Coat of Arms & Family Crest Details
J. B. Rietstap, Armorial Général, Gouda: G. B. van Goor Zonen, 1884–87
Blazon (the actual original written record)“Ec.: aux 1 et 4 de gu. à trois fleurs-de-lis d'or; aux 2 et 3 de sin. à une aigle d'or.”
A record of documented arms, meaning and origin, researched for the Villabroza family of Portugal.
J. B. Rietstap, Armorial Général, Gouda: G. B. van Goor Zonen, 1884–87
Blazon (the actual original written record)“Ec.: aux 1 et 4 de gu. à trois fleurs-de-lis d'or; aux 2 et 3 de sin. à une aigle d'or.”

The Villabroza arms were recorded in Portugal, c. 1706.
Arms such as these were typically recorded in Lisboa.
Lisbon was the seat of the Portuguese crown and the port its wealth came through. Families made rich by trade and by service to the king took arms, and the crown's heralds recorded them there.
This is where the arms were entered in the register. Families often moved to other parts of the country, so the same name can turn up in more than one region.
In Portugal, a coat of arms was a family possession that passed from a father to his children. Every legitimate descendant had the right to use the family shield without needing to change it. Younger branches of the family kept the original design, though they sometimes added small symbols to distinguish their specific line from the main branch.
The family name Villabroza finds its historical roots in the Iberian Peninsula, with documented evidence placing early members of the family in the city of Lisboa by the year 1706. The name itself follows a traditional Spanish and Portuguese structure, likely derived from a combination of the word villa, meaning a town or estate, and a specific geographic or descriptive term. During the early eighteenth century, families with this surname were often part of the urban middle class or minor nobility who played roles in the administrative and commercial life of the Portuguese capital. As Lisboa was a major hub for global trade and colonial administration at the time, the Villabroza family likely benefited from the city’s status as a center of cultural and economic exchange. Over the following generations, the family name spread as individuals moved through the various territories connected to the Portuguese empire, carrying their history from the streets of Lisboa to other regions.
A country house or estate located near a brushwood or thicket.
