Tinctures are the colours, metals, and furs used in heraldry. Nine tinctures are in common use: two metals, or and argent ; the colours gules (red), azure (blue), vert (green), sable (black), and purpure (purple); and the furs ermine, which represents the winter fur of a stoat, and vair, which represents the fur of a red squirrel. The use of other tinctures varies depending on the time period and heraldic tradition in question.
In heraldry, variations of the field are any of a number of ways that a field may be covered with a pattern, rather than a flat tincture or a simple division of the field.
In heraldry, a charge is any emblem or device occupying the field of an escutcheon (shield). That may be a geometric design or a symbolic representation of a person, animal, plant, object, building, or other device. In French blazon, the ordinaries are called pièces, and other charges are called meubles.
The lozenge in heraldry is a diamond-shaped rhombus charge, usually somewhat narrower than it is tall. It is to be distinguished in modern heraldry from the fusil, which is like the lozenge but narrower, though the distinction has not always been as fine and is not always observed even today. A mascle is a voided lozenge—that is, a lozenge with a lozenge-shaped hole in the middle—and the rarer rustre is a lozenge containing a circular hole in the centre. A lozenge throughout has "four corners touching the border of the escutcheon". A field covered in a pattern of lozenges is described as lozengy; similar fields of mascles are masculy, and fusils, fusily. In civic heraldry, a lozenge sable is often used in coal-mining communities to represent a lump of coal.
In heraldry and vexillology, a pale is a charge consisting of a band running vertically down the centre of a shield or flag. Writers broadly agree that the width of the pale ranges from about one-fifth to about one-third of the width of the shield, but this width is not fixed. A narrow pale is more likely if it is uncharged, that is, if it does not have other objects placed on it. If charged, the pale is typically wider to allow room for the objects depicted there.
Ermine in heraldry is a fur, a type of tincture, consisting of a white background with a pattern of black shapes representing the winter coat of the stoat. The linings of medieval coronation cloaks and some other garments, usually reserved for use by high-ranking peers and royalty, were made by sewing many ermine furs together to produce a luxurious white fur with patterns of hanging black-tipped tails. Due largely to the association of the ermine fur with the linings of coronation cloaks, crowns and peerage caps, the heraldic tincture of ermine was usually reserved to similar applications in heraldry. In heraldry it has become especially associated with the Duchy of Brittany and Breton heraldry.
The cross moline is a Christian cross, constituting a kind of heraldic cross.
In heraldry and heraldic vexillology, a blazon is a formal description of a coat of arms, flag or similar emblem, from which the reader can reconstruct the appropriate image. The verb to blazon means to create such a description. The visual depiction of a coat of arms or flag has traditionally had considerable latitude in design, but a verbal blazon specifies the essentially distinctive elements. A coat of arms or flag is therefore primarily defined not by a picture but rather by the wording of its blazon. Blazon is also the specialized language in which a blazon is written, and, as a verb, the act of writing such a description. Blazonry is the art, craft or practice of creating a blazon. The language employed in blazonry has its own vocabulary, grammar and syntax, which becomes essential for comprehension when blazoning a complex coat of arms.
A pall in heraldry and vexillology is a Y-shaped charge, normally having its arms in the three corners of the shield. An example of a pall placed horizontally (fesswise) is the green portion of the South African national flag.
A representation of the sun is used as a heraldic charge. The most usual form, often called sun in splendour or in his glory, consists of a round disc with the features of a human face surrounded by twelve or sixteen rays alternating wavy and straight. The alternating straight and wavy rays are often said to represent the light and heat of the sun respectively.
In English heraldry, the bar is an heraldic ordinary consisting of a horizontal band extending across the shield. In form, it closely resembles the fess but differs in breadth: the bar occupies one-fifth of the breadth of the field of the escutcheon ; the fess occupies one-third. Heraldists differ in how they class the bar in relation to the fess. A number of authors consider the bar to be a diminutive of the fess. But, others, including Leigh (1597) and Guillim (1638), assert that the bar is a separate and distinct ‘honorouble ordinary’. Holme (1688) is equivocal. When taken as an honourable ordinary, it is co-equal with the other nine of the English system. Some authors who consider the bar a diminutive of the fess class it as a subordinary. Authorities agree that the bar and its diminutives have a number features that distinguish them from the fess.
