Variation of the field
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Patterning with ordinaries and subordinaries
The diminutives of the ordinaries are frequently employed to vary the field.
Any of these patterns may be counterchanged by the addition of a division line; for example, barry argent and azure, counterchanged per fess or checquy Or and gules, counterchanged per chevron.
Barry, paly, bendy, pily, chevronny
When the field is patterned with an even number of horizontal (fesswise) stripes, this is described as barry e.g. of six or eight, usually of a colour and metal specified, e.g. barry of six argent and gules (this implies that the chiefmost piece is argent).[a] With ten or more pieces, the field is described as barruly. A field with narrow piles throughout, issuing from either the dexter or sinister side of the shield, is barry pily.
When the field is patterned with an even number of vertical stripes (pallets), the field is described as paly.
When the field is patterned with a series of diagonal stripes (bendlets), running from top-left to bottom-right, the field is described as bendy. In the opposite fashion (top-right to bottom-left) it is bendy sinister (of skarpes, the diminutive in England of the bend sinister); of chevronels, chevronny. An unusual example of bendy is one in which a metal alternates with two colours.[3]
In modern practice the number of pieces is nearly always even. A shield of thirteen vertical stripes, alternating argent and gules, would not be paly of thirteen, argent and gules, but argent, six pallets gules.[b][4] One unusual design is described in part as bendy of three though, as each third is again divided, the effect is of a six-part division.[5]
If no number of pieces is specified, it may be left up to the heraldic artist, but is still represented with an even number.
An instance of a fess... paly Sable, Argent, Bleu celeste and Or occurs in the arms of the 158th Quartermaster Battalion of the United States Army,[6] although this is atypical terminology and it could be argued that the fess should be blazoned as "per pale, in dexter per pale Sable and Argent, and in sinister per pale Bleu Celeste and Or".
In the modern arms of the Count of Schwarzburg, the quarters are divided by a cross bendy of three tinctures.
When the shield is divided by lines both palewise and bendwise, with the pieces coloured alternately like a chess board, this is paly-bendy; if the diagonal lines are reversed, paly-bendy sinister.[7] If horizontal rather than vertical lines are used, it is barry-bendy; and similarly, when reversed, barry-bendy sinister.
A field which seems to be composed of a number of triangular pieces is barry bendy and bendy sinister.
Chequy
When divided by palewise and fesswise lines into a chequered pattern, the field is chequy. The coat of arms of Croatia Chequy gules and argent is well known example of red and white chequy.[8] The arms of "Bleichröder, banker to Bismarck",[9] show chequy fimbriated (the chequers being divided by thin lines). The arms of the 85th Air Division (Defense) of the United States Air Force show "a checky grid" on part of the field, though this is to be distinguished from "chequy".[10] The number of chequers is generally indeterminate, though the fess in the arms of Robert Stewart, Lord of Lorn, they are blazoned as being "of four tracts" (in four horizontal rows);[11] and in arms of Toledo, fifteen chequers are specified. The number of vertical rows can also be specified. When a bend or bend sinister, or one of their diminutives, is chequy, the chequers follow the direction of the bend unless otherwise specified. James Parker cites the French term equipolle to mean chequy of nine, though mentions that this is identical to a cross quarter-pierced (strangely, this is blazoned as "a Latin square chequy of nine" in the arms of the Statistical Society of Canada).[12] He also gives the arms of Prospect as an unusual example of chequy, Chequy in perspective argent and sable;[13] which must be distinguished from cubes as a charge.[14] Chequy is not "fanciable"; that is, the lines of chequy cannot be modified by lines of partition.[15]
Lozengy, fusilly, masculy and rustré
When the shield is divided by both bendwise and bendwise-sinister lines, creating a field of lozenges coloured like a chessboard, the result is lozengy.[c] A field lozengy must be distinguished from an ordinary such as a bend which is blazoned of one tincture and called "lozengy"; this means that the ordinary is entirely composed of lozenges, touching at their obtuse corners. Such arrangement is better blazoned as lozenges bendwise. [d] In paly bendy the bendwise lines are supposed to be less acute than in plain lozengy.[18]
Part of the field of the arms of the 544th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group of the United States Air Force is lozengy in perspective.[19]
A field fusilly can be very difficult to distinguish from a field lozengy;[e] the fusil is supposed to be proportionately narrower than the lozenge, and the bendwise and bendwise-sinister lines are therefore more steeply sloped.
