Ordinary (heraldry)


In heraldry, an ordinary is one of the two main types of charges, beside the mobile charges. An ordinary is a simple geometrical figure, bounded by straight lines and running from side to side or top to bottom of the shield. There are also some geometric charges known as subordinaries, which have been given lesser status by some heraldic writers, though most have been in use as long as the traditional ordinaries. Diminutives of ordinaries and some subordinaries are charges of the same shape, though thinner. Most of the ordinaries are theoretically said to occupy one-third of the shield; but this is rarely observed in practice, except when the ordinary is the only charge.
The terms ordinary and subordinary are somewhat controversial, as they have been applied arbitrarily and inconsistently among authors, and the use of these terms has been disparaged by some leading heraldic authorities. In his Complete Guide to Heraldry, Arthur Charles Fox-Davies asserted that the terms are likely inventions of heraldic writers and not of heralds, arguing the "utter absurdity of the necessity for any classification at all," and stating that the ordinaries and sub-ordinaries are, in his mind, "no more than first charges."

Types

Ordinaries

Ordinaries resemble partitions of the field, but are formally considered objects on the field. Though there is some debate as to exactly which geometrical charges—with straight edges and running from edge to edge of the shield—constitute ordinaries, certain ones are agreed on by everyone. Except for the chief they are central to the shield. Ordinaries should not be mixed with Division of the field.
  • Cross: a pale and a fess of equal widths conjoined, as in the arms of the City of London.
  • Pale: a vertical stripe right down the middle of the shield. Typically to the width of the field.
  • * A variant is the Canadian pale, invented in 1964 for the new Canadian national flag: it takes up half the width of the field.Fess: a horizontal stripe, as in the coat of arms of Austria. Typically to the height of the field.
  • * Bar: a narrower fess, sometimes reckoned as an ordinary in its own right. It is rarely borne singly.
  • Bend: an oblique band from the dexter chief to the opposite corner, as in the arms of the former grand duchy of Baden.
  • Bend sinister: a bend in the opposite direction.
  • Chevron: two diagonal bands meeting in the centre in the form of an inverted V, or like the beams of a gable; as in the arms of Udine, Italy, or Trans, Switzerland.
  • Saltire: a bend and a bend sinister both of equal widths conjoined to form a diagonal cross, as in the Scots national banner, and also known colloquially as a St Andrew's cross.
  • Chief: a horizontal band right across the top of the shield, as in the arms of the district of Lausanne.
  • * Chief triangular begins in the corners and extends to a point that is one quarter to one third the way down the shield. It is a complex line division variant of a chief.
  • * Chief enarched is drawn with a concave arch
  • * Chief double-arched has two concavities
  • Terrace in base
  • *Mount when represented in green and curved or arched, as a hill.
  • *Mount mounted, or Shapournet shapourned: a trimount.

Ordinaries or subordinaries

The following are sometimes classed as ordinaries, sometimes as subordinaries :
  • Bordure: the boundary of the shield; often used for cadency
  • Pile: downward pointing triangle, issuing from the top of the shield
  • Pall or Pairle: a Y-shape
  • *A variant is the shakefork: a pall cut short of the margins, with pointed ends. It is frequent in Scotland, owing to its prominence in the armoury of Clan Cunningham.

Subordinaries

Some geometric figures are not considered to be "honourable ordinaries" and are called "subordinaries". Very loosely, they are geometric or conventional charges that, unlike ordinaries, do not stretch from edge to edge of the shield. There is no definitive list or definition, but they generally include:

