Coat of arms of Galicia (Spain)
| Coat of arms of Galicia | |
|---|---|
.svg) |
|
| Details | |
| Armiger | Xunta de Galicia |
| Adopted | May 29, 1984 |
| Crest | Royal crown of Spain |
| Escutcheon | golden chalice (Holy grail); silver host, seven silver crosses |
The coat of arms of Galicia is described in the Spanish Law 5 of May 29, 1984, the Law of the symbols of Galicia.
The coat of arms of Galicia includes, enclosed in a field of azure, a chalice of gold with a silver host, accompanied by seven silver crosses, three on each side and one in the center of the shield (representative of the seven historic provinces of Galicia).
The royal crown in gules, i.e. red, enclosed in a golden ring set with precious stones, made up of eight acanthus leaf fleurons, out of which five are visible. Each leaf is set with pearls, and five tiaras are born from them to converge in a globe of azure, with the semi-meridian and the equator in gold, topped by a golden cross.
The historians Faustino Menéndez-Pidal and Juan José Sánchez Badiola find the first references to it in two rolls of arms from the late 13th century - in Segar's Roll and in the Armorial du Hérault Vermandois, which attribute the coat of arms to the king of Galicia, although by that time it did no longer exist as a separate title. The first source describes three uncovered chalices, whereas the second only describes one covered chalice.
Since the Middle Ages, the concept of the chalice as a linguistic metaphor spread: chalice = Galice; many European authors eventually theorized about this fact from the 16th to the 18th centuries, a fact the Romanticist Galician author Manuel Murguía would later echo. Later rolls of arms also make reference to it, e.g. the Armorial Gymnich of Flanders (1445), and, especially, the Armorial Bergshanmar, a compilation of some 3300 coats of arms belonging to states and families of almost all over Europe as of 1436. In that roll of arms it says "in the fourth turned sheet... a well-stylized big cup occupying as much space of the field as possible". Above the composition the word Galiscién (Galicia) is written.
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