A field masculy is composed entirely of
An extremely rare, possibly unique example of a field rustré - counterchanged rustres - occurs in Canadian heraldry in the arms of R.C. Purdy Chocolates Ltd.[20]
Gyronny
A shield that is divided quarterly and per saltire, forming eight triangular pieces, is gyronny. This is technically a field covered with "gyrons", a rare charge in the form of a
Variations of lines
Any of the division lines composing the variations of the field above may be blazoned with most of the different
Semé
When the field (or a charge) is described as semé or semy of a
To avoid confusion with a simple use of a large number of the same charge (e.g. Azure, fifteen fleurs-de-lis Or), the charges semé are ideally depicted cut off at the edge of the field, though in olden depictions this is often not the case. An example of this can be found in the modern Coat of arms of Denmark, which now features three lions among nine hearts, but the ancient arms depicted three leopards on a semy of hearts, the number of which varied and was not fixed at nine until 1819. There are also some exceptions to this, as in the case of some bordures blazoned "semé", which are usually depicted with a discrete number (often eight) of the charge. Thus for example the arms of Jesus College, Cambridge, which despite a blazon of "seme" are invariably depicted with either eight or ten "crowns Golde" on its bordure. A large number (usually eight) of any one charge arranged as if upon an invisible bordure is said to be in orle, an orle being a diminutive band within the bordure.[26]
Most small charges can be depicted as semé, e.g. semé of roses, semé of estoiles, and so forth. In English heraldry, several types of small charges have special terms to refer to their state as semé:
- semé of cross-crosslets: crusily
- semé of fleurs-de-lis: semé-de-lis
- semé of bezants: bezanté
- semé of plates: platé
- semé of billets: billeté
- semé of annulets: annulletty
- semé of sparks: étincellé;
- semé of gouttes ("drops" (of liquid)): gouttée / guttée, with variants:[27]
- Guttée-de-sang (blood, gules)
- Guttée-de-poix (pitch (bitumen), sable)
- Guttée-d'eau (water, argent)
- Guttée-de-larmes (tears, azure)
- Guttée-d'olives (olives, vert)
- semé of torteaux (roundels gules): tortelly
When a field semé is of a metal, the charges strewn on it must be of a colour, and vice versa, so as not to offend the rule of tincture.
In Cornish heraldry the arms granted to the Hockin family are Per fesse wavy gules and azure, in chief a lion passant gardant or beneath the feet a musket lying fesswise proper the base semy of fleurs-de-lis confusedly dispersed of the third,[28] alluding to an incident in which the Cornish soldier Thomas Hockin caused the French to scatter.[29]
The 1995-2002 arms of Rogaška Slatina, Slovenia show Vert, semee of disks or decreasing in size from base to chief.[30]
The heraldic furs of the ermine family appear to be semé of the "ermine dots," but they are not counted as such. Fields semy of ermine spots are when the ermine spots are on a background other than argent.[h]
Masoned
A field or ordinary masoned shows a pattern like that of a brick or ashlar stone wall. This can be "proper" or of a named tincture. The tincture relates to the mortar between the stones or bricks: a wall of red bricks with white mortar is thus blazoned gules masoned argent.[33]
Honeycomb
The town of Viļāni, Latvia, has part of its field honeycombed.[34] Another example of this is in the arms of Fusagasugá, Cundinamarca, Colombia.[35]
Folds
The arms of the Special Troops Battalion of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division of the United States Army has the unique field Per pale Sable and Gules with stylized folds Sanguine, the sinister half of the field symbolizing a warrior's cape.
Pappellony
A field pappellony (French: Papillon, "butterfly") shows a pattern like the wings of a butterfly, though this is categorised as a fur.[36] The number of rows of pappellony are sometimes defined, such as seven in the arms of the Aleberici Family of Bologna. The ancient arms of the French Barons de Châteaubriant were Gules papellony or. The Italian term squamoso and the French écaillé, meaning 'scaly', are similar.[37]
Pied at random
Used in some South-African coats, this means patterned like the markings of a
Tapissé of wheat
A field tapissé of wheat is entirely covered (literally "carpeted") by an interlocking stylised pattern looking like a wheat field.[40]
Diapering
In English heraldry, diapering, or covering areas of flat colour with a tracery design, is not considered a variation of the field; it is not specified in blazon, being a decision of the individual artist. A coat depicted with diapering is considered the same as a coat drawn from the same blazon but depicted without diapering.
