When we think of a coat of arms, we think of nobility, wealth, and power, passed along through generations. A family coat of arms should be a symbol to be proud of, at least until we learn that there were far more of these symbols than we ever realized, and someone had to make them up to begin with. And through modern eyes, they didn't put enough thought into some of them.
It seems that the immortal symbols of nobility don't all hold up to the same aesthetic scrutiny. The above heraldry is taken from the pages of Konrad Grunenberg's Wappenbuch (Book of Arms), a comprehensive collection of coats of arms commissioned as a gift to the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick III, in 1480. The book is a real Who's Who of the HRE, listing the arms of its nobles, important burghers but also foreign kings. It's also a collection of who could think up the goofiest symbols, like a fish with a trumpet for a nose ...
There is some speculation that Grunenberg's index is not altogether accurate, and many of the entries could have been made up of whole cloth, for political or comedic reasons. Who knows? It appears that his depictions all contain the same helmet, as if he had a medieval version of copy-paste and just drew pictures around them from someone's description. You can flip through the Wappenbuch yourself here. Or see the highlights, meaning the weirdest examples of coats of arms from the book at Cracked.
ha nice