BLAZON
Origins and Explanation
In mediaeval times (and to a certain degree today as well) it was difficult to keep a pictorial record of large numbers of coats of arms. A large part of a heralds job was to record and recognise coats of arms. They would identify people in tournaments as well as on the battlefield. It would have been impractical to carry around a large collection of pictures. In addition, even if they were recorded pictorially, a single coat of arms would likely vary from artist to artist. In such a case, two examples of the same coat of arms might not be recognisable as being the same. The system of describing coats of arms needed to be standardised and exact. So, to describe the appearance of a coat of arms, a special set of terminology was used. This language of heraldry is called "Blazon". A blazon can also be the description of a particular coat of arms. Because the practice of heraldry was formalised by the Normans, most of the terminology is derived from Old French. It should be noted that the terminology in this introduction is that used in English heraldry. Although it is almost entirely universal among European languages, there are as well numerous variations. As well, spelling (even within English heraldry) was not completely standardised. Some spellings are more anglicised than others. For example "checky" / "chequy" (for a checker board pattern), "dancetty" / "dancettée" (for a zig-zag line) and "fess" / "fesse" (a geometric shape). Phonetically, though, they often remain relatively similar.
When a herald "blazons a coat" he is describing in a very specific code the "field" (background) and the "charges" (things on the field). The field must be described in terms of it's colouring, if and how it is divided (parted) and the "partitions" themselves. In addition to the field, Blazon also describes any charges that are to appear on the field in terms of such aspects as, their colouring, what shape they are (or what they represent), where they are placed, or if in groups, how they are arranged, and even (in the case of living things) how they are behaving (their "attitude").
COLOURING (Tincture)
Perhaps one of the first things that one notices when looking at a coat of arms, and perhaps the most important as well, is the colouring. In the past, shields were usually constructed of wood and covered in metal, cloth or animal hides. The covering would determine the main colour of the shield. The colouring used in heraldry - referred to as the "tincture" - is similarly grouped into three categories - metals, colours and furs. The same terms of tincture are used not only to describe the field but also any charges placed upon the field.
Metals
The two metals (also called "light tinctures") used on a coat of arms are silver and gold, which are referred to in heraldry as "argent" (silver) and "Or" (gold). "Or" is often spelt with a capital "o". Since it is usually difficult to represent metal in a simple colour drawing, painting or on cloth, the metals are often represented by white or grey (for argent) and yellow (for Or). As can be guessed, white, grey and yellow are therefore not used as tinctures (with only extremely rare exceptions).
Colours
The main colours (also called "dark tinctures") used in heraldry are "gules" (red), "vert" (green), "purpure" (purple) and "sable" (black). In addition to these, there are other colours which, although uncommon, were sometimes used. For example, "murrey" (a reddish-brown or the colour of mulberries), "sanguine" (blood-red) and "tenné" (tan or orange). The exact shade of a colour is not indicated in the blazon. When colouring a coat of arms, any shade may be used so long as it can be easily identified as the correct tincture. If a charge is tinctured "proper" then it is coloured in it's natural colours. For example, a tree tinctured proper would appear brown and green as you would expect a tree to look, whereas a tree tinctured vert would be entirely green (including the trunk).
In the middle ages, heralds would not always have been able to colour a coat of arms. So a system of representing the colours using black and white was used. The black and white patterns along with a simple description of each are shown in the following table.
| Colouration | Tincture | Black and White Representation | ||
| Gold / Yellow | Or | dots |  |
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| Silver / White | argent | blank |  |
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| Blue | azure | horizontal lines |  |
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| Red | gules | perpendicular lines |  |
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| Black | sable | cross hatch lines |  |
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| Green | vert | diagonal lines (top left to bottom right) |
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| Purple | purpure | diagonal lines (top right to bottom left) |
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Table - Tinctures - metals and colours
Furs
These are fields of a regular pattern of two colours originally used to represent various type of real fur. The most common furs are "ermine", "vair" and variations on these patterns. Ermine is usually a sable symbol (see the diagram) that represents the tail of an ermine on an argent field, which represents the hide of an ermine. Common variations include "ermines" (the reversed colours of ermine), "erminois" (sable tails on an Or background), and "pean" (Or tails on a sable background). Vair is made of interlocking bell-like shapes, in an alternating pattern of argent and azure. "Potent" is believed to have been originally derived from vair. For other examples, see the furs diagram.
Diagram: A commonly used shape for an ermine tail
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| ermine | ermines | erminois | pean |
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| vair | counter vair | vair in pale | vairé Or and purpure |
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| potent | potent counter potent | semee-de-lis / fleury-de-lis | gutté |
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| checky | crusily | lozengy | fusily |
Diagram - Commonly used furs and patterns
The Rule of Tincture
One of the main functions of a coat of arms is to distinguish the person or object bearing the design. If one light tinctures was on top of another light tincture (for example, an argent charge on an Or field), it may be difficult to distinguish between them. The same would be true with two dark tinctures. Thus the rule of tincture is "Colour may not be placed on colour, metal may not be placed on metal, and fur may not be placed on fur."
