Heraldic Refinement from the Times of the Phanariotes
On July 25, 1784, a certain Logofeteasă Păuna donated two serfs to the Gănescu Monastery in Craiova, for the ‘peace of the soul’. This Păuna was most likely Păuna Fratoștițeanu, mentioned in the 1791 commemorative register of the monastery.
According to customs, the deed – now found in the Historical Documents (Documente istorice in Romanian), Library of the Romanian Academy – was authenticated with a seal bearing an elegantly rendered coat of arms: an oval cartouche featuring an equestrian representation (presumably a military saint); the cartouche is surmounted by a count's coronet, from which three ostrich feathers emerge as a crest, and is supported by two eagles in profile, with outstretched wings, the dexter one clutching in its talons a heart with a cross, while the sinister one is clutching an arrow. The entire composition rests upon arabesques with intricate contours, accompanied by the Cyrillic initials ‘Ф’ and ‘Л’.
The heraldic seal of Logofeteasă Păuna Fratoștițeanu from a 1784 document, Historical Documents, Library of the Romanian Academy
The seal impression illustrates that the Wallachian boyars of the late 18th century occasionally utilized symbols crafted in accordance with Western heraldic rules, executed by skilled craftsmen and personalized with initials.
It is noteworthy to mention the presence of the count's coronet, an ornament that would later find widespread use in the Moldavian-Wallachian boyar heraldry of the 19th century, surpassing the number of families who had truly received this title from foreign sovereigns, such as Bălăceanu, Dudescu, Năsturel, and others.