A number of cross symbols were developed for the purpose of the emerging system of heraldry, which appeared in Western Europe in about 1200. This tradition is partly in the use of the Christian cross an emblem from the 11th century, and increasingly during the age of the Crusades. Many cross variants were developed in the classical tradition of heraldry during the late medieval and early modern periods. Heraldic crosses are inherited in modern iconographic traditions and are used in numerous national flags.
A gyron is a triangular heraldic ordinary having an angle at the fess point and the opposite side at the edge of the escutcheon. A shield divided into gyrons is called gyronny, the default is typically of eight if no number of gyrons is specified. The word gyron is derived from Old French giron, meaning 'gusset'. When a single gyron extends across so the tip touches the edge of the coat of arms, forming a square, it is called an esquire.
The hound is a charge in classical heraldry. In English heraldry, the commonly used variant are the talbot, also blazoned as sleuth-hound, e.g. in the arms of Wolseley of Staffordshire, the greyhound and bloodhound. Rarely seen variants are the ratch-hound, the mastiff, the foxhound, the spaniel and the terrier. The "sea-dog" is a curious charge resembling the talbot but with scales, webbed feet and a broad tail, used in the arms of Stourton barony, presumably originally depicting a beaver . Similar charges include the wolf and the fox.
Belgian heraldry is the form of coats of arms and other heraldic bearings and insignia used in the Kingdom of Belgium and the Belgian colonial empire but also in the historical territories that make up modern-day Belgium. Today, coats of arms in Belgium are regulated and granted by different bodies depending on the nature, status, and location of the armiger.
In heraldry, a gusset is a charge resembling the union of a pile with a pale extending from chief to base. In French heraldry, it has been classed as one of the thirty honorable ordinaries. For an 'inverted' gusset, one issuing from base and extending to the chief, some authors prefer the term graft.
The side, or flank, is a heraldic ordinary resembling a pale that has been displaced to either the dexter or sinister edge of the field. Pierre-Barthélemy Gheusi, following M. Aug. Tailhades, groups the sides with the chief and base as ordinaries that are affixed to an edge of the field by their longest side.
The base, more formally the terrace in base or champagne, is a heraldic charge that occupies the lower third of the field. It is in that sense the inverse correlate of the chief. In French heraldry, the champagne is considered an "honourable ordinary", but in English heraldry, it is frequently omitted from lists of the honourable ordinaries, and grouped, if at all, with the subordinaries. The diminutive of the base, occupying one half the height of the ordinary, is termed plaine in French heraldry. Another, now less common, English language term for the base is the foot, a usage the recalls the German Schildfuß, Danish skjoldfod, and Dutch schildvoet.
In English-language heraldry, the fillet is considered a diminutive of the chief. It is defined as occupying one fourth the width of the chief and typically positioned at its bottom edge. When so positioned the chief is blazoned as supported by the fillet; but, when the chief is charged by the fillet, as when the fillet positioned at its top edge or middle, the chief is blazoned as surmounted. Another term for the former, supported, is sustained. In French heraldry, terms for this charge are divise and filet en chef. The term chef retrait has also been used. The fillet or divise placed beneath the chief is of a different tincture than the field, evidently to avoid violations of the rule of tincture.
Esquarre is a name for both a heraldic ordinary and a set of related mobile charges. As an ordinary, the Esquarre is defined as a charge that borders a quarter on its two interior edges abutting the field. The Esquarre isolates the quarter from the rest of the field. De Galway suggested that the Esquarre is employed when both quarter and field are the same tincture. The shape of the ordinary is likened to a carpenter's square, a tool formed of two arms joined perpendicularly. When the two arms are of unequal length, the term potence (Fr.) is also used, a term likening the form of this variant to a joined post and crossbeam, or gallows/scaffold.
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Flag of Howard County, Maryland, USA (figurative, voided)
