However, it is important to note that a given coat-of-arms is defined by a written description, called a "Blazon". To draw it is to emblazon it. To ensure that the pictures people draw after reading the descriptions are accurate and reasonably alike, blazons follow a set of rules. The first thing the blazon describes is the tincture (colour) of the field (background) (though in some cases of "landscape heraldry" all or part of the field is some sort of landscape), and then it describes the placement and tinctures of the different charges (objects) on the shield. The charges on a shield are described from the top to the base, from dexter to sinister. Dexter ("right" in Latin) is the left side of the shield, and sinister ("left") is the right, as seen by the viewer. The reason for this is that they refer to the shield-bearer's point of view, not the observer's.
A given coat-of-arms may be drawn in many different ways, all considered equivalent, just as the Letter "A" may be printed in many different fonts while still being the same letter.1 For example, almost always the shape of the shield is immaterial and different artists can depict the same coat of arms on many different shapes of shield.
There are no strict definitions of the shades of colours used in heraldry, but the usual practice is to use bold, vivid colours rather than Pastel shades.
The word "crest" is commonly used to refer to a coat-of-arms. However, in heraldry, a crest is just one component of a coat-of-arms, so using the word to refer to the entire coat is in fact incorrect. In a complete depiction of a coat-of-arms, the crest is a design affixed to the Helmet. Crests can also be used on their own; this is particularly useful when there is insufficient space to display the entire coat-of-arms, and this practice may be the origin of the popular usage.
Very rarely and almost invariably in non-European contexts, such as the arms of Nunavut, the former Republic of Bophuthatswana and some Algerian civic heraldry of French colonial origin, specific shapes of shield are specified in the blazon (and the specific type of shield is sometimes followed to the extent, as in the arms of Gauteng, that structures in the shield (in that case "shield thongs") function as charges).
In rare instances the shield may be blazoned as being displayed on a cartouche, the tincture of which is then specified.
| The arms of The Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven and the late Sir Denis Thatcher, Bt | |
| [image] | [image] |
| A lozenge, the traditional shape of a woman's coat of arms | A shield, traditionally used only by a man |
There are seven main tinctures, consisting of two metals (light tinctures) and five colours (dark tinctures), although there are a number of other rare tinctures. The names of the tinctures mainly come to us from French. The first rule of heraldry is the rule of tincture: metal must never be placed upon metal, nor colour upon colour, for the sake of contrast. [image]
| Tincture | Heraldic name |
|---|---|
| Metals | |
| Gold/Yellow | Or * |
| Silver/White | Argent |
| Colours | |
| Blue | Azure |
| Red | Gules |
| Purple | Purpure |
| Black | Sable |
| Green | Vert |
Furs, such as Ermine, ermines, or vair, are regular variations of the field that represent various types of actual Fur. Any charge may be of a fur.
There also exists, though rarely, two "stains": tenny/tawny (orange) and brown.
Proper: Objects may also be depicted in their natural colours. In this case, they are described as "proper".
Blazon: Historically the custom in English Blazon was to reduce redundancy by referring to a particular tincture only once in the blazon, but the College of Arms has moved away from this practice in recent years.
The field of a shield in heraldry can be divided into more than one tincture, as can the various charges. The divisions are named according to the ordinary that shares their shape. (It should be noticed that French heraldry takes a different approach in many cases than the one described in this article, as do the heraldries of Italy, Spain, and Sweden.)
Common partitions of the field are:
Common animals are lions, leopards, martlets, eagles, gryphons, fish, boars or dolphins. There are dragons and unicorns as well, but they are not nearly as common as most people suppose. Possibly the rarest animal in heraldry is found in the coat of arms of Maidstone, Kent, which bears an Iguanodon rampant on the dexter side. An animal shown langue (with its Tongue sticking out) denotes fierceness or a roar.
