Coat of Arms of The Crown of Aragon

The so-called Bars of Aragon, Royal arms of Aragon, Four Bars, Red Bars, Pales of the House of Barcelona or Coat of arms of the Crown of Aragon, which bear four red paletts on gold background, depicts the familiar coat of the Counts of Barcelona and Kings of Aragon. It differs from the flag because this latter uses fesses. It is one of the oldest coats of arms in Europe dating back to a seal of Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona from 1150.

Today, this symbol has been adopted and/or included in their arms by several former territories related to the Crown of Aragon, like the arms of Spain, which wears it in its third quarter whereas the kings of Spain are heirs of those of Aragon; the shield of Andorra, which also shows it in its third quarter. It is also the main element of the arms of the present Spanish Autonomous Communities of Catalonia, Valencian Community and the Balearic Islands; the fourth quarter of the Spanish Autonomous Community of Aragon; of the French regions of Languedoc-Roussillon (Department of the Pyrénées-Orientales, whose territory regroups the old province of Roussillon and French Cerdagne); and in the Italian provinces of Reggio de Calabria, Catanzaro in Calabria and Lecce in Apulia. It figures also in numerous located municipal blazons in the territories of the Crown, either by explicit concession of the king, or because they were cities or towns of realengo (that is, directly dependent on the Crown and subject to no kind of manorialism); and others outside it, in which case the symbol is because of the presence of the king or knights of the Crown at some moment of their local history.