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Ordinaries in heraldry are sometimes embellished with stripes of colour alongside them, have lumps added to them, shown with their edges arciform instead of straight, have their peaks and tops chopped off, pushed up and down out of the usual positions, or even broken apart.
Cottices, also spelled cottises, cotises, cotices, cotizes, are narrow stripes beside and parallel to an ordinary.
Cottices can take exotic line variations and even charge-like shapes.
An ordinary with a circular boss in the middle is described as nowy.
An ordinary with a square boss is called quadrate or, more fully, nowy quadrate. A saltire quadrate has the square boss turned lozengeways, with edges parallel to those of the saltire. An ordinary with a lozenge-shaped boss is called nowy lozengy or nowy of a lozenge (applies also to saltires)
Nowy and quadrate are usually applied only to the cross, saltire, pale, fess and bend.
An ordinary, perhaps especially a cross, might, like diamonds and mullets, be facetted, but examples of facetted ordinaries in actual heraldry are extremely hard to find.
![a mullet facetted - Azure; a facetted six pointed star [mullet] argent ensigned with a gable crown or, the whole within a double tressure argent - Landenhoven, South Africa Mullet facetted wiki.jpg](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/Mullet_facetted_wiki.jpg/128px-Mullet_facetted_wiki.jpg)
An ordinary embowed has the edges bowed inwards producing a concavity; this is sometimes more explicitly blazoned inwardly embowed. Its opposite is enarched.
This variation is most often applied to the chevron and pile.
The term embowed is also applied to bent arms and legs, arched fish, and serpents in circles.
The chevron ecimé has its peak "blunted", i.e. squared off rather than meeting in a point. Much more common is couped at the peak (or point) or even truncated. In the Canadian Public Register truncated is used in the Anglophone versions of blazons, and ecimé in the Francophone ones.
The chevron disjointed or disjoined has the central, pointed portion missing.[5] The chevron éclaté has each end with roughly-made points or spikes on it.[6]. The chevron brisy (or brisé) as in the Scots Public Register, vol 52, p54 also has the point part removed though in this case the two remaining sections are squared off and 'lean' against each other, as can be seen in the French coat of Meaudre de la Pouyade.[7]
The Armorial de Gelre shows Bernard v.d. Wilten as bearing a "fasce palissée" (similar to a fess embattled with long merlons and the ends rounded).
An ordinary enhanced is placed higher in the field than its usual position.
When an ordinary is shown lower down the shield than its usual position, it is described as debased or abased or abaisse or dehanced.
An ordinary rompu is "broken" in some way, though the form of the breaking may vary considerably and may perhaps need further description to avoid confusion.
An example is the chevronels rompu in the arms of Danzé, Loir et Cher, France. A chevron 'rompu' has the central section shifted vertically upward, as in the coat of the US 278th Armored Infantry Battalion. (There is an example of a chevron double rompu reversed in the arms of USCGC Biscayne Bay.) A bend rompu arraswise of an unusual form can be found in the arms of the 99th Air Base Wing of the United States Air Force. "Rompu" should be distinguished from "fracted". The arms of the Roossenekal Local Area Committee are Per chevron Gules and Azure, a chevron fracted and embattled to chief Or, between in chief a rose Argent, barbed and seeded, and in base a cross fleuretty, Or. The form of the "fracting" can be specified.
An ordinary affaissée, in French heraldry, is wavy in the form of a depression in its middle.
The word rompu is also applied to a common charge which is broken, e.g. "a circular chain with link rompu at the top", although this is more usually blazoned as fracted.
A saltire, also called Saint Andrew's Cross or the crux decussata, is a heraldic symbol in the form of a diagonal cross. The word comes from the Middle French sautoir, Medieval Latin saltatoria ("stirrup").
In heraldry, the field (background) of a shield can be divided into more than one area, or subdivision, of different tinctures, usually following the lines of one of the ordinaries and carrying its name. Shields may be divided this way for differencing or for purposes of marshalling, or simply for style. The lines that divide a shield may not always be straight, and there is a system of terminology for describing patterned lines, which is also shared with the heraldic ordinaries.
The lines in heraldry used to divide and vary fields and charges are by default straight, but may have many different shapes. Care must be taken to distinguish these types of lines from the use of lines as charges, and to distinguish these shapes from actual charges, such as "a mount [or triple mount] in base," or, particularly in German heraldry, different kinds of embattled from castle walls.
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, an ordinary is a one of the two main types of charges, beside the mobile charges. An ordinary is a simple geometrical figure, bounded by straight lines and running from side to side or top to bottom of the shield. There are also some geometric charges known as subordinaries, which have been given lesser status by some heraldic writers, though most have been in use as long as the traditional ordinaries. Diminutives of ordinaries and some subordinaries are charges of the same shape, though thinner. Most of the ordinaries are theoretically said to occupy one-third of the shield; but this is rarely observed in practice, except when the ordinary is the only charge.
The coat of arms of Sunderland is the official heraldic arms of the City of Sunderland.
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 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.
Edmonton was a local government district in north-east Middlesex, England, from 1850 to 1965.
In heraldry, an ordinary is described as quadrate when it has a square central boss.
The coat of arms of Namibia is the official heraldic symbol of Namibia. Introduced at the time of independence in 1990, it superseded the earlier coat of arms used by the South African administration of the territory.
Santa Rosa de Cabal is a town and municipality in the Risaralda Department, of west central Colombia, on the western slopes of the Andean Cordillera Central.
The Bishop of Hereford is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Hereford in the Province of Canterbury.
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.
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor was the heir of several of Europe's leading royal houses. In 1506, he inherited the Burgundian Netherlands, which came from his paternal grandmother, Mary of Burgundy. In 1516, Charles became the king of Spain, inheriting the kingdoms first united by his maternal grandparents, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon. Finally, on the death of his paternal grandfather in 1519, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, he inherited the Habsburg lands in central Europe and was elected Holy Roman Emperor.
The Diocese of Umzimvubu is a relatively new Diocese created out of a portion of the former St John's See. It came into existence in 1991 and is currently vacant after the ousting of bishop Mlibo Ngewu.
In heraldry, a pile is a charge usually counted as one of the ordinaries. It consists of a wedge emerging from the upper edge of the shield and converging to a point near the base. If it touches the base, it is blazoned throughout.
In heraldry, a bar is an ordinary consisting of a horizontal band across the shield. If only one bar appears across the middle of the shield, it is termed a fess; if two or more appear, they can only be called bars. Calling the bar a diminutive of the fess is inaccurate, however, because two bars may each be no smaller than a fess. Like the fess, bars too may bear complex lines. The diminutive form of the bar is the barrulet, though these frequently appear in pairs, the pair termed a "bar gemel" rather than "two barrulets".
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.
Coats of arms and seals of the County and Duchy of Cornwall, the Diocese of Truro, and of Cornish boroughs and towns.
The coat of arms of the London Borough of Hackney is the official heraldic arms of the London Borough of Hackney. The coat of arms were granted on 25 July 1969.
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