In high and late medieval England, the word referred to an esquire attendant upon a knight, but bearing his own unique armorial device.
[citation needed] Today, the term armiger is well-defined only within jurisdictions, such as Canada, the Republic of Ireland, Kenya, South Africa, Malta, Spain, and the United Kingdom, where heraldry is regulated by the state or a heraldic body, such as the College of Arms, the Chief Herald of Canada, the Court of the Lord Lyon or the Office of the Chief Herald of Ireland.
[citation needed] British armigers are considered gentlemen and equated to untitled nobility by organisations such as the CILANE and the Order of Malta, a grant of arms confirms or confers such gentle (untitled noble) status.
This is not the case for Continental armigers, who may bear noble or merely burgher arms with the latter according no social precedence.
[2] In the Spanish nobility, armígero was a low specific rank to which a certain group of untitled nobles were entitled.