Arms of Saints
by Sebastian Nelson
I cannot find any single resource that gives the blazons of arms of individuals canonized by the Catholic Church, so I’ve put together a webpage with the arms of 56 saints. There were no doubt hundreds of armigerous saints, and I hope to add to this incomplete list. I tried to track down the arms of those saints who were entitled to a coat of arms during their lifetime, rather than arms attributed to saints after their death. Accordingly, I limited my search to saints who lived during or after the middle of the 12th century, which is the commonly accepted period that heraldry emerged. My rule of thumb was to find blazons that these individuals would have recognized during their lifetime as their own. I have, therefore, omitted St. John Ogilvie (1579-1615) who was granted arms posthumously by Lord Lyon in 1976. I have also limited my search to those individuals recognized as saints by the Catholic Church as of December 2006. These saints are listed chronologically by their year of death.
I have used secondary sources to piece some of these blazons together. Eighteen of these blazons were researched, translated, collected and published by Michael Francis McCarthy in three books: Heraldica Collegii Cardinalium Volume I 1198-1799, Heraldica Collegii Cardinalium Volume II 1800-2000, and A Manual of Ecclesiastical Heraldry. Other useful resources have been Rietstap's Armorial General and Michael Maclagan’s Lines of Succession. Many of the blazons I tried to translate or piece together are no doubt full of errors. Hopefully my errors and omissions will inspire someone with more time and talent than myself to research this subject more fully. In many cases, I was unable to confirm that some saints actually used these arms as I have blazoned them during their lifetime. For many female saints who were married, I merely blazoned their husbands’ arms impaled with their fathers’ arms. In the case of St. Virginia Centurione Bracelli (1587-1651) I was only able to find the arms of her father, the Doge of Genoa, but not the arms of her husband. The saints’ names are linked to webpages with some biographical details, and many of the blazons are linked to pictures of their arms. Some of these saints probably used some of these arms below, but with extra quarterings that have escaped me. I have also omitted exterior elements (such as helms, crests, coronets, crowns, supporters, decorations, mottos, mitres, tiaras, croziers, hats, etc). Some of the arms may seem a little weird. St. Philip Howard’s (1557-1595) arms as I have blazoned them omit some of the usual Howard quarterings. According to the Oxford Guide to Heraldry, his 1580 confirmation of arms omitted these quarterings because the Dukedom of Norfolk was then under attainder. Many thanks to David Pritchard, Michele Tuccimei di Sezze, Tomaso Giuseppe Cravarezza, George Lucki, Jose Juan Carrion Rangel and many others. Please contact me at sebnelson@gmail.com if you have any corrections or additions.
St. Elizabeth of Hungary (1207-1231) Parted per pale; dexter, Azure a lion rampant barry of 10 Argent and Gules crowned, armed and langued Or; sinister barry of 8 Gules and Argent
St. Albert the Great (c. 1206-1280) Azure a bezant between three ducal coronets Or
St. Agnes of Bohemia (1200-1281) Gules a lion rampant queue fourchee Argent crowned langued and armed Or
St. Kunegunda (1224-1292) Parted per pale; dexter, Gules an eagle displayed Argent armed and beaked Or; sinister barry of 8 Gules and Argent
St. Celestine V (1215-1294) Or a lion rampant Azure a bend Gules
St.
Louis of Toulouse (1274-1297) Tierced per pale: barry of 8 Gules and
Argent; Argent a cross potent between four crosses Or; Azure semé de lys Or a label
of three points Gules
St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) Or a crucifix issuant from a heart enflamed proper
St. Hedwig of Poland (1371-1399) Parted per pale; dexter, Quarterly 1 and 4 Gules an eagle displayed Argent armed, beaked and crowned Or, 2 and 3 Gules a mounted knight Argent brandishing a drawn sword and carrying a shield Azure marked with a patriarchal cross Or; sinister Quarterly 1 parted per pale dexter barry of 8 Gules and Argent, sinister Azure semé de lys Or a label of three points Gules, 2 Gules an eagle displayed Argent armed, beaked and crowned Or, 3 Gules on a mount Vert a crown Or issuant therefrom a double cross Argent, 4 Azure three leopards' heads affrontés crowned Or
St. Joan of Arc (1412-1431) Azure a sword per pale Argent hilted Or between a crown in chief and two fleurs-de-lys Or
St.
Casimir of Poland (1458-1484) Quarterly 1 and 4
Gules an eagle displayed Argent armed, beaked and crowned Or, 2 and 3 Gules a
mounted knight Argent brandishing a drawn sword and carrying a shield Azure
marked with a patriarchal cross Or
St. Joan of Valois
(1464-1505) Parted
per pale; dexter, Azure three
fleurs-de-lis Or overall a label of three points Argent; sinister, Azure three
fleurs-de-lis Or
St. John Fisher (1469-1535) Quarterly 1 and 4 Azure a dolphin between three wheat ears Or a border engrailed Or; 2 and 3 Argent three tridents sable a chief Gules a lion passant guardant Or
St. Thomas More (1478-1535) Quarterly 1 and 4 Agent a chevron engrailed between three moorcocks armed, crested and jelloped Gules, all Sable; 2 and 3 Argent, on a chevron between three unicorn's heads couped Sable, three bezants Or St. Jerome Emiliani (1481-1537) Parted per fess; Azure an ear of wheat Or; barry of six Argent and Gules
St. Pius V (1504-1572) Bendy Or and Gules
St. Charles Borromeo (1538-1584) Quarterly 1 and 4 barry Vert and Gules a bend Argent; 2 and 3 bendy Argent and Escailee Or and Azure; a chief Gules guttee de Or, a unicorn Argent below issuant from the canton a sun Or; impaling Argent the word HUMILITAS sable crowned Or; overall in the honour point Argent a fer Or
St. Gregory Barbarigo (1625-1697) Argent, on a bend Azure between six double lures sable, three lions rampant Or
St. Joseph Tomasi (1649-1713) Azure a lion rampant Argent crowned Or impaling Or four pallets Gules overall a palm tree issuant proper
St. Pius X (1835-1914) Azure a three tined anchor in pale above waves of the sea Proper, a six pointed star Or in chief, a chief Argent a lion passant winged and nimbed proper, holding in his right paw an open book with the words “Pax Tibi Marce Evangelista Meus”
St. Ursula Ledochowska (1865-1939) Azure three crosses patee within and conjoined to an annulet Or
St.
Mary Maravillas de Jesus (1891-1974) Quarterly 1 Or
an eagle displayed Sable; 2 Argent three fleurs-de-lis Gules; 3 Argent on a
mound a poplar tree Vert; 4 Or on a mound a poplar tree Vert; the whole within
a bordure Azure charged with six castles Or
St. Josemaria
Escriva de Balaguer (1902-1975) Chequy of fifteen Or and Gules