Fixed subordinaries

Fixed subordinaries are those that have a particular place to go on a shield—or at least a very limited range of places.Quarter: the dexter chief quadrant of the shield
  • * Canton: smaller than the quarter, formally said to occupy one-ninth of the shield, though sometimes drawn smaller, but generally accepted as a square 1/3 the width of the shield. The canton is often said to be the quarter's diminutive, but perhaps it should be treated as a subordinary in its own right as it fulfils heraldic functions not fulfilled by the quarter, and behaves according to its own special rules—as for example in the case of the canton on which baronets in the UK may display the badges of their 'rank', which is very rarely shown occupying such a large area as the upper left third of the field, and is usually much less and very often shown not as square but as a rectangle with its longer side vertical. Very occasionally a 'sinister canton' is found, on the shield's other side.Flaunches, always borne in pairs: a circular arc emerging out of each flank of the shield.Fret: interlacing bendlet, bendlet sinister and mascle.Gore: two arcs meeting in the fess point to form a triangular segment.Gyron: the lower half of a quarter cut diagonally, said to be an old charge but rare although there are modern examples Orle: A bordure separated from the outside of the shield. Like the bordure the orle takes on the shape of the shield or flag it is on. Although the orle's diminutive is the tressure, there are examples of "fillet orles". When a number of charges are arranged as if on a bordure, they are said to be in orle or to form an orle of such charges. It is often said that an orle may not have other charges charged on it, but the Scots Public Register has the coat of Norie of Noristone: 'Parted per pale argent and sable ane orle engrailed on both sydes charged with four quaterfoiules within a bordur all counterchanged'.
  • * Tressure: a thinner version and hence diminutive of the orle. The most famous tressure is probably the double tressure flory counter flory in the royal [coat of arms of Scotland]. Tressures with other ornamentation exist, such as with maple leaves, crescents, thistles and roses.

Mobile subordinaries

Other subordinaries can be placed anywhere on the field.Escutcheon: a shield used as a charge.Lozenge: a rhombus with its long axis upright, resembling the diamond of playing-cards.Roundel: a disc or ball, as in the arms of the Duchy of Cornwall or of the Medici. In the Anglophone heraldries differently coloured roundels have different names, e.g. a roundel or is called a bezant and a roundel azure is called a hurt. French heraldry solely distinguishes besants and tourteaux : hence, the Canadian Francophone versions of blazons follow suit — Anglophone hurt is Francophone tourteau d'azur, and Anglophone bezant is a besant d'orBillet: a small rectangle, resembling a brick or a letter. Billets are normally vertical, but can be horizontal.

Variations

Lines

Ordinaries need not be bounded by straight lines.

Diminutives

When a coat of arms contains two or more of an ordinary, they are nearly always blazoned as diminutives of the ordinary, as follows.

Diminutives of the pale

pallet: theoretically half the width of a pale.endorse: half the width of a pallet; also found in pairs on either side of a pale when the term "endorsed" is used

Diminutives of the fess

bar, see above.closet, half the width of the barbarrulet, narrower than both.hamade : a bar couped which doesn't reach the edges of the shield, usually in threes

Diminutives of the bend

bendlet, half the width of a bend.ribbon or riband, half the width of a bendlet, occasionally called a costbaton: a bendlet couped which doesn't reach the edges of the shield, often said to be only a bendlet sinister couped, but has certainly been used as a couped bendlet 'dexter' since the 17th century at the latest

Diminutive of the bend sinister

bendlet sinister, half the width of a bend sinister, also very occasionally called a scarpe;
  • baton sinister, a bendlet sinister couped

Diminutives of the chevron

chevronel: half the width of a chevron.
  • couple close: half the width of a chevronnel, but only to be found in pairs with a chevron between them; the phrase 'a chevron between two couple closes' has the alternative 'a chevron couple closed'; in essence the same as cottising a chevron; couple close is not found much in modern blazons

Diminutives of the chief

comble, "half" a chief; rare in the Anglophone heraldries, but does appear in the civic heraldry of France—there even being at least one chief charged with a comblechief enhanced, again "half" a chief, sometimes said not to be a diminutive, but is indistinguishable from the comble which is.
  • fillet: said, by those who do not believe in the comble or chief enhanced, to be the nearest that the chief comes to having a diminutive, which is effectively a barrulet conjoined to a chief at its bottom edge—blazoned either as 'a chief supported by a fillet' or as 'a chief filleted' ; occasionally appears in its own right—though it is then very little other than a barrulet enhanced.

