[7] In Slovakia, there is a coded myth that the double cross was brought to the region by St. Cyril and St. Methodius, two missionaries from the Byzantine Empire.

This legend, which is generally accepted today, arose only in the period of romanticism, accompanying the process of national awareness of the Slovaks in the middle of 19th century.

Moreover the exception of depictions on Byzantine coins, the double cross did not appear anywhere in mural iconography, in plastic form, or as a solitary object before the middle of the 10th century.

According to Slovak archeologist Titus Kolník, the double cross legend of Cyril and Methodius is a fiction: "that myths have more power than history".

[1][8] The double cross, a symbol of royal power, appeared only during the reign of King Béla III of Hungary (1172–1196).

Béla was raised in the imperial court of Manuel due to the close Byzantine-Hungarian relations of the mid-12th century, and he was even the heir to the throne.

[1] In 1169, Manuel's young wife gave birth to a son, thus depriving Béla of his status as heir of the Byzantine throne.

In general, red background color was used frequently for coats of arms in the late 12th and early 13th century in central Europe.

One of the modern interpretations of the color is that it represents the bloody lining and symbolizes the Slovak 'martyrdom' during the time of Magyarisation (19th century).

[citation needed] The color of the three mountains was originally green but in 1848 the Slovak National Council used it as blue in accordance with the Slavic tricolor.

On 1 March 1990, after the Velvet Revolution, the old coat of arms became the official symbol of the "Slovak Republic", which was still part of Czechoslovakia.

Based on the Constitution of the Slovak Republic of September 3, 1992, the same coat of arms became the symbol of independent Slovakia, which arose on January 1, 1993.

A law of February 18, 1993, precised the details of the coat of arms: for example, though not explicitly defined in the coat's blazon in the past, during the World War II era the cross mostly used to be depicted with convex endings of the stake and the bars; therefore the new description clearly reads to depict them as concave.