Furs are sometimes called "neutral tinctures" or "amphibious" because they can be placed on either metal or colour (and either can be placed on fur), so long as the colour or metal in question is not used in fur itself. For example, an Or star (mullet) on a vair field is acceptable, but an azure crescent on a vair field is not because the blue of the crescent would blend in with the blue sections of the field. It should be noted (especially given the audience of this article) that in the SCA furs such as ermine which are essentially a pattern of small objects on a general background are not considered neutral and are classed according to their background colour. Thus, ermine would be considered a metal (like argent) and ermines would be a colour (like sable). But fields of alternating tinctured shapes (like vair) are still considered neutral.
The exceptions to the rule of tincture are charges tinctured "proper" (their natural colours), parts of plants and animals (if different from the main tincture of the plant or animal), party-coloured (of a metal and colour) charges on a metal or coloured field, and likewise single tinctured charges on a party-coloured (or divided) field.
It should be remembered that this article focuses primarily upon standard English heraldry. Some of the conventions of English heraldry in the middle ages were not universal. As many of the readers of this article are likely to be Romanian, or living in Romania, they may at some point notice that the rule of tincture is not as strictly adhered to in all countries. For the sake of making coats of arms clear and distinguishable though, even in other countries the rule of tincture usually did apply and in cases in which it did not, the "lightness" contrast or colour contrast was usually sufficient to prevent charges from blending in with the field. Thus one might see a sable charge on an azure field (colour on colour).
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| vert | azure | ermine | argent crusily sable | argent semee-de-lis sable |
Diagram - Examples of single tinctured coats and their blazons
PARTED FIELDS
It is possible to have a coat of arms that consists of nothing more than a field. And in fact, long before heraldry was formalised, a knight may have been recognised simply by his shield of a particular colour. Sometimes in stories knights were referred to by the colour of their shield as opposed to their name to create a sense of mystery about the character, for example the Black Knight, the Green Knight, etc. But with a relatively limited number of tinctures, it is easy to foresee the eventual problem that would occur with large numbers of knights. Besides, it wouldn't be very interesting. So, many shields would have been "parted" (or "partitioned") into different sections.
Partitions
In Blazon, the term "party" is used in many terms for divisions to mean "divided" or "parted". For example, "party per fess" is the same as "per fess". Divisions are named after the ordinary from which they take their shape. For example, a horizontal band in the centre of the shield is called a "fess". A horizontal division in middle of the shield is called "party per fess".
Some of the more common divisions are illustrated below.
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| party / (party) per pale | (party) per fess | (party) per bend | (party) per bend sinister | (party) per chevron |
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| quarterly / (party) per cross | (party) per saltire | gyronny / gyronny of eight | gyronny of six | (party) per pall |
Diagram - Parted fields - common divisions
If a field is divided into three parts, it is "tierced". And again it is often named after the ordinary which the three divisions take their shape. In reality, a shield tierced and a shield with a thick band running across it may look identical (e.g. "tierced palewise gules, Or and azure", "per pale gules and azure, on a pale Or"). A key difference is that the three sections of the tierced shield do not have to obey the rule of tincture because the partitions are beside each other, whereas the "pale" is an "ordinary" (an object) on the shield and must therefore follow the rule in regards to the two sections that it is placed upon. Some authorities also argue that a band is less than one third of the area of the shield (with exceptions, of course).
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| tierced palewise | tierced per fess | tierced bendwise | tierced pallwise (same as "party per pall") |
Diagram - Parted fields - tierced
The divisions themselves can also be divided.
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| per fess, the base per pale | pre fess, the base also per fess | per pale the sinister also per pale |
Diagram - Parted fields - subdivided
Divisions are generally centred on the middle of the shield but occasionally they are shifted to a different position. In this case, the position must be indicated. For example, "per fess (at the nombil point)". The points of the shield are described later. If something is upside-down, it is (usually) "reversed" (in the SCA it is "inverted"). If it is facing the sinister (i.e. a mirror image of how it normally appears) then it is "contourny" or "turned to sinister" (or "reversed" in the SCA).
Some charges cannot be used for divisions for practical reasons. Some charges are treated almost like parted fields themselves and some have irregular shapes that would make it difficult to use them as a division. For example, you can not use a "chief" or "border". These charges are illustrated later in this article.
In heraldry, a swastika-shaped division is called "quarterly en equerre". This division is no longer allowed in the SCA for the sake of political correctness. You will see it from time to time though in heraldic designs of the middle ages.
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| per fess (at the nombril point) | party per pall reversed | party per chevron reversed | quarterly en equerre | quarterly en equerre (outline) |
Diagram - Parted fields - less common divisions
Lines of Partition
In the previous examples, the lines of partition are all "right" (straight), but the lines are not always so. Some of the other most common lines of partition are engrailed, invected, wavy, nebuly, indented, dancetty, embattled, raguly, dovetailed, and potenty.
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| engrailed | invected |
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| wavy / undy | nebuly / nebulée |
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| indented | dancetty / dancettée |
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| embattled / crenellée | raguly |
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| dovetailed | potenty / potentée |
Diagram - lines of partition
Note: In the middle ages, there would have been no distinction made between indented and dancetty.
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| per fess gules and argent | per fess Or and purpure | per fess embattled gules and Or | per chevron raguly argent and vert | quarterly per pale indented Or and gules |
Diagram - Examples of divided fields and their blazons
When describing a partitioned shield, it is important the list the tinctures in the correct order to correspond with the correct partitions. The ordering is top then downwards, right then left (from the point of view of someone standing behind the shield).
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