Arthurian Heraldry
In the Arthurian legends, each knight of the Round Table is often accompanied by a heraldic description of a coat of arms. Although these arms could be arbitrary, some characters were traditionally associated with one coat or a few different coats.
King Arthur was assigned many different arms, but from the 13th century, he was most commonly given three gold crowns on an azure field (Loomis 1938, 38). In a 1394 manuscript depicting the Nine Worthies, Arthur is shown holding a flag with three gold crowns (Neubecker, 172). The reason for the triple-crown symbol is unknown, but it was associated with other pre-Norman kings, with the seal of Magnus II of Sweden, with the relics of the Three Wise Men in Cologne (which led to the three crowns in the seal of the University of Cologne), and with the grants of Edward I of England to towns which were symbolized by three crowns in the towns' arms. The number of crowns increased to eleven, thirteen and even thirty at times (Brault, 44–46).
Other arms were associated with Arthur. In a manuscript from the later 13th century, Arthur's shield has three gold leopards, a likely heraldic flattery of Edward I of England (Brault, 22). Geoffrey of Monmouth assigned Arthur a dragon on his helmet and standard, which is possibly canting arms on Arthur's father's name, Uther Pendragon (Brault, 23). Geoffrey also assigned Arthur a shield with an image of the Virgin Mary (Brault, 24). An illustration of the latter by D. Endean Ivall, based on the battle flag described by Nennius (a cross and the Virgin Mary) and including the motto "King Arthur is not dead" in Cornish, can be found on the cover of W. H. Pascoe’s 1979 A Cornish Armory.
Other characters in the Arthurian legends are described with coats of arms. Lancelot starts with plain white arms but later receives a shield with three bends gules signifying the strength of three men (Brault 47). Tristran was attributed a variety of arms. His earliest arms, a gold lion rampant on red field, are shown in a set of 13th-century tiles found in Chertsey Abbey (Loomis 1915, 308). Thomas of Britain in the 12th century attributed these arms (Loomis 1938, 47) in what is believed to be heraldic flattery of his patron, either Richard I or Henry II, whose coats of arms contained some form of lion (Loomis 1922, 26). In other versions the field is not red, but green. Gottfried von Strassburg attributed to Tristan a silver shield with a black boar rampant (Loomis 1922, 24; Loomis 1938, 49). In Italy, however, he was attributed geometric patterns (argent a bend gules per Loomis 1938, 59).
Read more about this topic: Attributed Arms