Rococo aesthetics). That he was the natural son of Michele Grimani, Venetian patrician, is accepted by most biographers. Casanova seemed to believe this himself, as he alludes to it in his memoirs,  but the fact that he constructed an elaborate genealogy for his mother's husband stretching back to a fifteenth century Spanish hidalgo may indicate that he also used arms which purported to reflect this fact. His memoirs were published at the end of his life so it is probable that it took him until then to formulate this genealogical fallacy. This brings us back to the Grimani arms. Casanova grew up under the tutelage of Michele's brother, the Abbé Grimani, and would therefore have had an opportunity to familiarise himself with that family's armorial bearings and history. While it is unlikely that he would have risked the ire of his guardian by using these arms in Venice, there is no reason why he should not have done so once his career of travel began. I have included this line of reasoning not to justify my own suppositions on the form of Casanova's arms, but rather to show that the arms I have attributed to Casanova are indeed the arms most likely to have been adopted by a person such as Casanova given his beliefs concerning his paternity.

IV

It is worth making some mention of the forms of names to be found in this Roll of Arms. To the uninitiated the way that surnames, titles and secondary Christian names have been arranged may seem confusing and haphazard but in fact they represent the correct and appropriate contemporary usage. In France in particular the actual sur- or lineage-name was often hidden deep below a number of seigneurial and peerage titles. As no titles existed before 1750 in France which were attached to a surname alone, every person who bore a title was known by the place name of their territorial lordship. Thus Desaix, was known as the Chevalier de Veygoux, because Veygoux was the name of his landed estate and chevalier (knight) his title. Once the French Revolution occurred, however, he became plain Citizen Desaix. An exception to this rule is the Chevalier d'Éon who was usually known by that title after becoming a knight of the Royal and Military Order of St. Louis, but who spent the majority of his earlier career as the lord of Beaumont. Before becoming a knight he was often called Monsieur de Beaumont by his contemporaries.  The name under which the individual is alphabetically listed is the name by which that individual is best known to history. Thus Anne-Marie Arouet is listed as Voltaire, and Louis de Gontaut appears as the Duc de Biron.
Throughout the text a number of original portraits, objects (such as carved chests) and actual illuminations and drawings illustrating the armorial bearings of the people who appear in the Roll appear. These are designed to act as a source of visual pleasure and to help the reader to better decipher the form of blazoning which I have used and the type of evidence I have relied upon in the formulation of this Roll.
The translation of French blazons from Reitstap has csometimes caused blazons to be written for some arms in ways which might be frowned upon by traditional English-speaking heraldists, but the often fabulous nature of some Continental (and especially Napoleonic) heraldry is often the cause of this.