http://www.theheraldrysociety.com/articles/early_history_of_heraldr...
The livery badge, and the livery collar, are amongst the most intriguing — and most confusing — offshoots of heraldry. The former has been with us from the beginning: Geoffrey of Anjou, recipient of the golden lions of Henry J. used the planta genista (the broom plant) that gave a dynasty its name. Ashmole, writing in The Institution, Laws and Ceremonies of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, tells us of the fourteenth century: 'This age did exceedingly abound with impresses, mottoes and devices, and particularly King Edward III was so excessively given up to them that his apparel, plate, bed, household furniture, shields, and even the harness of his horses and the like, were not without them.'