The oldest known seal bearing the image of this coat of arms dates back to the year 1319. This is when Adam de Kamion, in Kraków, produced a document under a seal with the image of the Jastrzębiec family’s coat of arms.
Obverse:
In the center of the coin three noblemen. Below the grade of the silver (Ag 925) and a signature (m/w). In the rim an inscription: NOBILITAS REGNI POLONIAE TTTOTIVSQVE REPUBLICAE.
Reverse:
In the center of the coin the Jastrzębiec family’s coat of arms. In the rim an inscription: AMRA NOBILIUM DOMINORUM JASTRZĘBIEC
Packaging: an elegant box with embossments
Graphic design: Waldemar Malinowski
Plaster models: Dobrochna Surajewska
The oldest known seal bearing the image of this coat of arms dates back to the year 1319. This is when Adam de Kamion, in Kraków, produced a document under a seal with the image of the Jastrzębiec family’s coat of arms with, in the rim, an inscription: “+S' ADE • D • CAMON • FILY • PETRI”, meaning “Seal of Adam de Kamion, son of Peter”.
The oldest known mention of the seal (which does not have to be equivalent to the oldest mention of the family itself) dates back to the year 1335 and the testimonies given by the noble Stanisław “Biały” and the noble Marek “Hrom”, both “de armis Iastrzambczy” (“having on their shield a horseshoe with a cross”) before King Casimir III, later called “the Great”, in Sandomierz.
The blazon (a conventionalized description) of the presently dominant version of the coat of arms is: „azure, a horseshoe reversed, between its branches, a small cross patée en abime, both or”. „A horseshoe reversed” requires further explanation. If the blazon said simply “a horseshoe”, it would mean a horseshoe in its “basic” position, i.e. with the branches downwards. The word “reversed” tells us that the position of the horseshoe is the opposite. We could provide similar descriptions of the helmet, the coronet, the crest (the element above the coronet), the mantles (the drapery, often fancifully tattered, falling from under the coronet) as well as those elements of the coat of arms that we have not included in our series. Here, however, for the purposes of simplification, we have only blazoned the shield.
Today the coat of arms of the Jastrzębiec family usually uses the blue (azure) field. However, the 14th century Flemish Gelre Armorial, in the section dedicated to Polish coats of arms, presents it differently – golden on a silver field (against the rule of alteration forbidding placing one metal on another). The 15th century proto-bookplate of Świętosław de Jeziorsko presents the same coat of arms on the red (gules) field!
It seems that also the tinctures of other elements of the coat of arms (the horseshoe and the cross) are variable. These are always metals (gold or silver), but they come in different combinations: either both elements are gold, or both are silver, or the cross is gold and the horseshoe is silver. Sometimes even the shape of the coat of arms is so different from its “basic” version that it would be possible to take it for another coat of arms in its own right. Still, coats of arms with a cross between the branches of a horseshoe are treated as variants of the Jastrzębiec family’s coat of arms and not coats of arms of other families with similar symbols or different tinctures. This is never a straightforward issue. From the heraldry point of view, today’s Jastrzębiec family is probable to be a mixture of several families with similar coats of arms (including the “real” Jastrzębiec family) as well as an unknown number of other families included in this heraldic family or assigned to it by mistake.
At this point the Boleścic and Łazęka families should be mentioned. Specialists still disagree on whether these are regional branches of the Jastrzębiec family or separate families, considered as branches of the Jastrzębiec family only because of the similarity of the coats of arms. This might mean that the irregularities observed in coats of arms should not be seen as a record of the instability of one particular family, but as a silent testimony to the primary separateness of the coats of arms and families which then come to be associated with the Jastrzębiec family.
We have chosen the coronet considered in today’s Europe as the “basic” coronet of noble families with (visible) three fleurons and two pearls. However, it should be remembered that most of the families using the coat of arms of the Jastrzębiec family are hereditary noblemen of the Polish Republic, historically enjoying a special constitutional position and a rank of honour superior to that of families from different layers of nobility using a coronet of this kind. The noblemen of the Polish Republic used different models of the coronet. In the crest (the element above the coronet) we have included a hawk with its right foot (raised and with a bell) holding the same symbols which appear on the shield; its left leg is steadily standing in the coronet (a common mistake is to present the hawk as if it was clutching the central fleuron of the coronet).
It is worth noting, however, that this element of the coat of arms is also evolving. It would take too long to describe all its possible variants. To match the tinctures commonly used in this coat of arms (field azure, emblem or), the mantling (i.e. the drapery falling from under the coronet) should be blue with a golden lining. The noble families belonging to the heraldic family of the Jastrzębiecs have survived to our times and have their representatives in the Polish Nobility Association.
Kaj Małachowski, a heraldic consultant of the Polish Nobility Association
