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Luxembourg: Coat of arms

Coat of arms of Luxembourg (left, greater arms; middle, middle arms; right, lesser arms) - Images by Santiago Dotor, 20 May 2002, after the official website of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

Origin of the arms of Luxembourg

Origin of the arms of Luxembourg

The Lesser arms are blazoned::
A barry of ten Argent and Azure a lion rampant double-queued overall Gules armed, langued and crowned Or ensigned with a coronet Proper.

Chris Southworth, 4 October 2024

According to Crampton's The World of Flags [cra90], the arms of Luxembourg date from the medieval times. Probably these are the arms of Limburg, diffentiated by changing the silver background into ten silver and blue stripes.

Mark Sensen, 20 May 2002

On the above images, the lion is designed according to the "1993 pattern". See the discussion on that pattern.

Joseph McMillan, 14 February 2005

The House of Luxembourg began to have the argent and azure fesses inthe 13th century: Henry V was the first Count of Luxembourg to adopt these arms. His father, Waleran III, Duke of Limburg, bore the arms
Argent, a lion rampant queue fourchée gules armed langued and crowned or (white field bearing a red double tailed lion with yellow claws, teeth, tongue and crown), generally known as the "Lion of Limburg".
Henry V replaced the field argent with barry argent and azure to difference his arms from his half-brother Henry IV, Duke of Limburg.

NB: The Lusignan had adopted barry arms of Azure and Argent during the 12th century.

It is uncertain what was the origin of this field barry argent and azure. Jean-Claude Loutsch, Luxembourg's most prominent heraldist, suggested the theory that the original Luxembourg dynasties may have born a barry banner (colours unknown). Two dynasties closely related to the first Houses of Luxembourg also adopted barry coats of arms during this period, namely the Counts of Loon and the Counts of Grandpré bore the arms barry of ten or and gules (yellow and red alternating bars). In such a case, the choice of colour of the bars would have been selected to match the white field and red lion of Limburg.

In hi article « Le cimier au dragon et la légende de Mélusine » (in Le cimier : mythologie, rituel, parenté des origines au XVIe siècle, Bruxelles, 1990, p. 199-200), Jean-Claude Loutsch hypothesizes that the barry arms of the Lusignans could come from Ermessende of Carcassonne, whose sarcophagus had been painted with vertical red and yellow bands prefiguring the Catalan coat of arms, and whose great-grandniece had married the Count of Luxembourg. The Barcelona banner, often depicted horizontally, could have been interpreted as barry rather than paly. He assumes that this pre-heraldic flag could have been the origin of the arms of Barcelona, Foix, Luxembourg, Grandpré, Castres and Looz. The major drawback of his theory is the absence of any link between the families concerned and the Lusignans, which invalidates it for the research of the origins of the Lusignan heraldic group [see: Revue française d’héraldique et de sigillographie – Études en ligne – 2021-5 - , p19].

There is another relation between the houses of Lusignan and Luxembourg, but then the barry azure and argent arms were already in use for centuries in both houses... Margaret of Savoy (April 1439 – 9 March 1483) was the eldest surviving daughter and one of the nineteen children of Louis I, Duke of Savoy and Princess Anne of Cyprus - aka Anne de Lusignan (24 September 1418 – 11 November 1462), the daughter of King Janus of Cyprus and Charlotte of Bourbon, and a member of the Poitiers-Lusignan crusader dynasty. And on 12 July 1466, Margaret married her second husband, Peter II of Luxembourg, Count of Saint-Pol and Soissons. And besides he was only from the French branch of the House of Luxembourg (Luxembourg-Ligny, with a field Argent since 1348...: ).

Olivier Touzeau, 25 January 2025

Regarding the similarity of Lusignan arms with those of Luxembourg, it shall be noted that:

The Luxembourgs and the Lusignans have had different founts of honour - Holy Roman Empire and Kingdom of France, respectively.
The arms of Luxembourg were derived from those of Limburg by replacing the plain argent field with a barry one. On the other hand, the Lusignan arms were originally a simple barry shield, while the
lion was added as an augmentation to those Lusignans who fought in the Third Crusade under Richard I of England; some of those armigers returned to France, where their arms went out of use after a few
generations, while those who remained in the Outremer succeeded to the throne of Cyprus and used the arms for nearly three centuries, also modifying it by replacing the barry field with a plain argent one to
create the territorial arms of Cyprus.

Tomislav Todorović, 25 January 2025