Ordinary (heraldry)

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In heraldry, an ordinary is a simple geometrical figure on the arms, wider than a line or division of the field. There are also some geometric charges known as subordinaries, which are given lesser status by heraldic writers, even though most have been in use just as long as the traditional ordinaries.

Examples of ordinaries include:

Bend: diagonal bar \
*Bendlets: more than one bend
Chevron: upward pointing [\wedge]
*Chevronels: more than one chevron
Chief: horizontal bar at the top
Cross: vertical/horizontal cross +
Fess: horizontal bar in the centre
*Bars: more than one fess
Pale: a vertical bar
*Pallets: more than one pale
Pall: a Y-shape
Pile: downward pointing triangle
Saltire: diagonal cross ×

Examples of subordinaries include:

Bordure: a border around the shield
Canton: a square in the upper corner
Flaunch: semi-circle to one side

Ordinaries

Ordinaries (sometimes called "honourable ordinaries") are almost like partitions, but are handled like objects. Though there is much debate as to exactly which geometrical charges constitute ordinaries, certain ones are agreed on by everyone. A pale is a vertical charge starting from the top of the shield, ending at the bottom, and wide as a third of the shield's width. (The "Canadian pale", identical to the pale but taking up one-half the shield's width, was invented in 1964 by Conrad Swan, retired Garter King of Arms) [link]; it can be seen in the arms of Rehder. [link] A fess is the same thing as a pale, only horizontal.

There are also bends, saltires, flaunches and crosses, as well as chiefs, piles and chevrons.

A chief is a fess situated in the upper third of the shield. It can be associated with the fillet, a quite narrow horizontal band running along the bottom of the chief, [link] although it can be difficult if not impossible sometimes to distinguish between a fillet and a chief fimbriated, as the fimbriation of a chief occurs only along the lower line. (Fimbriation is the narrow bordering of the outline of a charge, with is then said to be fimbrated or fimbriated; a "fimbriation containing six diagonal 'tics' radiating" occurs in the badge of the 25th Flying Training Squadron of the United States Air Force.)[link] The term edged is sometimes used in a similar context. There is at least one example of a triple fimbriation.[link]) The fillet is sometimes inaccurately described as a diminutive of the chief, but the chief has no diminutive. It is important to note that a chief "enhanced" (which gives it a narrower appearance), as in the arms of Martin F. J. Matthews [link], is not a diminutive.

Probert [link], Guillim [link] and others say that if one chief is "surmounted of another" (one chief is charged on another chief) it will have the appearance of a chief divided by a line running along the upper part of the "chief". The rare "chief couped" is a chief that falls short of reaching the dexter and sinister sides of the shield; the representation of Stonehenge in the arms of Sir Cecil Chubb, "the Baronet who owned Stonehenge and gifted it to the nation", show an example.[link] Chiefs are more commonly seen, though not blazoned as, couped when within a tressure.[link]

A chevron looks like a saw's tooth, arching from the middle of the left side of the shield to the middle of the right.

The pall is a Y-shaped charge throughout the field, common to Scotland.

Subordinaries

A bordure is just that, a border around the shield. A bordure separated from the outside of the shield, which looks like a shield with another shield cut out of it, is an orle. Confusingly, when a number of charges (by default, eight) are arranged in the position that a bordure (not an orle) would be in, they are said to be "in orle".

A quarter is the top left (dexter chief in heraldry) quarter of the shield; this is the default position. The top right quarter is a sinister quarter.

Diminutives

There are diminutives of ordinaries as well. The diminutive forms are typically narrower, usually in order to fit two or more of them on the same field.

The diminutive of the pale is the pallet and the diminutive of the fess is the bar. (The diminutive of the bar is the barrulet; barrulets are never borne singly. Bars are likewise rarely borne singly, though the arms of Scheffeld are amazingly blazoned as having one-and-a-half bars.[link]) "Barry of " means that the background is divided into that number of horizontal stripes. There are diminutives of most partitions, like "bendy of" or "paly of". For "barry" or "paly", there must be an even number of stripes; otherwise it is a field of x tincture and y pallets or bars. Thus the shield of the United States of America, though officially described as "Paly of thirteen argent and gules, a chief azure", is no such thing; it is "Argent, six pallets gules and a chief azure".

The diminutive of the bend sinister is the scarpe.

The diminutive of the chevron is the chevronel.

The diminutive of the quarter is the canton, a square occupying, in theory, the upper left third of the shield. In theory a canton is never an original part of the shield, but some form of later addition, but this is not true in practice. Another charge can be completely hidden by the canton (sometimes, if the charge is not part of a predictable pattern of like charges laid out elsewhere on the shield, making it impossible to correctly blazon the shield); the charge so hidden is then called "absconded". (A highly unusual example of a quarter absconding charges can be seen when Robert Stewart, Lord of Lorn, marshalled his arms with those of Lorn: "Or a fess chequy of four tracts Azure and Argent between two buckles in chief and a garb in base of the Second; a sinister quarter Or bearing a lymphad Sable with sail set absconding one of the buckles and part of the fess; in the dexter base another quarter of the same absconding part of the fess". [link]) When a shield contains both a fess and canton they are always shown in their theoretical size, and with no dividing line between them; as they appear to be one continuous thing, blazoning a shield with a fess and canton can be confusing for the novice. The canton can be borne sinister (unless blazoned "a canton sinister" the canton is dexter), but this rarely happens.

The diminutive of the canton is the chequer of the chequy field (but this never occurs alone).

Any type of charge, but usually ordinaries and subordinaries, can be "voided"; without further description, this means that the charge has been "emptied" with a hole in the shape of the charge revealing the field behind it, and only a border has been left. It is possible, however, though highly unusual, that the voiding, the hole, is of a different tincture than the field behind the charge, which tincutre must then be specified; for example, "Argent, a mullet gules, voided or". It is also possible that the voiding is of a different shape than the voided charge, as in the arms of Newton Technical High School in South Africa: "Quarterly gules and sable; a lozenge or voided of a quatrefoil; at its centre a cog wheel argent; the whole within a border or".

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