A Mysterious Print
After gaining an interest in heraldry through looking into the Rix coat of arms, I was surprised to have another opportunity arise seemingly out of nowhere.
I was rifling through some binders that had been on our bookshelves for years and I happened upon one that my wife’s grandparents had given her decades earlier about her family history. To my surprise, the following image was on the first page:
There are several oddities about the printed image. For one, the letter “K” on the shield struck me as odd. Another strange characteristic is the number of colors on the shield. Two is pretty standard for most shields (although there are exceptions). All of this made me wonder if it could possibly be accurate, or merely one of those a person can purchase from a site with the family name. Such coats of arms are usually not researched and often have no clear connection to the family in question, but only to the surname. I decided to look into it further.
There are, of course, many different spellings of the name that eventually became “Kofford.” Most of the variants are of Danish origin, specifically from the island of Bornholm. Before that, they come from Lübeck, Germany. The spelling “Covot” originates there, but then other variants appear, such as “Koffot,” “Koffod,” “Kofod,” “Koefoed,” “Kofoed,” as well as others.
The Koefoeds are a long line of nobles. The link to Lübeck is important, because it was the wealthiest city in Northern Europe in the 1400s, and the center Baltic trade. The Covot line were merchants who probably traveled back and forth between Lübeck and Bornholm.
One name that is mentioned in the records is Jens Petersen Kofoed (1628-1691). He was a complex and fascinating figure. I will not spend time on his life here, as it is documented elsewhere.
In any case, it is clear that there is a coat of arms associated with Jens, as there is a painting of him in the Bornholm Museum (see image).
In the upper right corner of that painting is a coat of arms.
The Jens Pedersen Kofoed Link
This coat of arms, although small, is still identifiable. It appears to be a red shield with a blue chevron, and the helmet atop the shield has long horns.
This coat of arms is clearly different in key ways from the print included in the binder, although the chevron as the primary shape on the shield is correct.
After some digging, I found that not only is my wife related to Jens’s aunt, Karen Hansdatter Kofoed (1600-1643), but to my great surprise I learned that I am also related to Jens’s older brother, Hans Pedersen Kofoed (1627-1677). That means that my wife and I are both directly related to Jens’s grandfather, Hans Madsen Koefoed (1547-1623). He is my 11th- and my wife’s 12th-Great Grandfather.
Hans Madsen Koefoed’s Coat of Arms
Hans was a man of some renown in Bornholm, and he had the same coat of arms attributed to him before Jens (see a short biography). Thus, my wife and I both are direct descendants from the holder of this Danish coat of arms.
As one can see from the image, it contains the same features as the image from Jens’s portrait: a chevron on the shield, and the long horns protruding from the helmet.
The Appearance of the Coat of Arms
Danish heraldry differs from English heraldry in some interesting ways (read more here). I will merely summarize for my purposes.
The horns protruding from the helmet are unique to German and Scandinavian heraldry. They are buffalo horns, called “vesselhorn.”
A Danish description of the coat of arms is called a våbenbeskrivelse. Danish heraldry does not rely on strict rules of description as does English heraldry. So in Danish, this coat of arms would be described as “I rødt en blå spar.” This would be translated as “in red a blue spade (chevron).”
I will note that it is unusual to have two colors in one shield, but as the painting above depicts, this appears accurate, as other records indicate this same design (for example) for Hans.
Other Variants
Interestingly, there are known to be some variations of this coat of arms. It is clear that the chevron is the oldest documented variant. However, the exact tincture of the chevron varies based on the line of Koefoed. The chevron design is most closely associated with Koefoeds who were linked to Lübeck, Germany, thus adopting Germanic styles which favored simple geometric shapes.
In Bornholm, however, it was much more common practice to use the literal translation of Koefoed “cow’s foot” as the image on the shield. This practice is called “Canting”. In fact, because Danes did not have official surnames for most of history (instead practicing patronymics), when they finally adopted the practice it was not unusual for some to merely take the literal description from the charges (images) on their coats of arms.
Therefore, it is perhaps not surprising that some images of the Koefoed coat of arms combines the cow’s foot with the chevron, as can be seen in the wood carving.
This one was posted by the Bornholm Museum (see original post).
In one sense, Danish heraldry was and is much less regulated than English heraldry. Personal coats of arms may be adopted and are recorded and managed by private organizations, but there is no need to prove ties to a specific coat of arms. However, I am very pleased that I do have a clear and documented link to this one, and it certainly has noble origins. There is a wealth of clear documentation of the nobility of the Koefoeds running all the way back to the “Covot” variant closely associated with Lübeck.
Summary of the Known Variants of Koefoed Arms
| Branch | Time Period | Location | Variant | Appearance |
| Lübeck merchants | 1400s-1500s | Lübeck | Red shield with chevron | See rendering above |
| Bornholm Nobles | 1500s-1700s | Pedersker, Vestermarie, Rønne | Cow passant argent on azure | A white cow walking on a blue field |
| Danish-Norwegian Military | 1600s-1700s | Rønne and Norway | Cow horns & arm with spear crest | Helmet with cow’s horns between which an arm holds a spear or lance. |
| 19th-Century Armorial Variants | 1800s | Denmark | Simplified cow/cow’s foot/geometric variants | See wood carving image above. |
Regardless of the precise appearance, the Kofford/Kofoed/Koefoed/et al. coat of arms is a wonderful and fascinating symbol of our ancestry. I am proud to share its history with my spouse and our children. I wonder how Hans would react if he could know how many of us there would be, and in America, no less.