The default position of an animal is looking dexter. Animals are found in various different positions - a flying martlet is a martlet volant, a swimming dolphin is a dolphin naiant, and a walking lion is a lion passant. Other words for positions are rampant (on hind legs), salient (leaping), sejant (sitting) and gardant (looking at the viewer). There are humans as well, although they are unusual, like wild men or Saracens. If you show only the head of, say, a lion, cut off at the neck, it is a lion's head couped if the cut is straight, and erased if it looks as if the animal's head has been ripped off.
Common objects are escallops (shells), crosses, mullets (a conventional five-pointed star shape, as on the American flag, which in fact represent spurs), crescents, Bugle-horns, water-bougets, gauntlets, and different kinds of trees, flowers, leaves, and other plants. Circles are generally called "roundels", but in England instead of being described a roundel vert, they have different names depending on colour: bezants if they are golden, plates if Silver, torteaux if red, hurts if Blue, pellets or ogresses if Black, pommes if Green, oranges if orange, and guzes if Sanguine. A roundel that is barry wavy argent and azure is called a fountain. This over-specialisation is peculiar to English heraldry; in French heraldry, for example, metal roundels are bezants and all others (colours and furs) are tourteaux.
Ordinaries (sometimes called "honourable ordinaries") are almost like partitions, but are handled like objects. Though there is much debate as to exactly which geometrical charges constitute ordinaries, certain ones are agreed on by everyone. A pale is a vertical charge starting from the top of the shield, ending at the bottom, and wide as a third of the shield's width. (The "Canadian pale", identical to the pale but taking up one-half the shield's width, was invented in 1964 by Conrad Swan, retired Garter King of Arms) ; it can be seen in the arms of Rehder. A Fess is the same thing as a pale, only horizontal.
There are also bends, saltires, flaunches and crosses, as well as chiefs, piles and chevrons.
A chief is a fess situated in the upper third of the shield. It can be associated with the fillet, a quite narrow horizontal band running along the bottom of the chief, although it can be difficult if not impossible sometimes to distinguish between a fillet and a chief fimbriated, as the fimbriation of a chief occurs only along the lower line. (Fimbriation is the narrow bordering of the outline of a charge, with is then said to be fimbrated or fimbriated; a "fimbriation containing six diagonal 'tics' radiating" occurs in the badge of the 25th Flying Training Squadron of the United States Air Force.) The term edged is sometimes used in a similar context. There is at least one example of a triple fimbriation.) The fillet is sometimes inaccurately described as a diminutive of the chief, but the chief has no diminutive. It is important to note that a chief "enhanced" (which gives it a narrower appearance), as in the arms of Martin F. J. Matthews , is not a diminutive.
Probert , Guillim and others say that if one chief is "surmounted of another" (one chief is charged on another chief) it will have the appearance of a chief divided by a line running along the upper part of the "chief". The rare "chief couped" is a chief that falls short of reaching the dexter and sinister sides of the shield; the representation of Stonehenge in the arms of Sir Cecil Chubb, "the Baronet who owned Stonehenge and gifted it to the nation", show an example. Chiefs are more commonly seen, though not blazoned as, couped when within a tressure.
A chevron looks like a saw's tooth, arching from the middle of the left side of the shield to the middle of the right.
A bordure is just that, a border around the shield. A bordure separated from the outside of the shield, which looks like a shield with another shield cut out of it, is an orle. Confusingly, when a number of charges (by default, eight) are arranged in the position that a bordure (not an orle) would be in, they are said to be "in orle".
A quarter is the top left (dexter chief in heraldry) quarter of the shield; this is the default position. The top right quarter is a sinister quarter.
The pall is a Y-shaped charge throughout the field, common to Scotland.
