Blazon

Encyclopedia : B : BL : BLA : Blazon

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This is an article about heraldry. For the term used in Romantic poetry, see Blason.

In heraldry and vexillology, a blazon is a formal description of, most often, a coat of arms or flag, which enables a person to construct or reconstruct the appropriate image. A coat of arms or flag is therefore not primarily defined by a picture, but rather by the wording of its blazon.

The term blazon may also refer to a formal description of other objects, such as badges, banners, and seals.

Grammar of blazon

To ensure that the pictures people draw after reading the descriptions are accurate and reasonably alike, blazons follow a set of rules:

• The first thing the blazon describes is the tincture (colour) of the field (background). In some cases of "landscape heraldry" all or part of the field is some sort of landscape, and there is at least one case in which the field is the sea.
• Next the blazon describes the placement and tinctures of the different charges (objects) on the shield. The charges are described from the shield's top to the base and from dexter (Latin: "right") to sinister ("left"), defined from the shield-bearer's point of view, not the observer's (the shield-bearer's right is the viewer's left and vice versa).

For example, one might emblazon Azure, a bend Or by drawing the following, a blue field with a type of charge called a "bend" (diagonal division of a particular width) of tincture "Or" (gold). A given coat-of-arms may be drawn in many different ways, all considered equivalent, just as the letter "A" may be printed in many different fonts while still being the same letter. For example, the shape of the shield is almost always immaterial.

For reasons of tradition, many French terms are used, even within English heraldry. This practice ensures that a blazon is globally unique.

Blazon complexity

Full descriptions of shields range in complexity, from a single word to a convoluted series describing compound shields:

• Arms of Brittany, France: "Ermine"

• "Azure, a bend Or", over which the families of Scrope and Grosvenor fought a famous legal battle. See image above.

• Arms of Östergötland, Sweden: "Gules a Griffin with Dragon Wings, Tail and Tongue rampant Or armed, beaked, langued and membered Azure between four Roses Argent."

• Arms of Hungary dating from 1867, when part of Austria-Hungary, "Quarterly, I three lions' heads affrontés crowned Or (for Dalmatia); II chequy Gules and Argent (for Croatia); III Azure, a river in fess Gules bordered Argent, thereupon a marten proper, beneath a six-pointed star Or (for Slavonia); IV per fess Azure and Or, overall a bar Gules, in the chief a demi-eagle Sable displayed addextré of the sun in splendour, and senestré of a crescent Argent, in the base seven towers three and four, of the third (for Transylvania); enté en point Gules, a double-headed eagle Proper on a peninsula Vert, holding a vase pouring water into the sea Argent, beneath a crown Proper with bands Azure (for Fiume); overall an escutcheon barry of eight Gules and Argent impaling Gules, on a mount Vert a crown Or, issuant therefrom a double cross Argent (for Hungary)."

See also

• Heraldry
• Tincture
• Flag terminology

References

• Brault, Gerard J. (1997). Early Blazon: Heraldic Terminology in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, (2nd ed.). Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press. ISBN 0-85115-711-4.
• Elvin, Charles Norton. (1969). A Dictionary of Heraldry. London: Heraldry Today. ISBN 0-900-45500-4.
• Parker, James. A Glossary of Terms Used in Heraldry, (2nd ed.). Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle Co. ISBN 0-8048-0715-9.

External links

• [A Heraldic Primer], by Stephen Gold and Timothy Shead, explaing the terminology in detail. URL last accessed June 20, 2006.
• [A Grammar of Blazonry] by Bruce Miller. URL last accessed June 20, 2006.
• ["Commonly Known" Heraldic Blazon/Emblazon Knowledge] (an SCA related page with a lengthy dictionary of blazon terms)

The Heraldic Tincture Series
Rule of Tincture
Metals: > Argent | Or |
Colours: > Azure | Gules | Purpure | Sable | Vert |
Furs: > Ermine | Vair | Potent |
Stains: > Murrey | Tenné | Sanguine |
Other: > Bleu celeste | Carnation | Cendrée | Orange |

 

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