Diminutive of the cross

cross fillet, somewhat less than half the width of a cross.

Diminutive of the saltire

fillet saltire, something less than half the width of a saltiresaltorel, is sometimes said to be a diminutive saltire, but is best thought of simply as a saltire couped, the word being sometimes used when there are three or more —a 19th-century armorial uses 'saltorels' only once for every ten or eleven 'saltires'. A common charge in Dutch heraldry.

Voiding, surmounting with another, and fimbriation

Any type of charge, but probably most often the ordinaries and subordinaries, can be "voided"; without further description, this means that a hole in the shape of the charge reveals the field behind it. Occasionally the hole is of different tincture or shape, so that the charge appears to be surcharged with a smaller charge.

Canadian Heraldic Authority

  • pall— : Azure on a pall Or five cross crosslets fitchée Gules in chief an open book Argent binding and fore-edges Or.
  • : Purpure a lion rampant within a double tressure erablé-counter-erablé Or.tressure—: Azure a rose Argent seeded Or barbed Vert within a tressure flory inward Argent.
  • pallets—, badge: On a compass rose of sixteen points Gules, a plate fimbriated Gules charged with three pallets wavy Azure.
  • , Quebec: Azure on a bend between in chief a sun in splendour and in base a circular saw blade Or, a bendlet wavy Azure.
  • voided—: Or a cross Gules voided throughout of the field between in the first quarter a Mountain Bluebird volant bendwise Azure, in the second an open book Argent bound Azure, in the third a cross flory Azure voided of the field and charged with a cross couped Gules, and in the fourth two bendlets and two bendlets sinister interlaced Azure.
  • : Vert a cross and saltire merged Or voided Azure and over all in centre point a bezant charged with a strawberry flower proper.cottised—: Azure on a fess cottised Or an open book Argent edged Or bound Azure clasped Argent in chief a Loyalist civil coronet and in base a cross formy Or.
  • cotised—: Vert on a fess Argent coticed Or fracted per pale lowered dexter raised sinister twelve chevrons couched dexter Azure in dexter chief a representation of the Royal Crown Or.
  • cotised—: Argent a cross cotised by eight demi maple leaves Gules.
  • cotised— : Gules on a Canadian Pale wavy Argent cotised to the interior Azure, a maple leaf composed of flames proper charged with a gridiron Azure.
  • cotised—: Argent on a bend bretessed Azure cotised Sable between in chief and in base a Latin cross fleury Gules a key ward upwards between two fleurs-de-lys all bendwise Or — illustrating that both the tinctures and the lines of an ordinary and its cotises are independent of each other.

U. S. Army Institute of Heraldry

  • sinister canton—: an example of a sinister canton, bearing the badge of the 'parent' regiment.
  • fusils—: Per pale Sable and Gules, a fleur-de-lis throughout Or between in chief two fusils pilewise and in fess two mullets Argent.
  • bendlets sinister—: Per fess Argent and Azure, a fess embattled to chief Or masoned Sable between in chief a field gun Gules on a mount Vert and in base three bendlets sinister of the first.
  • chief enhanced—: Buff, a wheel Argent between dexter and sinister flanks Vert and Gules, on a chief enhanced Azure a chain of three links fesswise of the second. Here the flanks are straight rather than being their cousins the curved flaunches.
  • chief with a fillet—: ''Per bend Buff and Gules a bend Or, a cross and ball peen hammer saltirewise superimposed in base by a stylized mechanized track Sable; on a chief per fess dancetty of three Azure and of the third with the dexter and sinister peaks diminutive, a mullet on the dexter peak Argent, on the lower part of chief a fillet of the fourth.''

