Aux armes · a selected heraldic glossary

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be Master — that's all.’

Lewis Carroll (1871). Through the Looking-Glass.

The following aims merely to explain the arcane terms referred to on this site; it is not intended to be a comprehensive glossary of English heraldry. A caveat: the writer is neither an historian nor an expert in heraldry and has cobbled this together from various sources.*

• Achievement of Arms: the complete composition of the armorial bearings of a person: the shield and its charges, crest, helm, mantling, mottos and, if appropriate, their supporters, standard and insignia of rank or honour.
• Appointé: of charges (q.v.), with points touching.
• Argent: silver, customarily shown as white — an heraldic tincture (q.v.).
• Arms: in precise usage, solely the field (q.v.) and charges borne on the shield of arms. Each arms must be distinctly unique. They are distinguished from earlier forms of military paraphernalia in being subject to systematic rules governing their design and in their heritable use as familial arms.
• Azure: blue — an heraldic tincture. The characterictics of the colour are not prescribed, but by convention it is shown as a rich dark blue. In blazons of post-medieval arms, ‘Azure Celeste’ (sky blue) is used for lighter shades.
• Attitude: The position, pose or configuration in which an heraldic creature is shown.
• Badge: a freely adopted personal emblem or device, their use was widespread¹ and vastly predates heraldry. Despite their antiquity, they were uncommon in the panoply of arms until the innovation of livery badges and Standards (q.v.) during the reign of Edward III (1327–77). Thereafter, they were prevalent in England throughout the late Middle Ages, although at various times their display was suppressed or restricted. They were commonly of the same figure or device as in the crest, but without the crest-wreath or coronet. However many individuals used several badges, which often did not take any charges (q.v.) from either their arms or crest. Since they were extraneous to heraldry, badges were not blazoned in English arms until the early twentieth century and their use remains independent of heraldic control.
• Banner of Arms: a personal flag, usually square or nearly so, with the arms alone displayed over its entire surface (Fig. 1). The earliest arms (from the mid-twelfth century) were on banners rather than shields or coats of arms. Extant illustrations from the High Middle Ages commonly show them with various proportions, between 4:3 and 2:1 (vertical:horizontal), as well as square. From the Tudor period the free edges of banners were frequently embellished with fringes of alternating sections of the principal colour and metal (q.v.) of the arms — although now prevalent, this was never an obligatory practice.
• Bearer: the personal holder and possessor of the arms.
• Blazon: a prescriptive and definitive description, in a precise jargon, of arms, crests and other heraldic emblems: any particular depiction of arms is subordinate to its blazon. This paradoxical dominance of the written over the pictoral allowed the space and freedom for heraldic art to flourish and develop in to one of the minor glories of the Middle Ages. Early blazons were confined to the arms as depicted on the shield (Fig. 2) and are characteristically concise.
• Cadency marks: a system of small charges applied to “difference” (that is, differentiate) the arms of members of the same family. They were introduced by the College of Arms in c. 1500, but being discretionary, they were widely disregarded. Their tincture was unregulated, but invariably contrasts with that of the arms (infra Label).
• Canting Arms: (from Norman French, canter, from Latin canere, to sing) arms containing an allusive visual pun or rebus on the name of the bearer.
• Canton: the first quarter of the field of a shield, that is, in the dexter chief (qq.v). Conventionally shown as about three-fourths of that quarter, it almost always bears a charge or charges (q.v.).
• Charge: an emblem or device set on the field of a shield, banner, etc.
• Chief: the uppermost third of the field of a shield.
• Coat of Arms: originally simply the arms (as on the shield and banner) set on a knight's surcoat worn over armour: now synonymous with the achievement of arms (q.v.).
• Conjoined: of charges, abutted.
• Crest: an emblematic figure fixed to the top of the helm, usually mounted on a wreath (q.v.) or crest coronet — unlike a coronet set above the shield, the latter does not signify rank. As with Arms, their design is required to be unique. The earliest recorded crests are from the late twelfth century, but their ubiquitous use, complete with helm and mantling (qq.v.), followed the adoption of a crest by Edward III in the early fourteenth century.
• Dexter: of aspect, to the right for the shield bearer, hence to the left for the observer.
• Doubled: used of mantling (q.v.), lined with.
• Enumerated charges: where multiple (but not semé (q.v.)) charges are shown these are enumerated from the top downwards: for instance, the thirteen stars in the flag of General George Washington as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War of 1775–1783 could be blazoned “… three two three two three …”.
• Environed: surrounded by, closely bordered.
• Erased: torn off with a ragged edge. Chiefly applied to charges or crests of the heads and limbs of animals.
• Estoile: (from Old French, étoile, a star) a charge, a star with wavy rays rather than straight points as in the Mullet. If not of six points the number is specified in the blazon.
• Field: the surface of a shield or banner. Its colour is the first item described in a blazon, followed by the charges on it and then their colours.
• Fret: a charge composed of two narrow bendlets (a diminutive of a bend, that is, a narrow diagonal band) placed in saltire, and interlaced with a mascle, that is a lozenge voided (that is, with the middle portion removed so that the field is visible within the residual narrow band).
• Helm: a helmet, an accessory set above the shield of arms and bearing the crest. The type displayed varies with the rank of the bearer: in rankless commoners' arms only the closed or tilting (tournament) helm in steel is used, although later this is sometimes depicted with gold embellishments. Distinctions “befittinge degree” were introduced in the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603), before then a plain tilting helm in profile was universal (Fig. 3).

