Fig. 441.
Fig. 440.
The fifteenth century shows the eagle with sachsen forming a half circle, the pinions spread out and radiating therefrom, and the claws more at a right angle (Fig. 442). The sixteenth century draws the eagle in a more ferocious aspect, and depicts it in as ornamental and ornate a manner as possible.
From Konrad Grünenberg's Wappenbuch (Constance, 1483) is reproduced the shield (Fig. 443) with the boldly sketched Adlerflügel mit Schwerthand (eagle's wing with the sword hand), the supposed arms of the Duke of Calabria.
Quite in the same style is the eagle of Tyrol on a corporate flag of the Society of the Schwazer Bergbute (Fig. 444), which belongs to the last quarter of the fifteenth century. This is reproduced from the impression in the Bavarian National Museum given in Hefner-Alteneck's "Book of Costumes."
A modern German eagle drawn by H. G. Ströhl is shown in Fig. 445. The illustration is of the arms of the Prussian province of Brandenburg.
The double eagle has, of course, undergone a somewhat similar development.
The double eagle occurs in the East as well as in the West in very early times. Since about 1335 the double eagle has appeared sporadically as a symbol of the Roman-German Empire, and under the Emperor Sigismund (d. 1447) became the settled armorial device of the Roman Empire. King Sigismund, before his coronation as Emperor, bore the single-headed eagle.