Heraldry Society of Scotland

  • : Or; a saltire and chief gules, on the latter five barrulets wavy conjoined, alternately argent and azure.
  • : ''Quarterly, azure and gules: first, an open bible proper; second, two swords in saltire argent, hilts uppermost, or; third, two shuttles in saltire or, garnished with thread argent; fourth, a miner's lamp argent, enflamed proper; over all a fillet cross, nowy lozengy, argent.''

Royal Heraldry Society of Canada

  • : Argent semé bottony Sable a pall reversed Gules cotised Azure, over all a rod of Aesculapius surmounting a mahlstick and a paint brush in saltire Or.
  • : Azure between three cinquefoils a chevron Argent masoned Sable voided of the field and charged thereon with a trillium flower between two dogwood flowers proper.
  • : Sable, a chevron Erminois cotised between three saltires couped and within a bordure Or.
  • : ''Azure a pall and pale merged wavy Or voided wavy of the field cotised wavy Or.''

Civic Heraldry of England and Wales

  • : Or on a Saltire Azure four Herrings respectant Argent.
  • : Quarterly wavy Sable and Or in the first and fourth quarters a Key wards upwards and to the dexter and in the second and third quarters a Lozenge all counterchanged.
  • : Vert between three Lozenges Argent a Pair of Dividers Or enfiled by a Mural Crown also Argent two Flaunches of the last each charged with a Mascle Gules.
  • : Gules in chief a Castle and in base a Cross formy the uppermost limb between a Crescent and an Estoile of seven rays all within an Orle Argent.
  • : Per pale indented Argent and Gules on a Chief Or three Torteaux that in the centre charged with a Pierced Cinquefoil Ermine the others each charged with a Mascle Or.
  • : Per pale Azure and Gules on a Chevron Argent between in chief a representation of St. Cuthbert's Cross proper and a Shorthorn Bull's Head caboshed and in base a Garb Or enfiled by a Circlet of Steel proper a Chevronel wavy Azure on a Chief Argent a representation of the Steam Engine "Locomotion" and a Tender proper.
  • Former, a rare example of a single bar.
  • Former : Barry wavy of eight Argent and Azure on a Pile Azure a Lion rampant between three Cross Crosslets Or.
  • Former : the crest includes a Banner paly of six Gold and Azure a Quarter Ermine.
  • Former, showing a canton filling one-ninth of the shield.
  • Former : Sable a Fret Or on a Chief of the last two Lions passant respectant of the field.
  • Former : Or a Stag's Head Gules between the attires an Escutcheon Azure charged with three Bars wavy of the first encircled by a Chaplet of Oak fructed proper on a Chief Sable a Lion passant guardant Gold.
  • Former : Argent a Pickaxe surmounted by a Spade the hafts upwards in saltire proper within an Orle of Pellets on a Chief Sable three Stag's Heads caboshed of the Field.
  • Former : Argent a Fess embattled between three roses Gules each surmounted by a Rose Argent barbed and seeded proper the Fess surmounted by an Escutcheon Azure charged with a representation of an Hannibal Aircraft volant Argent and in base a rising Sun Or all within a Bordure compony Or and Azure.
  • Former : ''Gules within a Cross voided Or a Crozier in pale of the last in the first quarter a winged Bull statant in the second a Lion rampant reguardant both Argent in the third a Sword point downwards proper pomel and hilt Gold between two Boars' Heads couped at the neck of the third and in the fourth a Stag's Head caboshed of the second..''

Other sites

  • : Per fess enhanced wavy or and argent; in chief issuant out of a fillet wavy azure four demi lions combatant, two and two gules, and in base a Scots fir tree in pale, seeded, proper, growing out of a mound purpure, between on the dexter an eagle displayed azure, armed beaked and membered gules, on its breast an antique covered cup or and charged with a three point label also gules, and on the sinister an eagle displayed sable armed beaked and membered gules.
  • , South Africa: ''Quarterly gules and sable; a lozenge or voided of a quatrefoil; at its centre a cog wheel argent; the whole within a bordure or.''