The diminutive of the pale is the pallet and the diminutive of the fess is the bar. (The diminutive of the bar is the barrulet; barrulets are never borne singly. Bars are likewise rarely borne singly, though the arms of Scheffeld are amazingly blazoned as having one-and-a-half bars.) "Barry of <number>" means that the background is divided into that number of horizontal stripes. There are diminutives of most partitions, like "bendy of" or "paly of". It should be noted that in order to be described as "barry" or "paly" there must be an even number of stripes, otherwise it is a field of x tincture and y pallets or bars. Thus the shield of the United States of America, though officially described as "Paly of thirteen argent and gules, a chief azure", is no such thing; it is "Argent, six pallets gules and a chief azure".
The diminutive of the bend sinister is the scarpe.
The diminutive of the chevron is the chevronel.
The diminutive of the quarter is the canton, a square occupying, in theory, the upper left third of the shield. In theory a canton is never an original part of the shield, but some form of later addition, but this is not true in practice. Another charge can be completely hidden by the canton (sometimes, if the charge is not part of a predictable pattern of like charges laid out elsewhere on the shield, making it impossible to correctly blazon the shield); the charge so hidden is then called "absconded". (A highly unusual example of a quarter absconding charges can be seen when Robert Stewart, Lord of Lorn, marshalled his arms with those of Lorn: "Or a fess chequy of four tracts Azure and Argent between two buckles in chief and a garb in base of the Second; a sinister quarter Or bearing a lymphad Sable with sail set absconding one of the buckles and part of the fess; in the dexter base another quarter of the same absconding part of the fess". ) When a shield contains both a fess and canton they are always shown in their theoretical size, and with no dividing line between them; as they appear to be one continuous thing, blazoning a shield with a fess and canton can be confusing for the novice. The canton can be borne sinister (unless blazoned "a canton sinister" the canton is dexter), but this rarely happens.
A charge "in canton" is located in the position in which a canton would be.
The diminutive of the canton is the chequer of the chequy field (but this never occurs alone).
An escutcheon is a shield; it is usually shown in the shape of the larger shield it is on. An orle is a voided escutcheon.
If you put a mullet on a bend, the bend "is charged with" the mullet.
Any type of charge, but usually ordinaries and subordinaries, can be "voided"; without further description, this means that the charge has been "emptied" with a hole in the shape of the charge revealing the field behind it, and only a border has been left. It is possible, however, though highly unusual, that the voiding, the hole, is of a different tincture than the field behind the charge, which tincutre must then be specified; for example, "Argent, a mullet gules, voided or". It is also possible that the voiding is of a different shape than the voided charge, as in the arms of Newton Technical High School in South Africa: "Quarterly gules and sable; a lozenge or voided of a quatrefoil; at its centre a cog wheel argent; the whole within a border or".
Special charges known as "differences" may distinguish otherwise similar blazons; these often indicate "Cadency", or what number son owns the shield, to distinguish him from other sons and the father.
Other items may be added to the coat, such as a helmet (decorated with Mantling) in a variety of meaningful postures and designs; Supporters on either side of the shield and the Compartment on which they usually stand; and a variety of medals, ribbons, mural crowns and other decorations. These items are often granted as special honours by the sovereign.
Other elements denoting the status of the bearer could be placed behind the shield. Those include anchors in saltire for admirals, batons for marshals etc. In ecclesiastic heraldry Crosier are also used.
An armiger may be entitled, depending upon their rank to several other items.
Some people who have interests in heraldry as a hobby participate in the Society for Creative Anachronism and other such medieval revivals, or in micronationalism. Many more people see heraldry as a part of their national, and even personal, heritage, as well as a manifestation of civic and national pride.
| The Heraldry Series |
|---|
| Blazon | Crest | Compartment | Field | Line | Mantling | Quartering | Shield | Supporters | Tincture |
| Argent | Azure | Carnation | Celeste | Cendrée | Gules | Murrey | Or | Purpure | Sable | Sanguine | Tenné | Vert |
| Bend | Canton | Chevron | Chief | Cross | Fess | Fillet | Flaunch | Pall | Pale | Saltire |