Crusaders = Spanish?

PunkRockCowboy · Post by **PunkRockCowboy** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 1:22 am

Not sure where to post this, but it has to do with Lego sets so yeah... never would have thought of this, but I'm a history major and I have been studying the kingdom of Castile in Spain. Check out the shield:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... stilla.png
I always thought of them as English if I thought of it historically. The great thing about Lego is it's whatever you want it to be, but I thought this was pretty cool.

Image changed to link by admin. Do not post images larger than 400x300 pixels in the forum.

natelite · Post by **natelite** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 2:59 am

a lot of countries (and kings) use lions for their insignia. england uses 3 lions. i doubt you can tie the crusaders back to any particular country.

PunkRockCowboy · Post by **PunkRockCowboy** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 4:15 am

natelite wrote:a lot of countries (and kings) use lions for their insignia. england uses 3 lions. i doubt you can tie the crusaders back to any particular country.

I'm not saying that Lego meant it to be that way, I just find that the Lion on Castile's crest is much closer to that one than others that I've seen. For instance you mention England, the house of Tudor includes the 3 lions you mention, but I don't think it's as close:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... 05.svg.png

Image changed to link by admin. Do not post images larger than 400x300 pixels in the forum.

natelite · Post by **natelite** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 4:31 am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_England

i'm not saying that wikipedia is the all knowing source but if you check that page you can see how the coat of arms progressed through time. the lion(s) in some of the coats resemble closely the crusader's emblem.

Heir of Black Falcon · Wed Aug 27, 2008 6:10 am

I was going to say it reminded me more of Scotlands old flag. You find this design all over.

There are also some really good heraldry books around but I do not want this off topic.

R

melonkernel · Post by **melonkernel** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 10:56 am

Maybe they were Finnish

(Even though Finland does not have much castles, those we have are from the time we belonged to Sweden. And it may be that it is, from there the lion in the Coat of arms comes from. I think.)

As a matter of fact, The Swedes had crusades to Finland, and Birger Jarl, who led the second crusade, belonged to a faction called Folkungarna (Folk-Kings) who had a Lion as their emblem. As a result of the second crusade, Finland became a part of Sweden (for the next 550 years).

Tower of Iron Will · Post by **Tower of Iron Will** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 1:34 pm

It never really bothered me back in the day when the mid eighties Lion came out; I was just happy to have the sets. To me back then the Lion reminded me of English coat of arms. It wasn't an exact copy of Richard the Lionhart's coat of arms as I would have preferred, but I really liked it anyways. It's not suprizing that other countries would use the Lion as well.

I think LEGO came up with a generic "Royal" looking coat of arms, not trying to copy any one in particular. I think they did a good job walking the fine line between too detailed(higher cost) and too simplistic.
-Tower

CastleLord · Post by **CastleLord** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 3:56 pm

Maybe they were Norwegian.

Gomur · Post by **Gomur** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 4:06 pm

I feel like the Lancasters used lions, too.

Aliencat · Post by **Aliencat** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 6:15 pm

Or maybe they were Dutch... Coat of Arms of Holland.
They could be a lot of things. The Lion is a much used symbol because it's considered to be a ferocious animal, on top of the world.
Lego most likely used this symbol for that reason. Same as the Black Falcons symbol. A medieval looking coat of arms that's universal and doesn't necessarilly portray one country or faction from the history of Europe.

Edit: I just said pretty much what Tower of Iron Will said too, so yeah...

Post by **JoshWedin** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 2:18 am

I think the Crusaders were supposed to Tasmanian lion tamers. Check out their flag

I am righter than everyone else! (Except for the people righter than me)

Josh

PS. Seriously though, I agree that the Crusaders were not meant to represent a specific nationality, but were designed to be a generic royal faction.

Tanotrooper · Post by **Tanotrooper** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 4:16 pm

*cough*

http://www.classic-castle.com/howto/art ... Shield.jpg

*cough*

TT[/img]

knight howdy · Post by **knight howdy** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 5:49 pm

they could be dutch

check out the country and form!

it looks like a lion

Sir Nelson · Post by **Sir Nelson** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 2:30 am

knight howdy wrote:they could be dutch

Isn't that what Aliencat said?

You guys are all wrong anyway... the Crusaders were from Detroit:

Post by **Athos** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 3:00 am

I guess that means the black falcons are from Atlanta then...

Steve