Medieval Germans Were Fuckin' Metal

The image above is a display of the arms of the member states of the Holy Roman Empire - a political entity mostly covering Germany (and other German-speaking lands) during the medieval period and the Renaissance. It was a loose confederation of many tiny, forgettable kingdoms. And they invented metal album art.

Pffft, amateurs.

Just look at that thing! That double-headed eagle transcends heraldic stuffiness and launches itself into a completely other world. It's a creature right out of hell - but it's a distinguished hell. Sure, the night-black mutated monstrosity does have crimson eyes that open directly into a realm of flame and torture and nightmarish huge joker grins from which ghastly blood-coloured tongues emerge to lap pure sin from your wounds. Sure, it's got claws so hooked and unnaturally vicious that they could rip a man's heart out in a moment, and the whole thing is so dark and terrifying that it somehow manages to eclipse the image of the savior of mankind nailed to a piece of wood and left to die that has been laid over it. But let us not forget: it also has crowns. And halos.

And -- holy shit -- are those flaming meteors with crowns or something?

Unfortunately it would be some five hundred years before anyone wrote music that would be benefiting of such hardcore artwork, not to mention the entire concept of an album at all. But you can tell that they were definitely heading in the right direction. Kudos, Holy Roman Empire. Rock on.