• Label: (from Old French, lambel, a strip of cloth) a cadency mark (q.v.): a narrow transverse band with points (pendant vertical tabs) placed in chief (that is, in the uppermost third) of arms. First used in the mid-twelfth century, it is an early cadency mark and remains the only one widely applied in English arms. Five points was usual in early labels, although their number was then arbitrary and without significance. Later three points are presumed, otherwise the number is specified in the blazon. Henceforth, with three points it differenced (differentiated) the arms of an eldest son from those of his father (Fig. 4); on the death of the father the label was removed from the arms of his son. The eldest son of an eldest son — or the eldest son of an eldest daughter, if she had no living brother, that is, she was an heraldic heiress — had a label of five points set on the arms of his then living grandfather. Even so, labels with five points continued to be used in the arms of both younger sons and other grandsons, with small charges added to some or all of the points for further differentiation.

  The label is also customarily applied to the crest (Fig. 5) and supporters (q.v.), especially to the neck (when shown as a collar it is blazoned as gorged with a Label …) or chest of any beast or bird thereon.

• Mantling (lambrequin): drapery tied to the helm beneath the wreath, in commoners' arms this is usually of the principal colour in the arms lined with the principal metal. Except in some renderings of early arms, it commonly has stylized ‘ragged’ edges. Some have claimed this embellishment recalled the torn edges suffered during combat, but since scalloped hems were common on clothing of the period it might have been that mantling merely followed fashion. From the Tudor period mantlings became increasingly extravagant and mannered: thereafter they were composed for decorative effect alone, as for instance in the main illustration of the arms, in contrast to their formerly realistic representation (Fig. 3).
• Motto: an epigrammatic or allusive expression whose origin is the cris-de-guerre (battle-cries) of the fifteenth century. It is typically placed as if on a scroll below the arms, but if there is a second motto it is often set above the crest, again on a scroll — this latter form is the practice for singular mottoes in Scottish arms. Although normally shown in the depictions of Grants of Arms, they are not blazoned in English heraldry. Their selection and display has always been subject to the absolute will of the bearer alone — likewise, any subsequent bearer may freely alter a motto. Unlike arms and crests, there is no requirement for mottoes to be unique nor does prior use proscribe their reuse in other arms.
• Mullet: (from Old French, molett, but the further etymology is obscure²) a charge, a straight-sided star polygon. If not of five points the number is specified in the blazon, although in early arms this was indeterminate and not blazoned, with both five and six points being common — sometimes different renderings of the same arms used either. They may be entire or pierced/voided (that is, with a central hole, as if in a spur rowel), but if pierced or voided they are blazoned as such (supra Estoile). With five points and un-pierced it is the cadency mark (q.v.) for a third son.
• Or: gold — an heraldic tincture.
• Poudré (poudre): (Old French, poudré, powdered with) identical with semé (infra), it is prevalent in early blazons.
• Semé (seme, semy): (from Old French, semée, sown) strewn with unnumbered identical small charges, evenly distributed over the entire field (q.v.) or another charge. As they are regarded as variations of the field, fragments of the semé charges should appear at the borders of the shield or banner — although heraldic artists did not always follow this rule of blazon, sometimes omitting the fragmentary charges altogether.
• Shield: (from Anglo-Saxon, scyld/sceld, a shield) a freely-wielded armoured surface borne on the un-weaponed arm of a warrior as a primary means of defence in combat. Its origins are remote in pre-history, as is the practice of marking them with distinctive patterns or emblems. Yet heraldic emblems were absent from medieval shields until the mid-twelfth century, although the ephemeral personal devices occasionally seen on earlier Norman kite shields (Fig. 6) are doubtless precursors of heraldry. Likewise the characteristic shape of the heraldic shield (Fig. 7) is derived from that of the Norman shield.
• Standard: a distinctively shaped heraldic flag with a field of the livery colours, which in the Middle Ages were not necessarily related to the tinctures of the arms. Introduced in the middle of the fourteenth century, evidently for the specific purpose of displaying the badge and, later, the motto.
• Supporters: figures flanking the shield as if supporting it; rarely used before the mid-fifteenth century, except freely and inconstantly as decorative infills in seals and, somewhat later, in bookplates. They may be real or imaginary beasts, birds or human figures. Their use was restricted by rank from the Elizabethan period onwards and they are not used in the arms of rankless commoners, except by prior ancestral right.

• Tincture (see 3: The rule of tincture): an heraldic colour, metal or fur — the latter are represented as stylized patterns. Charges in their natural colours are blazoned as proper. The colours and metals are:

  • The metals:
    • Argent: silver
    • Or: gold.
  • The colours:
    • Azure: blue
    • Gules: red
    • Purpure: purple
    • Sable: black
    • Vert: green.
• Wreath (torse): a spirally-wound ring of two rolls of cloth, usually shown as six alternate twists of the principal metal and colour in the arms, with the metal first on the dexter (q.v.) side. It was fixed to the upper part of the helm, providing a means of attachment for the crest. It is seldom present in early crests, especially when the form of the crest could be readily merged into the mantling, as with the heads of birds and beasts cropped at the neck.

Figure 1: the banner of arms

Figure 2: an earlier form of the arms

Figure 3: the arms as blazoned

Figure 4: an early label: the arms of the Lord Edward (the future Edward I), as heir to Henry III of England

Figure 5: a label on a crest

Figure 6: Norman ‘kite’ shields in the Bayeux Tapestry (c. 1077).

Figure 7: the setting-out of a typical late 13th century heraldic shield.