Quote Originally Posted by MacMillan of Rathdown View Post
Unless one wants to really parse the meaning of "granted" then I think it best to roll back that 15th century date to about 1127 when Henry I of England gave/granted Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, a shield charged with three gold lions, the same arms becoming exclusively hereditary within the Plantagenet line.
Scott: these are often said to be the first arms known to have been hereditary, but I have never seen any proof that they were granted by the king. Evidence?

Actually, coats of arms are vigorously defended as personal property, all the time, in both present day France and Italy. With the coming of EU law, the grants of all heraldic authorities were given equal protection throughout the EU under a doctrine similar to the "full faith and value" doctrine of US law; so, if Mr. McTavish finds his arms being applied to tins of sardines in Portugal he can sue to stop the practice.
I'm aware of no cases in Italy and would be interested in specifics. There are French cases I'm aware of, and I understand there are German ones as well. The most recent cases I've found (which are not very recent) treat arms not as property but as "marks of cognizance, supplementary to the family name to which they are indissolubly linked" (Paris Court of Appeals, 20 Dec 1949). The various German heraldry societies cite the chapter of the Civil Code on names and identity as the basis for protection of arms under German law.

But in neither country do arms have to be granted to be protected; they merely have to be publicly used. The side that proves first public use is deemed to have the superior right to the arms.

The statement that EU law protects grants of all heraldic authorities across Europe is a new one on me. There are very few true granting authorities in the EU, and the English one can't even protect its own grants (the Court of Chivalry hasn't sat since 1954, and it doesn't take very deep penetration to realize that the Manchester case was a put-up job. I've looked, and have never found a single instance of the EU doing what you say.

That's like saying because someone wants champagne from France rather than sparking wine from up-state New York their self worth deserves some introspection. Some people just prefer "the genuine article"; to decry this seems to be rather mean spirited.
I'd say not; I'd say it reflects a stronger understanding of the history of heraldry and a more cosmopolitan view of its practice. All arms were originally assumed. All the classic writers on heraldic law outside Britain hold assumed arms to be just as valid and "genuine" as granted ones, and British writers said the same thing until the late Tudor period.

Europe is a pretty big place, and the laws or rules regulating arms vary widely; to suggest otherwise is to follow a very Anglo-centric path.
As you say.

Substantive documents-- those issued with lawful authority-- always are regarded as the "real deal"; if anyone doubts this, they should try designing their own driving license, or vehicle registration documents and then set off on a cross country journey.
Sure, but in a country that didn't require a license to drive, your driver's license from some other country would be just a piece of paper. In most every country except Scotland and arguably England, you don't need a license to bear arms.