In French heraldry, diapering is sometimes explicitly blazoned.
Fretty and trellisé
A field fretty is composed of bendlets and bendlets-sinister or "scarps", interleaved over one another to give the impression of a trellis. Although almost invariably the bendlets and scarpes are of the same tincture, there is an example in which they are of two different metals.
Trellisé appears in the arms of Luc-Normand Tellier, where it consists of "bendlets, bendlets sinister and barrulets" interlaced.[45] These are not, strictly speaking, variations of the field, since they are depicted as being on the field rather than in it.
Blazoning of French adjectives
Variations of the field present a particular problem concerning consistent spelling of adjectival endings in English
- "... for to describe two hands as appaumées, because the word MAIN is feminine in French, savours somewhat of pedantry. A person may be a good armorist, and a tolerable French scholar, and still be uncertain whether an Escallop-shell, covered with bezants, should be blazoned as bezanté or bezantée."[46]
Cussans (1898) adopted the convention of spelling all French adjectives in the masculine singular, without regard to the gender and number of the nouns they qualify; however, as Cussans admits, the commoner convention is to spell all French adjectives in the feminine singular form, for example: a chief undée and a saltire undée, even though the French nouns chef and sautoir are in fact masculine.[46]
Notes
- Kingdom of Hawai'i show a very unusual example of barry of three different tinctures, and there are even more exceptional examples of barry of a single tincture, as in the arms of Kempten on the Zurich roll.[1] The arms of Eyfelsberg zum Weyr provide a perhaps unique example of barry of four different tinctures that do not repeat.[2]
- Great Seal of the United States of America. The incorrect blazon is usually used anyway, to preserve the reference to the thirteen original colonies, and this form is occasionally imitated allusively.
- ^ Generally lozengy is depicted with the lozenges narrower in width than would be bendy bendy-sinister, which at least in theory would be a different field.
- Royal arms of Bavaria have occasionally been blazoned as lozengy fesswise; that is, with the narrower axis of the component lozenges vertically rather than horizontally oriented. Similarly, Landkreis Erding adopted arms with a chief bendy lozengy,[16] and the arms of the Crofts of Dalton-in-Furness, Lancashire, England are Bendy lozengy argent and sable.[17]
- ^ In early days[when?] no clear distinction was made between lozenges and fusils
- ^ There are apparently very rare examples in which gyronny is of more than two tinctures, such as the arms of Origo of Milan: Gyronny, sable, argent, vert, sable, argent, vert, sable, vert.[22]
- ^ There cannot be gyronny of four, as that would be either per saltire or quarterly; or three, as that would be tierced in pairle or tierced in pairle reversed.
- ^ See the coat of Wrexham County Borough Council.[31]
References
- ^ "Zurich roll". Archived from the original on August 6, 2011.
- ^ Woodward & Burnett (1892), p. 669
- ^ "The Arms of Dr. Murray Lee Eiland Jr". The Armorial Register - International Register of Arms. Retrieved 8 January 2017.
- ^ "Members' Roll of Arms: Buchanan-Boardman, Charles Edward Sean". theheraldrysociety.com.
- ^ "Christopher Harrington Jones". Canadian Register of Arms, Flags and Badges.
- ^ "158 Quartermaster Battalion". United States Army Institute of Heraldry. Archived from the original on 2006-09-11. Retrieved 2005-04-01.
- ^ "The Heraldry Society - members' arms: Anthony Wood". Archived from the original on March 15, 2005.
- ISBN 1-56898-145-7
- ^ François Velde (June 19, 2008). "Jewish Heraldry: Other ennobled Jews in Europe". heraldica.org. Archived from the original on July 2, 1998. Retrieved January 19, 2005.
- ^ "Factsheets : 85 Air Division (Defense)". Archived from the original on 2012-10-30.
- ^ "Differencing a.k.a. Cadency. Chapter Six: The Quarter and the Canton". Journalists' & Authors' Guide to Heraldry and Titles. 2002. Archived from the original on 2020-11-29. Retrieved 2004-01-25.
