For example, there are lions on the coat of arms of Britain or Norway, but there are no lions there.
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Maybe **because** they don’t live in Europe and thus are considered exotic.
Also they are a predator who is pretty much at the top of the food pyramid (apex predator?).
They are big and strong.
It seems obvious to me why aristocratic people (or lords, kings and the sorts) would want to identify with a lion (eg opposed to a snail or a rat or an emu …)
Technically, lions lived in Greece and the Balkans until relatively recently. The European lion went extinct but iirc there were around during archaic Greece. There’s some stories about lions in Greek mythology. But they never inhabited Western or Northern Europe.
I think the three lions of the English coat are from the lions that were given to an English king as a gift. Historians suspect that they could have been cheetahs really but the Brits had obviously never seen a lion before. They certainly don’t look like a lion in the heraldry but more of a smaller big cat species. Idk about the other coats of arms
They used to live in Europe. They just went extinct.
That being said, that extinction was somewhere between 1000bc and 300bc depending on estimates. So they definitely weren’t around in medieval times. Still, people travel, and the mighty beast from distant lands makes for a good symbol. After all, dragons and unicorns are very common in heraldry as well.
This made me curious so I looked it up. Found an article where a bunch of historians argued about how it started but then I found this [Reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/ijcMMrwWF5) that explains it well but the basic TLDR/ELi5 is lions were known by Greeks and Romans so they used them for their games and started incorporating them into their art, statues, etc. as a symbol of strength and courage and also cause they are badass (my words) so when British royalty became aware of lions existence years later and saw how badass they are (again my words) from the art statues and such, they adopted it into their royal crests and whatever else as a symbol of courage, strength, leadership etc. Not the best explanation it’s a cool thing though, id read the Reddit post I linked.
Lions did live in Europe until the 10th century CE, but let’s skip over that.
Lions are a symbol of ferocity and royalty. *The king of the jungle.* They have sexual dimorphism, as well, leading them to be used symbolically in different ways, whether depicted as a male or female. They are imposing figures in person and have always inspired awe and fear in those who have beheld them.
Lions in heraldry probably date back to their African origin, wherein most Bantu languages use the word *lion* synonymously with *king*. For example, the opening to **The Lion King**, begins with the cry “Nants inGonyama bagiti baba!”, Zulu for “Look, father, here comes a [lion/king]!” Some variation of the word *nGonyama* is present in most Bantu languages referring to both a lion and a leader, and has even been used as a proper title for royalty on the continent, such as the current king of the Zulu nation, nGonyama Misuzulu Sinqobile kaZwelithini.
When the Roman empire expanded itself into Africa and Greece after the Macedonian wars around 146 BCE, lions were captured by traders and brought to market and as tribute to rulers. Word of this spread all across Europe, and initially, they were believed to be mythical creatures. Their depiction in heraldry began before anyone drawing lions in western Europe had ever seen one; there was no photography. Also, people back then *just couldn’t draw that well*. This is why they look so inaccurate on crests and flags.
There used to be lions throughout Africa, even all along the Mediterranean coast. Lions were also found all over the Middle east and India. And even the Balkans have historical evidence for wild lions. The reason why Lions are so heavily featured in for example the Bible is because wild lions lived in Palestine in biblical times and were only hunted to extinction around the time of the crusades.
We do not know the much about the lion population in Spain, France and Italy but we can safely say they went extinct before written history. And there are no evidence of wild lions in northern Europe. But there are plenty of evidence of captured or tame lions. Lions were a common Zoo animal in the ancient world. Especially in Rome where they would import lions in the hundreds. As you got further north lions became more rare but you would still have a number of lion pelts and stuffed lions making their way north. And people would travel south to Italy or even Africa itself where they would see lions and tell storied about it when they came home.
This is probably why the lion was seen as more powerful in these regions. There were plenty of dangerous animals such as bears and wolves but when people were living with these they seamed not that bad. However stories of big lions would often make them stronger and deadlier.
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I like how of the two animals on the UK coat of arms, the lion was what you took umbrage with due to it not being indigenous to the British isles, rather than the unicorn.
There’s a lot of wrong or incomplete answers in this thread. Talking about extinct European lions is kind of a red herring because it doesn’t help people know what a lion is if somebody saw one a thousand years ago.
The real answer is books. We often forget that important medieval people were either literate themselves, or literary, in that they liked to hear stories and could get a literate person to read to them. There are lions in the bible, in classical literature, and in martyrdom stories of saints (fed to lions in the arena and all that). All of these kinds of literature made their way north with Christianity. People became familiar with symbolically important animals and their literary associations as a result, and they then got used in heraldry.
Moreover, Medieval Christians believed that the world itself was a kind of artifact of God, since God created everything in it, so cataloging everything in creation seemed like a worthwhile project. Hence, the medieval bestiary. A good example is the [Aberdeen Bestiary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberdeen_Bestiary) from the 12th century. Now crucially these were not field guides, they were not made by people going out into nature and observing all the animals that were there. Instead they were made by reading christian and classical texts and cataloging the references. So in the Aberdeen bestiary, for example, you can learn about lots of animals that the authors had never seen, but knew about from old texts, including lions, apes, and crocodiles, but also satyrs, basilisks and dragons.
It’s kind of funny to note here that because these texts don’t distinguish what is fantastical and what is real but exotic, there were probably a lot of cynical medieval people who assumed lions were made up. Or, there may have been knights who went on crusade expecting to see dragons and leucrottas and unicorns in the holy land as much as they expected to see lions and elephants.
In Norway – its a OLD thing going back to Magnus the 6th (lagabøter) around 1200s – And as Scandinavias royals often have been somewhat close, either by conflict or family, it has been a tradition for a long time. I guess it has something to do that if you were a King, people would bring gifts and many times that was exotic animals, and the lion was seen as an animal with power, courage and “kingdom” – as in we call it “the king of the jungle”
His name “lagabøter” means “making laws” by the way – and he is famous for basically creating the first set of national laws, sort of like magna carta. I have the “riksløven” (state lion) as a tattoo 😛
Edit: Im not sure if we have lions in the zoo, but would imagine so. We have in modern times put penguins on the list of animals we like. Promoting [“Sir Nils Olav” to Brigadier.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq-6wUWffkA) I think the Norwegian King has a title in Edinburgh, like “protector of the city” or something like that, so thats probably why they chose Edinburgh zoo.
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