I've just started out with OpenGL I still haven't really understood what Vertex Array Objects are and how they can be employed.

If Vertex Buffer Object are used to store vertex data (such as their positions and texture coordinates) and the VAOs only contain status flags, where can they be used? What's their purpose?

As far as I understood from the (very incomplete and unclear) GL Wiki, VAOs are used to set the flags/status for every vertex, following the order described in the Element Array Buffer, but the wiki was really ambiguous about it and I'm not really sure about what VAOs really do and how I could employ them.