Heraldry1-An IntroductionThis leaflet will help you understand how acoat of arms was put together and why it wasdone. Here is the important idea:

Heraldic devices are to identifythe person bearing them.

If you were a mediaeval knight in battle youwould want your followers and others onyour side to know who you were, so theywouldn’t attack you. Over their armourknights wore surcoats with their armspainted or sewn on them – a coat of arms –and had their personal devices painted ontheir shields for identification

Because you have the same surname as anarmigerous family does NOT necessarilymean that you are entitled to their arms.Heraldry has many rules but still the mainone is that nobody but you and members ofyour family should have exactly the samearms.

Arms are still painted onshields or “escutcheons”.

Mediaeval French and English shape More About the Escutcheon

Other Shapes

You can easily draw the traditional shape ofa shield. First draw a box 3 times wider thanhigh, then put a compass on one of thebottom corners, reach it over to the otherbottom corner and draw an arc. Repeat fromthe opposite bottom corner and you will havea shield shaped like the one above.

Heraldry has its own jargon and many of thewords come from Norman French or Latin. Ifyou look at the escutcheon below, you willsee that the right hand side is called Dexterand the left is called Sinister. You mightthink that Dexter is on the left but, inheraldry, it isn’t because arms are alwaysdescribed from the point of view of the personbearing them. Imagine that you are carryinga shield; look downwards at it and you willsee that Dexter really is on the right.

Various points of the escutcheon havenames, as you can see. This is to help locatethe objects – called “charges” – in the arms.For example, two crossed swords centred atthe top of the shieldand a three-leggedzebra standing at thebottom would bedescribed as “twoswords in saltire inmiddle chief and athree- legged-zebrastatant in base”.

For ladies (who usednot to go to war, sohad no use forshields):

For quarters in“marshalled” arms(See MarshallingArms leaflet)

Dexter Sin

ister

Tinctures Divisions of the Field (Lines of Par��on)

Other Divisions of Two Tinctures

Divisions of Three Tinctures

Ordinaries

Summary - The Story So Far

An ordinary is a simple geometrical figurerunning from side to side or top to bottom ofthe shield. There are generally considered tobe nine principal or “honourable” ordinaries:the chief, the cross, the bend, the bendsinister, the fess, the bar, the pale, thesaltire, and the chevron.

More “pattern like” divisions - barry, bendy,chequy, chevronny, fusilly, gyronny, lozengy,paly, pily. The number of divisions in thelinear patterns can be specified e.g. barry of8, gyronny of 12. Chapé and chaussé arerather ugly and rarely seen in Englishheraldry.

Of course, you would also have to say whatcolour everything is. The zebra is easy,because it is lifelike. If things are meant tolook as they do in real life, they are describedas “proper”.But what about everything else?Heraldry uses a quite limited palette of“tinctures” consisting of four types: colours,metals, stains and furs. They all haveheraldic names. All the colours and metalsare shown below, as well as the importantstains and furs

The field is divided into 3 equal parts by oneof four of the lines of partition: tierced-in-bend, tierced-in-fess, tierced-in-pale, tierced-in-chevron

So far we have dealt with dividing the field ofthe escutcheon with lines of partition andapplying ordinaries. Here are some of famousfamilies, mostly mediaeval, with theirblazons. Note the order of describing things:the field, then ordinaries and/orsubordinaries. Also note the economy ofheraldic description.

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