Blazon


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 an accurate 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 and syntax, which becomes essential for comprehension when blazoning a complex coat of arms.
Other armorial objects and devices – such as badges, banners, and seals – may also be described in blazon.
The noun and verb blazon are not to be confused with the noun emblazonment, or the verb to emblazon, both of which relate to the graphic representation of a coat of arms or heraldic device.

Etymology

The word blazon is derived from French blason,. It is found in English by the end of the 14th century.
Formerly, heraldic authorities believed that the word was related to the German verb blasen. Present-day lexicographers reject this theory as conjectural and disproved.

Grammar

Blazon is generally designed to eliminate ambiguity of interpretation, to be as concise as possible, and to avoid repetition and extraneous punctuation. English antiquarian Charles Boutell stated in 1864:
However, John Brooke-Little, Norroy and Ulster King of Arms, wrote in 1985: "Although there are certain conventions as to how arms shall be blazoned... many of the supposedly hard and fast rules laid down in heraldic manuals are often ignored."
A given coat of arms may be drawn in many different ways, all considered equivalent and faithful to the blazon, just as the letter "A" may be printed in many different fonts while still being the same letter. For example, the shape of the escutcheon is almost always immaterial, with very limited exceptions.
The main conventions of blazon are as follows:
  • Every blazon of a coat of arms begins by describing the field, with the first letter capitalised, followed by a comma ",". In a majority of cases this is a single tincture; e.g. Azure.
  • If the field is complex, the variation is described, followed by the tinctures used; e.g. Chequy gules and argent.
  • If the shield is divided, the division is described, followed by the tinctures of the subfields, beginning with the dexter side of the chief edge; e.g. Party per pale argent and vert, or Quarterly argent and gules. In the case of a divided shield, it is common for the word "party" or "parted" to be omitted.
  • Some authorities prefer to capitalise the names of tinctures and charges, but this convention is far from universal. Where tinctures are not capitalised, an exception may be made for the metal Or, in order to avoid confusion with the English word "or". Where space is at a premium, tincture names may be abbreviated: e.g., ar. for argent, gu. for gules, az. for azure, sa. for sable, and purp. for purpure.
  • Following the description of the field, the principal ordinary or ordinaries and charge are named, with their tincture; e.g., a bend or.
  • The principal ordinary or charge is followed by any other charges placed on or around it. If a charge is a bird or a beast, its attitude is defined, followed by the creature's tincture, followed by anything that may be differently coloured; e.g. An eagle displayed gules armed and wings charged with trefoils or. If the charge is a tree then it may be described by its shape or its leaves; eradicated means its roots are shown.
  • Counterchanged means that a charge which straddles a line of division is given the same tinctures as the divided field, but reversed.
  • A quartered shield is blazoned one quarter at a time, proceeding by rows from chief to base, and within each row from dexter to sinister; in other words, from the viewer's left to right.
  • Following the description of the shield, any additional components of the achievement – such as crown/coronet, helmet, torse, mantling, crest, motto, supporters and compartment – are described in turn, using the same terminology and syntax.
  • A convention often followed historically was to name a tincture explicitly only once within a given blazon. If the same tincture was found in different places within the arms, this was addressed either by ordering all elements of like tincture together prior to the tincture name ; or by naming the tincture only at its first occurrence, and referring to it at subsequent occurrences obliquely, for example by use of the phrase "of the field" ; or by reference to its numerical place in the sequence of named tinctures. However, these conventions are now avoided by the College of Arms in London, England, and by most other formal granting bodies, as they may introduce ambiguity to complex blazons.
  • It is common to print all heraldic blazons in italic. Heraldry has its own vocabulary, word-order and punctuation, and presenting it in italics indicates to the reader the use of a quasi-foreign language.

    French vocabulary and grammar

Because heraldry developed at a time when English clerks wrote in Anglo-Norman French, many terms in English heraldry are of French origin. Some of the details of the syntax of blazon also follow French practice: thus, adjectives are normally placed after nouns rather than before.
A number of heraldic adjectives may be given in either a French or an anglicised form: for example, a cross pattée or a cross patty; a cross fitchée or a cross fitchy. In modern English blazons, the anglicised form tends to be preferred.
Where the French form is used, a problem may arise as to the appropriate adjectival ending, determined in normal French usage by gender and number.
The usual convention in English heraldry is to adhere to the feminine singular form, for example: a chief undée and a saltire undée, even though the French nouns chef and sautoir are in fact masculine. Efforts have been made to ignore grammatical correctness, for example by J. E. Cussans, who suggested that all French adjectives should be expressed in the masculine singular, without regard to the gender and number of the nouns they qualify, thus a chief undé and a saltire undé.

Principles of the composition or reading of a blazon

The shield

As the most central, most essential, and most often unique element of an armorial achievement, the shield is described first in the blazon, which sometimes limits itself to this description alone, either due to the absence of external ornaments, or because they do not bring anything significant.
The arms can be of different types, and the way to blazon depends on this type:
  • simple arms form the general case of a field most often uniform, possibly charged with ordinaries or other charges ;
  • adjoin two or more arms, separated by partition lines forming quarters, each of them behaving like simple arms.

    Simple arms

The first component of the shield to describe is the field.
Simple field: the shield is entirely covered with a colour, a metal, or a fur, which may or may not receive ordinaries or other charges.
The field's tincture is named, then the charges: Gules, a chevron or.
A field without charges is said to be plain..
Divided field: the field is not of a single tincture, but of two separated by some geometric pattern. The blazon specifies the partition, then the two tinctures, following the rule chief before base, then dexter before sinister. If a charge lies across such a partition, it are said to be "over all": Per fess argent and azure, over all a lion or, armed and langued gules.
In a divided field, a charge crossing the partition is sometimes counterchanged: Per pale argent and azure, a fleur-de-lis counterchanged, meaning that the half of the fleur-de-lis resting on the argent half is azure, and vice versa, argent on the azure half.
Patterned field: the field is divided into many small regular elements, most often using two alternating colors. Each element being too small to constitute an autonomous element, the entire field is often described as a simple field with a specific name according to the type of partition: lozengy or and gules.
If it is charged, the charges are blazoned as overall on this composed field: Lozengy vert and gules, overall in dexter chief a mullet with a comet's tail curved in bend all or.
Similarly to the previous case, an ordinary can be counterchanged, which can lead to complex geometric patterns despite a relatively simple description.

After stating the field, one enumerates the charges, starting with the largest or most central.
The charge is an ordinary: it has an assigned place, and in the simplest case, it suffices to specify its color.
Argent, a fess gules.
If the ordinary is bounded by other than straight lines, these are described before the tincture. If the ordinary is itself charged, this is blazoned afterwards.
Ex: ermine, on a chief indented gules, a scallop or.
A non-ordinary charge has no specific place, but by default, it is placed in the center of the field.
Argent, a rose gules.
If the charge has particularities, this must be blazoned with specific terms. Any charge can itself be charged, although this is quite rare other than on ordinaries.
ex.: Gules, an eight-pointed star or charged with a double-headed eagle sable, membered, beaked, and crowned of the field.
Exceptions.
  • Some diminutives of ordinaries can, like other charges, be found in unusual places.
Or, a bend gules charged in chief with a cross trefly argent set palewise.		-

In English blazon, an ordinary is followed by any surrounding charges, and then finally by any charges on the ordinary: Gules, on a bend or between two mullets argent, three crescents sable. In French blazon, the order differs: De gueueles à la bande d'or, chargée de trois croissants de sable et accompagnée de deux molets d'argent.