Roll of arms

The oldest extant armorials date to the mid-13th century, and armorial manuscripts continued to be produced throughout the early modern period.

Siebmachers Wappenbuch of 1605 was an early instance of a printed armorial.

In the early modern period, the larger armorials develop into encyclopedic projects, with the Armorial général de France (1696), commissioned by Louis XIV of France, listing more than 125,000 coats of arms.

Armorials can be "occasional", relating to a specific event such as a tournament; "institutional", associated with foundations, such as that of an order of chivalry, "regional", collecting the arms of the nobility of a given region, "illustrative", in the context of a specific narrative or chronicle, or "general", with the aim of an encyclopedic collection.

[2] A roll of arms arranged systematically by design, with coats featuring the same principal elements (geometrical ordinaries and charges) grouped together as a tool to aid identification, is known as an ordinary of arms (or simply as an ordinary).

Hyghalmen Roll , German, c. 1485 . An example of a late medieval roll of arms. College of Arms, London.
Roll of arms of the knights of the Golden Fleece . Made in the first half of the 16th century. [ 1 ]
Dering Roll , c. 1270 , Dover. Lists knights of Kent & Essex. British Library. Provenance: Sir Edward Dering (1598–1644), Lt. of Dover Castle
Segar's Roll , a 17th-century copy of a 13th-century roll.
Left folium 001v and right folium 002r from the Beyeren Armorial , 1402–1405
Folio 259v. from Wernigerode Wappenbuch , Bavaria , c. 1486 –1492
Roll of arms of the Drapery Court of Brussels . (1713-1724)