Korwin Coat of Arms - History

History

The Korwin and Slepowron history-legends are really, almost the same. For some reason, an old Polish chivalry clan, from Sarmatian breeding, chose the Raven as his symbol. Perhaps was his “Rodnidze”, the “Totem-spirit of the Clan” because those clans, then pagans, were more ancients than the christening of Poland and the rise of the Kingdom of Piast Dynasty. Many centuries later, we know about it from a grant of privilege to Wawrzęta (or Wawrzyniec - Lawrence) Korwin z Ślepowrony from Duke Konrad I of Masovia, at Warsaw in 1224, according to Jan Długosz, Bartosz Paprocki, Count Juliusz Ostrowski, etc. The authors understand the Korwin “proper” actual drawing came to Poland from Hungary, more or less two centuries later. The so-called Roman-Hungarian legend of Korwin starts in the 16th century under the influence of ancient culture and vivacious contacts between Polish nobility and Hungarian Royal Court. In that kingdom, the Wallachian-Hungarian family of Korvin had flourish in 1400, and a baroque legend argues them descending from one of the Roman Gens Valerii. At one time there was in Rome a distinguished tribune named Marcus Valerius Corvus, a Roman general who got the agnomen Corvinus in the following manner: In 349BC, the Roman Army moved against the Barbarians, and before the battle began, a warrior of great size and strength came forward and challenged anyone in the Roman cavalry to single combat, whereupon Valerius stepped forward. Just as he was about to engage the barbarian, a raven flew from a trunk, perched upon Valerius's helmet, and began to attack his foe’s eyes with its beak so fiercely that the warrior was blind. With this, the Roman beat him easily, and from that time, Valerius was called Corvinus (from Corvus, "Raven"). His descendant, Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus (64BC-8AD) was chosen to the Roman consulate with Caesar Augustus and the baroque authors understand he became a big landowner in the Dacian-Panonian frontiers. If however any of his supposed Hungarians descendants, and a Polish branch of this family carried on the name, nobody really knows… It is true that Janos Hunyadi and his son Matthias Corvinus Hunyadi, King of Hungary and Bohemia, called themselves "Corvinus" and had their coins minted displaying a “raven with a ring”. The epithet Corvinus was coined by Matthias' biographer, the Italian Antonio Bonfini, who claimed that the Hunyadi family descended from Marcus Valerius Corvinus.

The Hungarian legend relates that when a raven carried off the ring King Matthias had removed from his finger he chased the bird down and slew him retrieving the ring, and in commemoration of this event, he took the raven as a symbol for his signet sign. Really, this coat of arms was used by Matthias's ancestors far earlier than he did. His own father John Hunyadi, voivode of Transylvania and regent of Hungary, is known as Ioannes Corvinus in Medieval Latin. In addition the Silesian Annals (other version of this legend) tell that was not the king himself who shot the raven but a Polish soldier, who was rewarded with the Korwin coat of arms. Matthias Corvinus was also ruler of the Duchy of Głogów, and as the Bohemian king, Suzerain of all the Silesian duchies.

Actually, Matthias Corvinus raised the Black Army which is recognized as the first standing continental European fighting force not under conscription and with regular pay since the Roman Empire. The soldiers of the Black Army were mainly Bohemians mercenaries, but Polish, Germans, Hungarians and adventurers from all over Europe joined as well. Sometimes officers were rewarded with lands and ennoblement. This may be a more realistic origin of the Korwin coat of arms, in Silesia at first (part of the Bohemian kingdom but Polish land anyway), and all around the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth later. In time, baroque authors related the old Slepowron coat of arms with the fashionable Korwin.

Korwin coat of arms can be found on the tombstone of Łukasz Noskowski – also Łukasz of Noskowa (death 1532), in St. Mary's Basilica, Kraków. He was the Chancellor of the Cracow Academy in 1526-1527.

The image of a raven appears on the city seal of Głogów from March 17, 1490. A Raven sitting on a branch was the emblem of the Corvinus/Korwin family, which ruled in the Duchy of Głogów - Jawor and Żagań. In the 15th century they gave their emblem to the city.