Attributed arms

Fabelheraldik is the doctrine of the imaginary ( " pictorial " ) Coat of Arms nature and primarily covers the areas of " imaginary Heraldry " and " imaginary heraldry ". The Imaginary Heraldry deals with coat of arms, bear in their structure, their symbolism and / or in their significance with respect to human or human- like creatures that were part of the collective memory, respectively, the collective imagination before the birth of heraldry.

The " imaginary people / human -like " who is apprehended in heraldry, include, for example, the fictional characters of literary heroes, mythological human beings, but also personifications (eg, human-like figures that embody an abstract content allegorically as the Grim Reaper, the virtues or vice, et cetera ).

History

The doctrine of the imaginary coat of arms back to the French historian and Herald Michel Pastoureau (* 1947) back. In his view, this is one of the most important scientific fields of heraldic research that opened up since the second half of the 20th century.

It is no coincidence that the imaginary Heraldry takes its starting point in France. Already in the 20th century, establishing themselves there extensive, interdisciplinary research on the " l' imaginaire " (Eng. " the imaginary "), in particular the French philosophy and sociology are closely involved. Important authors in this context Michel Maffesoli, Jean -Luc Nancy, Jean -Paul Sartre, Cornelius Castoriadis and in the narrower sense, the writings of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.

Whether the imaginary Heraldry in the wake of increasing Lacan and Pastoureau reception is an integral part of German heraldry, is still open.

The imaginary crest types

There are different types of imaginary coat of arms. The historian Michel Pastoureau proposes the following categorization ago:

• Real historical figures of antiquity and the Middle Ages: Kings of Rome, the great figures of Greek and Roman popes, emperors and kings of the early and high Middle Ages. In this category, the coat of arms of Alexander to Gaius Julius Caesar to Charlemagne and to the nine good heroes are most frequent.

• Heroes and gods of Greek and Roman mythology, especially the gods and heroes of the Trojan War as Hector, Odysseus or Achilles.

• Heroes and gods of the Germanic and Scandinavian mythology: The coat of arms shown in this category are currently less numerous than those from the Greco-Roman mythology. For category includes, for example, coat of arms with reference to Odin, Thor, Siegfried the dragon slayer or heroes of the Nibelungenlied.

• Real or imagined heroes and personalities who lived outside of Western Christianity: Emperor of Constantinople Opel, emirs, viziers and sultans, Attila, Chinese Emperor or the princes and princes from their environment.

• Biblical Figures, for example, Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, the Three Kings.

• Other figures of Christianity: the Holy Trinity and the divine Persons, Mary ( mother of Jesus) and the apostles, the saints, imaginary creatures such as angels and Satan and other beings who embody evil.

• Persons, kingdoms and places that have been created by the medieval imagination ( for example, the Prester John ).

• Literary heroes such as Roland and his companions, people of Germanic novels, Arthur and his companions.

• Various personifications: vices and virtues, allegorical personifications (as in the Roman de la Rose ), animal figures with a human (as in Reynard the Fox ), rivers, winds and the world.