- ^ "Letters Patent Confering the SSC Arms". Archived from the original on 2009-12-17. Retrieved 2010-02-12.
- ^ Parker & Gough (1894), p. 104
- ^ "Our Coat of Arms". Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Sampson, G.R. (2002). "Historical Trends in Choice of Ordinaries and Charges". The Coat of Arms. 16: 41–58.—see footnote 16
- ^ "Erding County (Germany)". Flags of the World.
- ^ Burke (1884), p. 245
- ^ Parker & Gough (1894), p. 384
- ^ The Institute of Heraldry. "544th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissaince Group". Archived from the original on November 16, 2016.
- ^ "R.C. Purdy Chocolates Ltd". The Public Register of Arms, Flags and Badges of Canada.
- ^ Debrett's Peerage, 1968, p.75[full citation needed]
- ^ Woodward & Burnett (1892), p. 86
- ^ "Armoria academica - University of Zululand". Armoria academica. Archived from the original on 2009-10-27.
- ^ "Members' Roll of Arms: Phillips, David". theheraldrysociety.com.
- ^ Fox-Davies (1909), pp. 101
- ^ Pimbley, Arthur Francis (1908). "Orle". Pimbley's Dictionary of Heraldry. Baltimore: Pimbley. p. 49.
- ^ Parker & Gough (1894), p. 291
- ^ Parker & Gough (1894), p. 421; Burke (1884), p. 494
- ^ "CORNISH VALOUR". www.telecall.co.uk.
- ^ "Slovenia - Communities, part 14 (Raz-Sev)". The Flags & Arms of the Modern Era (FAME).
- ^ "CIVIC HERALDRY OF ENGLAND AND WALES-WALES CURRENT". www.civicheraldry.co.uk.
- OCLC 3674935.
- ^ "Peter John Crabtree". The Public Register of Arms, Flags and Badges of Canada.
- ^ "Viļānu pilsēta" [The city of Viļāni]. vilani.lv (in Latvian).
- ^ "Nuestros Símbolos" [Our Symbols]. fusagasuga-cundinamarca.gov.co (in Spanish).
- ^ "Lydia O'Shannan". Forgotten Sea Heraldry.
- ^ Mendola, Louis (1997). "Distinguishing Characteristics of Medieval Italian Heraldry". Archived from the original on February 10, 2014.
- ^ Radburn, Arthur (November 2006). "Tinctures". South African Heraldry. Archived from the original on 27 October 2009.
- ^ "Ehlanzeni District Municipality (Nelspruit, Mpumalanga)". National Archives and Records Service of South Africa.
On an Nguni oxhide shield Sable, in the dexter flank pied at random to base Argent
[permanent dead link]; "Nquthu (Local) Municipality (Kwazulu-Natal)". National Archives and Records Service of South Africa.On a traditional oxhide shield Argent and Brunatre at random proper
- ^ "Barbara Uteck". The Public Register of Arms, Flags and Badges of Canada.
- ^ "The Nova Scotia International Tattoo Society". The Public Register of Arms, Flags and Badges of Canada.
- ^ "David Robert Wooten". The Armorial Register - International Register of Arms.
- ^ "Grants and Confirmations of Arms Volume Y Folios 51-100; 1999-2000" (Digitized manuscript). Folio 58, page 17.
- ^ "The Heraldry Society - members' arms:Leonard John Weaver". Archived from the original on September 10, 2007.
- ^ "Luc-Normand Tellier". The Public Register of Arms, Flags and Badges of Canada.
- ^ a b Cussans (1869), p. 47
Bibliography
- Burke, Bernard (1884). The general armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales; comprising a registry of armorial bearings from the earliest to the present time. London: Harrison & sons. p. 245. OCLC 600067620– via Internet Archive.
- OCLC 889852354– via Internet Archive.
- LCCN 09023803– via Internet Archive.
- Parker, James; Gough, Henry (1894). A glossary of terms used in heraldry. London: James Parker. OCLC 926917439– via Internet Archive.
- Woodward, John; Burnett, George (1892) [1884]. A treatise on heraldry, British and foreign: with English and French glossaries. Edinburgh: W. & A. B. Johnson. LCCN 02020303– via Internet Archive.