municipalities, and its intention to bear a coat of arms would trigger the high development of the municipal heraldry in Portugal. In the 1920s, the recently created Municipal Council of Marinha Grande expressed the desire to bear arms, but did not find any authority capable of creating it. It then appealed to the general public through the press. The appeal was answered by Afonso Dornellas, an heraldic specialist and member of the Portuguese Association of Archaeologists, who presented a proposal for coat of arms, flag and seal designs for the Marinha Grande municipality. This proposal was approved and adopted by the respective Municipal Council. At the same time, Dornellas created a draft of regulation for the municipal heraldry. On 14 April 1930, the Ministry of the Interior, through its Directorate General of Political and Civil Administration, issued a circular letter defining the heraldic standards to be used in the coat of arms, flags and seals of all municipalities. These were based on the regulation draft created by Dornellas. The municipal heraldic rules were reformed in 1991, but the basic standard rules established in 1930 were kept and are still in force. Most of the municipal arms were then gradually reformed in order to comply with the standard rules. In most cases, the reform kept the basic design of the original coat of arms, occasionally with a mere adjustment of the tinctures and charges in order to fully comply with the heraldic rules. However, in many cases the standardization led to a radical change, with completely new designs being introduced in some cases. While the blazon of the old municipal coat of arms tended to have an erudite meaning, with frequent references to the history of the municipality or puns regarding their names, the blazon of the municipal coat of arms introduced after 1930 tended to have more mundane meanings, frequently referring to their economical activities or landmarks. This resulted in the frequent repetition of some charges (like bunches of grapes representing the local production of wine or castles representing the existence of castles in the area), which made many of the coats of arms very similar to each other. Some municipalities refused to abandon their traditional and distinctive heraldic emblems and maintained them, even if they were non-conforming to the new standards. Caldas da Rainha, for example, kept the coat of arms that was bestowed upon the settlement by Queen