For those not used to the conventions of Heraldic blazon the following is a brief guide to some of the terms used. It is by no means everything so a good heraldic dictionary is always a bonus. I work with English Heraldry. Other countries, including Scotland and Ireland, can have slightly different ways of working.

The Achievment of Arms: The full armorial is devided up into sections as follows:

Blazon	The formal description of armorial bearings. It is a combination of Norman French, English and Latin.
Arms	The bit on the shield. A shield can be any shape the artist fancies so is not included in the blazon. The exception to this is when a woman's arms are being blazoned. Her's will be on a Lozenge and this is usually specified.
Crest	Crests are the bits that go above the arms, usually associated with a helmet and a bicoloured wreath of mantling.
Supporters	The two figures or animals each side of the shield holding it up. Not everyone who is granted armorial bearing get granted supporters (or crests and mottoes for that matter).
Escutcheon of Pretence	This is a complete shield with another achievement of arm upon it placed over the first described in the blazon. It can also be hung from a tree or held by a beast in a crest.
Motto	Words on a scroll beneath the shield, or a belt around it. It can be in any language but Latin, French and English are most popular.
Grant of Arms	A highly decrative parchment with a full visual and literal decription of a persons armorial bearing which is granted by the Collage of Arms.

Colours: In Heraldry, these are called Tinctures. There are a set of rules called the 'Rules of Tincture' that govern what can and can't be done. There are three classes of tinctures, Metals, Colours and Furs.

Metals: There are two metals, gold and silver. Gold is usually painted as yellow and is blazoned Or. In black & White or when carved in stone or wood it is depicted as dots. Silver is usually painted as white and is blazoned Argent. In black & White or when carved in stone or wood it is depicted as a smooth field.

Colours: There are eight colours. Blue blazoned Azure. In b & w horizontal lines Red blazoned Gules. In b & w vertical lines. Black blazoned Sable. In b & w square shading Green blazoned Vert. In b & w left hand diagonal lines. Purple blazoned Purpure. In b & w left hand diagonal lines. Orange brown blazoned Tenné. Blood red blazoned Sanguine. Purple red (Mulberry) blazoned Murrey. The last three are also referred to as stains.

Furs: There are two furs each with a number of different forms. The Ermine's consist of spots that represent ermine tails on a field. White field with black spots is blazoned Ermine. Black field with white spots is blazoned Ermines. Gold field with black spots is blazoned Erminois. Black field with gold spots is blazoned Pean. The Vair's have an alternating white & blue pieces in various shapes and arrangements. A row of deep troughs and peeks each row offset by one is blazoned Vair. Counter-vair and vair en point are variations. A row of T-shaped blocks row on row is blazoned Potent. Counter-potent is a variation.

The final colour scheme to know is the term Proper. This means that a charge is depicted in its natural colour scheme.

The Rules of Tincture say that a metal con-not be put onto a metal, colour onto colour or fur onto fur. So 'Per-pale gules and vert' would not be allowed. However, 'Gules impaling Vert' would be allowed because the term impaling implies that two different shields are laying next to each other. When a charge is described as Proper it can be placed on any Tincture.

Points of a shield.

Key to shield.	Shield.
A - Dexter side. B - Sinister side. C - Chief. D - Base. E - Dexter chief. F - Sinister chief. G - Middle chief. H - Dexter base. J - Sinister base. K - Middle base. L - Honour point. M - Fess point. N - Nombrill or Navel point.

Lines: Lines describe the edges of fields and charges.

Fields The fields are the way a shield, crest or supporter is divided up. The prefix 'Per' is used and the Rule of Tincture applies.

Fess	Horizontally across the middle.
Pale	Vertically down the middle.
Bend	Left hand corner to right hand side.
Chevron	An upside down V shape.
Tierced in pairle	Divided into three equal parts.
Saltire	Diagonal cross.
Quarterly	Four quarters.
Barry	Horizontal bars usually a specified number of i.e. Barry of six.
Bendy	Diagonal bars.
Paly	Vertical bars.
Chevronny	Multiple chevrons.
Checky	Like a chess board.
Company or Gobony	A bend made of squares.
Counter-company	A bend of two rows of squares.
Lozengy	Diamond shapes.
Fusily	Elongated diamond shapes.
Gyronny	Quarterly, each quarter diagonally halved.

Ordinaries: These are the shapes laid onto the fields. The Rule of Tincture applies.

