As insígnias municipais e os primeiros armoriais portugueses: razões de uma ausência

In Portugal, in the fourteenth century, the armorials became one of the instruments by which the Crown, via the heralds, tried to establish its exclusive authority on heraldic matters. Heraldry conveyed the image of a particular social and political order. The arms of noble families, collected in armorials by royal officers, demonstrated the position that the Crown recognized them. The municipal arms, borne by municipalities with no interference of the Crown, bypassed this process. They challenged both the common association between heraldry and nobility, and the authority of the heralds. It was, therefore, pointless that such emblems appear in those armorials