The coat of arms for Essex is a historic one - and stretches back into history.
The name Essex means “Land of the East Saxons” and refers to the invasion and settlement in Britain by a race of people from Saxony, Germany.
This occurred after the fall of the Roman Empire and before the Norman invasion of 1066. The Saxons settled mainly in Essex, Kent, and the London area, and their influence was strongest in 600-700AD - the years before the Viking incursions.
The official granting of the current Essex arms by the College of Arms dates back to only 1932.
The official wording is:
Gules, three Seaxes fessewise in pale Argen., pomels [knobs] and hilts [handles] Or, pointed to the sinister and cutting edges upwards.
A facsimile of the document granting armorial bearings can be seen in the Grand Jury Room in the Shire Hall, Chelmsford. The swords on the coat of arms are seaxes which evolved from the Saxon short sword or sword-knife, which varied from between 20cm to 45cm in length and was about 5cm wide.
A complete seaxe has not been found, although archaeologists believe the sword was straight, not curved. It is also likely that the notch was introduced to distinguish the seaxe from the scimitar. A straight seaxe was found in Kent and dates back to the 9th or 10th century: this bears the maker’s and owner’s names - Biorhtelm and Gebereht respectively - and is in the British Museum.
The weapon was found from about the 6th century and used in one form or another, as an item of a man’s personal equipment, until the 1300s.
Most certainly the coat of arms does not date back to the Saxon period as heraldry as we know it today was established in the early 12th century.
It is more likely that the Essex arms were adopted in the late 1500s by romantics and historians, or as a pun on “Es-seaxe”.
The first description of the three seaxes as the arms of Essex came in 1605 in a pamphlet A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence printed in Antwerp, Belgium. The author Verstegan says Erkenwyne, king of the East-Saxons, “did beare for his armes, three argent, in a field gules”.
In 1770, Peter Muilman’s History of Essex featured a picture of a woman unrolling a map. Next to her is a shield on which three seaxes look remarkably like fish knives. Similar arms are shown in the Chelmsford Gazette, a forerunner of the Essex Chronicle.
In 1802, the arms are used on a fire plate of the Essex Equitable Insurance Society, while the flag of the Essex Local Militia (1809-1817) in Chelmsford Cathedral shows three curved swords without notches. From then on, the design became a common representation for Essex and was used for the Sheriff’s official stamp from about 1850.