Chief	A single bar horizontally across the top of the field.
Fess	A single bar horizontally across the middle of the field.
Bar	When there is more than one horizontal bar across the field.
Pale	A single bar vertically down the centre of the field.
Bend	A diagonal bar from the top right-hand corner of the field.
Bend sinister	A diagonal bar from the top left-hand corner of the field. Used to denote illegitimate offspring.
Chevron	An upside down V shaped bar in the centre of the field.
Saltire	Diagonal cross.
Cross	Upright cross.
Cotised	Thin ordinaries sandwiching the main one.
Fretty	Lattice work
Border.	Area round the edge of the shield.

Charges: These are the beasts, plants, monsters, artefacts and the like that are placed on the fields and ordinaries. They can either be given a specific tincture and divided into fields or they can be proper but the rule of tincture applies to them. Many are obvious as to what they are. However, the following are some that may be a little more obscure:

Mullet	Usually a five pointed, straight edged, star, but the number of points can be defined.
Martlet	A bird with its legs and wings folded. Like a Swallow.
Leopard	This can either be a Leopard but in old heraldry it was a Lion.
Talbot	A hunting dog.
Urcheon	A hedgehog in old heraldry.
Escallop	Escallop-shell round edge downwards.
Estoiles	A star with six or more wavy rays.
Garb	A sheaf of wheat or barley.
Cinquefoil	A five petaled flower. Can be tri-(3), quatre-(4), six-(6), or oct-(8) foil depending on the number of petals.
Caltrap	A four pointed tetrahedral metal device.
Clarion or Sufflue	A kind of musical instrument that could be pan-pipes or harp.
Maunch	A sleeve with long cuff and shoulder.
Pheon	A barbed arrowhead, the barbs inside.
Seax	A Saxon sword like a scimitar with a notch out of the blade.
Canton	A rectangle in a corner.
Orle	A shield with the middle taken out.
Annulet	A ring.

Charges, especially beasts and monsters, can be cut in half and so described as demi- as in demi-lion or demi-eagle.

Body Parts: Arms, legs, hands, heads and wings are all used as charges. The way that they are separated from the rest of the body is blazoned. The common separations are:

Erased	Torn off leaving a ragged, often bleeding edge.
Couped	Cut off clean.
Cabossed or Caboshed	A head only facing forward out of the shield.

Stance: Beasts, birds and plants used as charges, crests and supporters can be blazoned in defined positions as follows:

Passant	Standing on three legs with the off-side front leg punching the air.
Rampant	Rearing up on back leg with three legs punching the air.
Salient	In the act of leaping.
Statant	Standing on all four legs.
Sajant	In a doggy sitting position,
Couchant	In a doggy laying position.
Dormant	In a sleeping position.
Courant	Running like a greyhound.
Tripping	A Stag standing passant.
Affronté	The whole beast looking square on out of the shield.
Combatant	Two rampant beasts facing each other.

The position of the head can also be defined. Any of the above on their own meant the beast is looking in the direction of travel.

Guardent	Looking directly out of the shield.
Reguardent	Looking back from the direction of travel.

The tail is usually shown erect but when it is held between the legs it is described as coward.

Balls: Balls and roundels can be blazoned as roundels with a specified colour, however, there are a specific terms used for different coloured balls as follows:

Bezant	Gold
Plate	Silver
Hurt	Blue
Torteau	Red
Pellet	Black
Pomme or Pomeis	Green
Golpe	Purple
Tenné	Orange
Guze	Blood red.

Crosses: There are a large number of different crosses used in blazons. A cross is a simple horizontal & vertical, as of St. George. A diagonal cross is a saltier as in the Scots cross of St. Andrew. A tau cross is T-shaped.
The shapes of the ends of the arms of the cross are:

Fourché	forked.
Moline	Splayed as if hit by a hammer.
Patonce	Splayed into three points.
Flory	Ending in fleur-de-lis's
Pommé	Ball endings.
Potent	Square bars right at the end.
Crosslet	having a cross-bar a little way in from the end of each arm.
Formy	Having the ends of the arms wider than the middle.
Maltese	Four triangles meeting in the centre to form a cross with a v-shaped notch taken out of the end of each arm.
Fitcheé	The shaft of the cross tapers to a point.

Impaling: When a couple marry they can merge their families coats of arms by putting both the achievements on the same shield. Because these are two separate coats of arms the rules of tincture, while still applying within the individual achievements, does not apply to the impaled arms. Because of this you can get colour next to colour, metal next to metal. The process of combining arms onto a shield is called Marshalling and it can get quite complex through various impaling's and quartering's.

Recommended books.

You can't possibly know all there is to know about Heraldry so a few useful working manuals are always worth having to hand. The ones that I use are:-

Boutell's Heraldry:

The version I use is the 1973 edition as revised by J. P. Brooke-Little. However there are later editions available.

Martin Collins
© March 2000