Belgium is a constitutional, hereditary and popular monarchy. The monarch is titled King of the Belgians and serves as the country's head of state and commander-in-chief of the Belgian Armed Forces. There have been seven Belgian monarchs since independence in 1830.
The coat of arms of Belgium bears a lion or, known as Leo Belgicus, as its charge. This is in accordance with article 193 of the Belgian Constitution: The Belgian nation takes red, yellow and black as colours, and as state coat of arms the Belgian lion with the motto UNITY MAKES STRENGTH. A royal decree of 17 March 1837 determines the achievement to be used in the greater and the lesser version, respectively.
A roll of arms is a collection of coats of arms, usually consisting of rows of painted pictures of shields, each shield accompanied by the name of the person bearing the arms.
The Flemish Heraldic Council advises the Flemish Government on all matters relating to heraldry. The Council was created on 11 April 1984, as the successor to the Subcommittee for Heraldry or Subcommissie Heraldiek, established in 1978. Its prime task was to supervise the granting of a coat of arms and a flag to all municipalities of the Flemish Region. Following the reorganization of the Belgian provinces, the council's field of action was extended to provincial arms and flags in 1994. Since 2000, the Council has likewise advised the Flemish Government on grants of arms to Flemish individuals and corporations. In the meantime, more than 200 such grants have received official sanction. Grants of arms by the Flemish Government are published in the Belgian official journal.
Jan Baptist Zangrius was a Flemish engraver, publisher, typographer and bookseller.
Burgher arms or bourgeois arms are coats of arms borne by persons of the burgher social class of Europe since the Middle Ages. By definition, however, the term is alien to British heraldry, which follows other rules.
The Seven Noble Houses of Brussels were the seven families or clans whose descendants formed the patrician class and urban aristocracy of Brussels, Belgium.
A heraldic authority is defined as an office or institution which has been established by a reigning monarch or a government to deal with heraldry in the country concerned. It does not include private societies or enterprises which design and/or register coats of arms. Over the centuries, many countries have established heraldic authorities, and several still flourish today.
Most of the members of the Capetian dynasty bore a version of the arms of France. The arms of France were adopted by the Capetian kings only in the twelfth century. Consequently, the cadet branches that had branched off in earlier periods bore entirely different arms.
Joseph Norbert Leon François Marie Ghislain "José" Anne de Molina was a Belgian magistrate, heraldist, and historian.
This page shows the coats of arms, heraldic achievements, and heraldic flags of the House of Nassau.
Events in the year 1844 in Belgium.
The Van Dievoetfamily is a Belgian family originating from the Duchy of Brabant. It descends from the Seven Lineages of Brussels and its members have been bourgeois (freemen) of that city since the 1600s. It formed, at the end of the 17th century, a now extinct Parisian branch which used the name Vandive.
Dievoort or Dietvoort is a place name and a surname. It has many related names.
The Council of Heraldry and Vexillology is the Heraldic authority for the French-speaking Community of Belgium. It is the institution that advises the Government of the French-speaking Community on all matters concerning civic, personal, and familial arms and flags. Grants of arms from the Council are published in the Belgian official journal.
The Royal Belgian Genealogical and Heraldic Office is a private genealogical and heraldic society in Belgium. It was founded in 1942 as an ASBL and has over a thousand members interested in genealogy and heraldry. While it publishes exclusively in the French language, it covers all regions of Belgium.
Events in the year 1877 in Belgium.
Georges Dansaert PB, was a Belgian lawyer, historian, poet, heraldist, genealogist, and writer from Brussels. In 1938, he received the Hercule-Catenacci prize from the Académie Française along with Baudouin de Lannoy for their book Jean de Lannoy le Bâtisseur, 1410–1493. He descended from the Houses of Sleeus and Sweerts of the Seven Noble Houses of Brussels. The Dansaert family, now extinct, was an old and prominent ship-owning family from Brussels. He was a director of the Association Royale des Descendants des Lignages de Bruxelles. He was a donat of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
The Council of Nobility offers counsel to the King of the Belgians regarding all matters pertaining to the Kingdom's nobility.
The Esquire is a heraldic charge that is classed as a subordinary in Anglophone heraldry. Its form is defined as resembling the Gyron, as formed of a right triangle; but, with the difference that whereas the Gyron extends from the outer edge of the field to the center, the Esquire extends across the whole of the field, from one edge to its opposite.
Coat of arms of King Leopold I, 1831–1865
Coat of arms of Leopold II and Albert I, 1865–1921
Coat of arms of the reigning monarch since 2019, used by Philippe
