For Germany, being anciently, as all other countries in their beginnings, divided amongst an infinite number of little lords, or masters of families, that continually had wars one with another; those masters, or lords, principally to the end they might, when they were covered with arms, be known by their followers; and partly for ornament, both painted their armour, or their scutcheon, or coat, with the picture of some beast, or other thing, and also put some eminent and visible mark upon the crest of their helmets. And this ornament both of the arms, and crest, descended by inheritance to their children; to the eldest pure, and to the rest with some note of diversity, such as the old master, that is to say in Dutch, the “Here-alt” thought fit. But when many such families, joined together, made a greater monarchy, this duty of the herald, to distinguish scutcheons, was made a private office apart. And the issue of these lords is the great and ancient gentry; which for the most part bear living creatures, noted for courage and rapine; or castles, battlements, belts, weapons, bars, palisadoes, and other notes of war; nothing being then in honour but virtue military.