Moors on crests

The scholar Jean Devise has traced the earliest uses of a Moor or a Black figure in heraldry to Bavaria, the upper Rhineland, and Lower Saxony in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. The use in family and institutional crests at this time most likely reflected the spread of the imagery of the Hohenstaufen emperors, as in St. Maurice and the Black Magus, in which Black figures stood in for the universalist pretensions of the Church and the Empire.

From the early fifteenth century, in the context of increasing conflict against Muslims in the Iberian, Balkan, and Anatolian peninsulas and in the context of European maritime exploration and participation in global trade, including in African slaves, Black figures began to take on more fantastical, exotic, and degrading features. They appeared as monsters, conquered enemies, or  noble savages, serving as symbols of military accomplishment, commercial success, or conspicuous luxury. In this period Black figures became a more common heraldic feature across the German lands.

Over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, these devices were incorporated into advertising and commercial brands, often in caricatured forms. Controversially, many continue to be used today.

Jeff Bowersox

---

Deutsch

Further information on the images in the slideshow can be found by clicking on the crests below.

---

---