BLAZONING

For better understanding of the make-up of the armorial bearings you may be studying, the following chapter is extremely important.

Blazoning, which describes all the elements appearing on a shield, obeys very precise rules and can produce only one specific design. To make it easy to reconstitute a shield thus blazoned, it must be short, regular and concise.

Certain elements are noted as “de même” or “du mesme”, to indicate that they are the same as the one cited just beforehand; or again, “of the field”, “of the first” or “of the second”, as the case may be.

To recreate the design of a shield from its blazoning is quite simple. You have the textual description before your eyes and merely need to follow it to the letter.

Starting with the simplest and ending with the most complicated, here are examples of those you will encounter most frequently:

A – Shields without quarters
B – Shields with quarters
C - Surcharges
D - Examples of difficulties

A - Shields without quarters

The colour of the field is always given first, before the figures and before the honourable ordinary pieces (pale, fasce, bend, bar, chevron, and the figures charging them). Then come the figures accompanying these pieces, and then the secondary pieces: chief, border, franc-quartier (a full quarter of the shield), which must then be described in every detail, along with the elements with which they are charged. These are the general rules. Now let us follow the successive steps.

(a). Shields with a single enamel (full field).

Example: “d’or plain” - plain gold (from the Latin “planus”)

(b). A single enamel, with one or more figures.

Examples : “silver, with a gules star” “gold, with three gules fish in pale and ranged iper fess” The star is naturally placed in the centre of the shield; the position of the three fish is indicated: each in pale (i.e. vertical) and ranged per fess (all three on the same line). .

c) Un écu avec une ou plusieurs pièces honorables.

Exemple : "d'or, au chevron de sinople; au chef de même", "d'or, à deux pals de gueules". Aucune difficulté pour ces deux exemples : le chevron est placé au centre de l'écu, les deux pals sont harmonieusement répartis de chaque côté de la ligne médiane.

d)The honourable ordinary pieces can be simple, as below, or have specific contours

Example : “silver, with bordure engrailed in gules.”

e) Shields incorporating one or two honourable ordinary pieces ( some charged with… or accompanied by…. )

Examples : “silver, with bend in gules charged with three roses gold”, “gules, with bend in gold, accosted in chief with three besants of the same, and in point with three billets of the second, posed in pale and ranged per fess.”

A – Shields without quarters
B – Shields with quarters
C - Surcharges
D - Examples of difficulties

B – Shields with quarters

Party per pale, couped, tierced, quartered, etc. (see illustrations).

Examples : “Party in fess: at the 1st, gules with demi-lion rampant gold; at the 2nd, silver, with two sable martlets per fess.” “gold, quartered with sable” (alternatively, “at the 1st and 4th, gold; at the 2nd and 3rd, sable”); “quartered in gold and gules: at the 1st and 4th, silver and azure; at the 2nd and 3rd, sinople plain” (the whole blazoning is not given here, because it would add nothing to our demonstration).

Special cases
If the quartered shields bear few charges, the blazon can take a few liberties with the rules regarding the terms used for each quarter. It would give a more concise description, “silver quartered with azure”, instead of the full “quartered: at the 1st and 4th, silver; at the 2nd and 3rd, azure”. Or again, “in gold, couped with gules”, instead of “couped; at the 1st, gold; at the 2nd, gules”. We have quite often adopted this mode of expression, to help with the computer’s use for research purposes.

A – Shields without quarters
B – Shields with quarters
C - Surcharges
D - Examples of difficulties

C - Surcharges

Superimposed pieces or figures

Examples : “label in gold overlying a party per fesse”; “on the whole in gules, three bends in silver”, or “an eagle in gules on the whole in gold.” .

If a piece overlies a quarter and is described as “from one to the other”, it means that the enamels are inverted at the dividing line. The expression “from one to the other” also applies to two whole figures likewise transposing their colours in relation to the enamels bearing them.

There are, of course, other special heraldic formulae, the meaning of which will be explained to you in the glossary. The greatest difficulty, in fact, is not in reconstituting the designs but in drawing up their blazon.

A – Shields without quarters
B – Shields with quarters
C - Surcharges
D - Examples of difficulties


D - Examples of difficulties

A certain lord of Pressigny offered a valuable coin to any passer-by who could correctly blazon his coat of arms. Here was their description:


“Couped: at the 1st, and recouped at the 1st, tierced per pale; at the 1st and 3rd, gyrons in azure and silver; and at the 2nd, counter-paly, silver and azure; at the 2nd, recouped counter-fasce de mesme, and at the 2nd grand quarter, de même as the precedent.”

Despite the apparent exceptional difficulty, it is actually quite easy to run through the successive stages of this reconstitution, step by step.

	(a)		(b)		(c)
	(a)Couped (see section on Quarters)) (b) Couped and recouped at the 1st (c) Couped and recouped at the 1st, tierced per pale

	(d)		(e)		(f)