Coats of arms were used as a way to identify different families or people living in castles. They were also used to identify knights because it was difficult to tell who was who once they had all their armour on.

Coats of arms of different colours, patterns and pictures were painted onto shields, flags and sometimes even carved into stone on the castle building somewhere. Churches often had coats of arms painted onto their walls.

The colours and patterns sometimes had meanings and sometimes they were linked to the family name. For example families with names like Trumpington might have had trumpets on their shields. Shields could be painted gold, silver, red, blue or black.

This table shows what each picture on a shield stood for.

Shields were split up in different ways before they were painted.

No two people had the same coat of arms except for when a knight died and then his eldest son could have his coat of arms if he wanted to.