Sas Coat of Arms - History

History

Ancient authors like Okolski say that the origin of these arms was in Saxony, and thus they are called Sas (Sas is Polish for "Saxon"), and they came from Saxony to Hungary. Actually the origin is from Moldavian voivodes Dragoş and his son, Sas, who bore only the blue escutcheon with the crescent, stars and arrow. The latter's son, Stephan, settled in Galicia and his descendants and the noble Vlachs around, 64 families altogether, formed a herb, that is, a group allowed by the Polish king to bear the same coat of arms. A Polish source from 1570 talked about the Vlach character, genus valachicum, of this group.

Some families bear this coat of arms on a red field (also Sas II coat of arms), or the design completely reversed (i.e., upside down). For example, the Mściszewski family bear arms much like those of Sas, but they omit the arrow, and the stars are arranged in a row. The Dziedziel family also use these arms in another form, and so on. This is a coat of arms with a large number of variations as it is the Prus coat of arms.

There are two major variations of the coat of arms, in one there is the red shield and on the both sides the supporters are the knites (the descendants of the royal blood in line of Sas Komarnicki, in line from Count Wiktor Sas Komarnicki (1770) and princess Zofia Gasparini (1772) (as well the later Ehrenkreutz line of blood), and the blue shield the common aristocracy noblemen (polish szlachta.)

The origins of this family vary depending on the source. According to Wojciech Strepa, a Hungarian-Saxon warlord named Hujd, having come with a small army to Lew, prince of Ruthenia (1269–1301), and having allied himself with Lithuania, drove the Eastern barbarians out of Mazovia. In reward for his knightly deeds, he was given, among other gifts, Lew's near relative (the widow of Lev's brother Shvarn, the daughter of Lithuanian King Mindaug ) as a wife, an estate in Ruthenian territory, and by his descendants he became the forefather of the various families which use these arms in their seals. Paprocki concludes that at one time this was a mighty house in Hungary, because some ducats have been seen stamped with their arms.

According to Albertus Strepa, count Hujd entered Galicia in 1236 with a small Hungarian army in order to enter the service of Daniel of Galicia, and was rewarded with lands that his descendents settled.