In the year 1244, Bolesław, Duke of Masovia, identified members of the knights' clan as members of a genealogia: "I received my good servitors [Raciborz and Albert] from the land of [Great] Poland, and from the clan [genealogia] called Jelito, with my well-disposed knowledge [i.e., consent and encouragement] and the cry [vocitatio], [that is], the godło, [by the name of] Nagody, and I established them in the said land of mine, Masovia, [on the military tenure described elsewhere in the charter].
"The documentation regarding Raciborz and Albert's tenure is the earliest surviving of the use of the clan name and cry defining the honorable status of Polish knights.
The Polish clan name and cry ritualized the ius militare, i.e., the power to command an army; and they had been used some time before 1244 to define knightly status.
It is known that a sense of belonging and attachment to the clan crest lineage existed in the old Polish consciousness and had survived from the Middle Ages, but it was probably more ceremonial and symbolic than "everyday".
Especially since there were fairly frequent instances, particularly among the poorer nobility in the 19th century, of accidentally (and sometimes deliberately) identifying themselves with various coat of arms to the heraldry offices of the partitioning countries.