Žemaitijos bajorų Bilevičių heraldika XVI-XVII a.

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Lietuvos Didžioji Kunigaikštystė (LDK; Grand Duchy of Lithuania; GDL); Heraldika; Bajorai; Žemaitija (Samogitia); Heraldic; Nobility; Samogitia.

ENHeraldry of the nobility in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was affected by several traditions: ancient Lithuanian signs, coats of arms of Poland and other European countries. The region selected for the research, namely Samogitia, is distinguished by a rather closed community of noblemen, who lived there until mid-sixteenth century. Therefore, it is likely that the local signs of Samogitian noblemen were preserved and later turned into coats of arms. Two entrance ways of foreign heraldry into Samogitia should be distinguished: the legal way (the Union of Horodło of 1413) and the successive way (via various relationships). The article analyses the tradition of heraldry of Samogitian noble family of Bilevičius in the 16–17th centuries. This family had been the elite of power for a long time. In the 16–17th centuries, the Bilevičius family was using a fixed coat of arms of local origin depicting a horizontal rectangle with crosses on the top and the sides. The old armorials show an attempt to Polonise the Bilevičius’ coat of arms. Having analysed the heraldic sources of the Bilevičius family, it was found that the first to use a stamp with the family’s coat of arms were Andrius Petraitis Bilevičius and Jurgis Martinaitis Bilevičius of the Bilevičius-Juškaitis family branch, and Kristupas Jonaitis Stankevičius Bilevičius of the Stankevičius-Bilevičius family branch in the 16th century. The surviving coats of arms and armorial stamps indicate that the Bilevičius family strove to emphasize the uniqueness of their coats of arms, thus bringing them closer to the European concept of a coat of arms.The essential step in emphasizing the individuality of one’s own/family’s coat of arms was depicting a helmet ornament characteristic only to that individual or family. The main family lines, i.e. the Stankevičius-Bilevičius family, used antlers in their helmet ornaments, whereas the Bilevičius-Juškaitis family depicted the aurochs horns. The coats of arms were additionally individualized by separate representatives of these family branches with the purpose of having different armorial stamps for fathers and sons or brothers of the same family branch. The emergence of joint and official coats of arms is likely to have contributed to the aspiration to individualize coats of arms as well. [From the publication]

• Archeologija / Archaeology
• Istorija / History