Five Centuries in One Hour and Five Meters: The Pedigree Roll of the Darell Family of England as a Bank of Evidence (1637)
Coats of arms were intended, among other things, to showcase the status of a noble in a variety of ways: on buildings, on funeral monuments, on dishes, and even on gutters. The pinnacle of the show-off is an elaborate heraldic family tree: A nobleman who could afford it, would commission a heraldic artist to draw a fine genealogical tree for him on a parchment.
At first, in the fifteenth century, family trees were designed in basic drawing, sometimes without any arms. From the sixteenth century onwards, impressive family trees were produced – whether in the form of a roll or of a book. They included names, family connections, sometimes figures, and of course coats of arms.