Polish clans
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Polish clans (Polish: Rody) differ from most clan systems in that while they are mostly composed of families sharing male-line origin there can also be some genealogically unrelated families bearing the same coat of arms and clan name because of a formal adoption upon ennoblement or sometimes because of a misattribution petrified in heraldic literature. This is discussed under the topic of Polish Heraldry.
Polish nobility, the szlachta, has its origins in Middle Ages chivalric clans who provided military support to the king, the dukes, or various overlords. Over the centuries, various families, indeed whole noble classes from other nations, for example Lithuania, have been incorporated into the Polish clan system, by adoption.
Exceptions apart, all Polish families belonging to the same noble clan used and continue to use the same coat of arms, sometimes with minor variations of tincture. The original Polish word Herb encompasses the meanings clan as well as coat of arms simultaneously.
Membership in a Polish clan does not always connote consanguinity or even territoriality, as do Scottish clan, but refers to the fact that member families belong to the same heraldic clan. This is why hundreds of different, sometimes unrelated families are to be found within the same clan with all of them being entitled to use the same coat of arms. For this reason, rather than being parallel to the Scottish clan model, the Polish clan system may be considered as being more akin to the Scandinavian clan.
Polish coats of arms have their own name, which usually stem from from the clan's ancient seat, War cry or from a description of the way the arms are depicted (the so called canting arms). The War cry or battle cry derivation of many Polish clan and armorial names has given rise to the now outdated term proclamatio-arms, refer to the hortatory nature of the name which proclaims or invokes something. In fact war-cries consisting of the clan's name alone are nothing particularly Polish and are found in other medieval European nobilites.
The German word Wappengemeinschaft (Armorial-Association), as difficult as it seems to be, may be the best simple description of the concept of Polish Herb and the Polish institution of the clan / coat of arms.
Nevertheless, in daily life, (from the 17th to the 20th centuries), the sense of belonging to a family predominated. This is indicated by the organisation of most Modern-Era Polish armorials, which are arranged by specific family names and not by the names of their coat of arms, unlike their XV-century models that were arranged by clans, which were still a legal, genealogical and social reality.
It is known that a sense of belonging and attachment to a shared noble armorial lineage existed in the consciousness of the old Polish nobility carried down from the Middle Ages, but it was probably more ceremonial and symbolic than actual.
This was especially true because fairly frequently, particularly among the poorer nobility in 19th century, accidental, and sometimes deliberate, instances occurred wherein people misidentified themselves with various coat of arms to the heraldic offices of the partitioning countries. In this way, members of a the same family sometimes formally obtained recognition for different coats of arms. [1]. At the same time, Magnate families and some middling landowning families obtained titles such as (Prince, Count, Baron) along with their “own” particular coats of arms, (variations of their original Herb), contrary to Polish armorial custom, from the three partitioning powers, the French empire, the Pope, and other sovereigns. [2]
