Bishop David Toups was on a plane to Florida, returning from his introduction to members of the Diocese of Beaumont as its sixth bishop, when he began sketching out the idea for his personal coat of ...

Before the name of your tailor, the make and model of your car, or the size of your superyacht mattered, and before logo-laden handbags or even old school ties, the status symbol for the seriously ...

One would have thought that in the post-Vatican II era, the papacy — which had dispensed with coronations, tiaras, silken gloves, the sedia gestatoria and ostrich feather fans, — would have shelved ...

Now ubiquitous in public life, heraldry was born out of necessity. Today, it is still everywhere, from the coats of arms of town councils to the shields on school blazers and even in private exchanges ...

Coats of arms (or, more accurately heraldic achievements) originated around the eleventh century to identify military units and over the centuries began to be used as logos for families of note, ...

A chatty coat of arms? According to the French, it is. Known as arms parlant or ‘canting’ arms, these shorthand emblems of identification play a visual pun on the family surname. It is up to the ...