Law of heraldic arms
In most European countries without monarchies, much like in the United States, there are no laws against assuming arms, with the closest legal authenticity mechanism being a pictorial copyright protection.
Ancestral right means descent in the male line from an ancestor who lawfully bore arms.
In the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, the Crown's prerogative of granting arms is delegated to one of several authorities depending on the country.
In England, the exclusive jurisdiction of deciding rights to arms, and claims of descent, is vested in the Court of Chivalry.
However, the records of this are sparse, not least because the court never gave reasoned judgments (the Lord Chief Justice who sat in 1954 offering the sole exception to this, no doubt because of his professional background as a common law Judge).
The right to the arms passes from the original bearer to those of his legitimate direct descendants by a male line.
[4] However some doubts remained as to the effectiveness of the 1997 Act and proposals for further legislative amendment have been made by individual public representatives.
In Italy there has been no official regulation of familial coats of arms or titles of nobility since abolition of the Consulta Araldica in 1948, and that body addressed itself primarily to state recognition of titles of nobility rather than the heraldry of untitled armigers such as nobili (untitled nobles) and patrizi (of the patriciates in the former city-states).
Until the unification of the country in the decade leading to 1870, the issuance and use of familial coats of arms was exercised rather loosely in the various Italian states, with each region applying its own laws, and the principal focus was titles of nobility or (before c. 1800) feudal rights.
Indeed, upon ennoblement, a count or baron not from an armigerous family might actually assume his own, original coat of arms without recourse to any authority.
The Blasonario contemplated by the Consulta Araldica would have been an official compilation of blazons (i.e. an armory), but it was still in a very early draft stage when the monarchy was abolished in 1946.
[8] The same article prohibits as well unauthorised use of foreign public arms and some distinctive signs of international organizations.
George Washington, in personal correspondence, expressed opposition to establishment of a national heraldic authority, though he made use of his own ancestral arms.
For example, the University of Texas at Austin has registered[12] its emblem and coat of arms for use in its capacity as an institution of higher education.
Moreover, such protection presumes a specific graphic design or work of art, while blazon is a description which may be widely interpreted artistically.
The court was established some time prior to the late fourteenth century with jurisdiction over certain military matters, which came to include misuse of arms.
That understanding was authoritatively overturned, however, by a revival of the Court in 1954, when the Earl Marshal appointed the then Lord Chief Justice to sit as his surrogate.
However, in his judgement (Manchester Corporation v Manchester Palace of Varieties [1955] P 133) Lord Goddard suggested that In 1970, Arundel Herald Extraordinary advised Wolfson College, Oxford (who were considering whether to invoke a controversial University privilege in order to avoid paying for a grant of arms) that the effect of Lord Goddard's dictum "must make any further sitting of the court unlikely even for a cause of instance; and the revival of causes of office, which were obsolescent even in the seventeenth century, would be more difficult still".
An act of the Scottish parliament in 1592 made the unauthorised use of arms a criminal offence and gave Lyon the responsibility to prosecute such misuse, though in practice this might not be legal today.
In England a grant of arms does not ennoble a grantee in itself, but is a recognition of rank or status and, therefore, an authoritative confirmation of it.
An armiger (one who has the right to bear arms) is deemed to be of the status of a gentleman, and in England, many of the suits in the Court of Chivalry were decided on that basis[citation needed].
[13] In contrast, a coat of arms in Scotland is often, not without controversy, said to be a fief annoblissant, similar to a Scottish territorial peerage or barony.
Under Sir Thomas Innes of Learney (Lord Lyon King of Arms 1945–1969), wording was introduced into every Scottish patent of arms which states that the grantee "and his successors in the same are, amongst all Nobles and in all Places of Honour to be taken, numbered, accounted and received as Nobles in the Noblesse of Scotland".
[14] Nevertheless, CILANE and the Order of Malta consider both English and Scottish grants of arms as constituting hereditary gentility.
As a generality, most nobles, whether titled or not, have coats of arms[citation needed], hence the widely held perception of heraldry as an aristocratic trapping.
The interpretation and application of modern legal principles (such as freedom of expression) have also influenced this, and the annual tax on coats of arms was repealed in 1945.
