Originally posted by Birger Jarl
When looking for info about duchy of Athens arms I stumbled across this:
History of the Maltese cross
Don't really know if it's anything, maybe you know Steph? 
i wish i could say for sure birger, i'm somewhat familiar with some byzantine coins, beyond that i don't know. (...and i thought i knew something about seals
)
my whole case for the la roche arms being those of the duchy rests on the entries in
blasons des familles d'europe, which deals primarily in families, but has those of a few states - and lists the arms thus:
when looking up "athens" -
Athènes. (Voyez la Roche d'Athènes).
so i looked up the la roche family and got their arms. the families of brienne and acciajuoli aren't cross-referenced here; they're just listed under their family names as
brienne of athens and
acciajuoli in tuscany and in greece (as opposed to another
acciajuoli that was just listed as being in tuscany).
that's my whole case. the site doesn't list what folio it took the arms from, and even if it did, i wouldn't know a trustworthy one from otherwise. what i like about
heraldique europeenne is that the folios are listed, but so far i haven't found them online, and the webmaster has yet to do any crusader states save the kingdom of jerusalem and the kingdom of cyprus. i've e-mailed him to see if he already knows, but so far no response.
i mean i even tried greek terms as well as french, but the greek sites only displayed some history, not any descriptions of arms. i'm hoping angelos will see this and post a description of what he saw pertaining to athens, if anything, since he has an offline source that displayed the flag of achaia that may also be its arms.
the only thing i found in my book
catalan domination of athens 1311-1388 was that the catalan company used a portrait of saint george in their seals, along with the motto of "fortunate army of franks in romania".
when i brought up coins as being possible sources, i was referring to
this page of
heraldica.org. an excerpt:
Numismatic evidence
The best work is Gustave Schlumberger's Numismatique de l'Orient Latin (Paris, 1878; reprint Graz 1954). In a coin auction catalogue I recently received, coins from Tripoli feature:
Obverse: horse with cross above, Reverse: a cross between four roundels (bronze, Raymond II 1137-52)
Obv: cross patty, Rev: eight-point star (Bohemond VI, 1251-75, silver gros)
Obv: cross slightly patty, Rev: three-towered castle (Bohemond VII, 1275-87, silver gros)
I believe the 8-pt star was a recurrent motif on Tripoli coins.
Coins of Antioch feature:
Raymond Roupen (1216-19): helmeted head between crescent and 5-pt star, Rev: cross patty with crescent in one quarter. (coins from early 12th c. have a bust of St Peter and inscriptions, or the Mother of God facing nimbate).
Interestingly, coins from Cyprus (1306-1473) constantly feature on the reverse a cross potent between four crosses, never crosslets but sometimes patty or formy. But what is peculiar is that the main cross is "quadrat in the centre", that is, its center is thickened by a square. This is, according to Parker's Glossary, called a cross of S. Chad, because it features in the arms of the see of Lichfield and Coventry, of which S. Chad was the first bishop. The quadrating on the Cyprus coins is much less pronounced than in the drawing in Parker, but this is nevertheless quite intriguing.
i don't know the proper conclusion to be drawn from this - we know (i think we know) that in some cases, like jerusalem, that the image can be said to be that of the state; but in cyprus, the reverse is true. fate has taken the eight pointed star as being the arms of tripoli. he's also taken a variation on the image on the coins of antioch (the cross with a crescent) as being the arms of antioch itself, while lp2le_retour found these:
Antioch: Gules, three trumpets palewise or
according to
the glossary of heraldic terms, the cross maltese was used by religious orders because the eight points were supposed to represent the eight beatitudes. the hospitallers held various parts of the morea from 1377 to 1404, and they held nearby islands not shown in the game - i was going to suggest that as a possible reason for the symbol being so widespread, but if the cross maltese didn't appear as we know it until about 1500, then it pokes a hole in that theory.
steph
