With the regular establishment of heraldry the need for a technical method of describing the various bearings at once made itself felt, and the system of Blazon was the result. Like the heraldry which it described it was admirably adapted to its purpose, being simple, perfectly explicit of the character, pose, and position of its subject, without excessive minuteness in detail. In time, however, it not only became more complicated, as was natural, but it at last became a vehicle for the pedantry which, succeeding the artistic feeling of the Middle Ages, expended itself in the making of unnecessary rules. By the time the seventeenth century was reached it seemed to be thought to show the height of heraldic knowledge to insist on every insignificant detail, and so prevent the artist from deviating into anything more excellent than was customary at the moment. Indeed this pedantic affection for exactness in trifles sometimes makes one wonder that in blazoning a maiden’s face it was not thought necessary to mention that it included a nose between two eyes in chief and a mouth in base ppr. As a guide to the degree beyond which freedom of treatment may not go without destroying the heraldic validity of the subject, blazoning should be assiduously practised, however irksome and pedantic it may appear, until a technical note of any armorials can be written with precision and such a description be translated into a sketch with equal certainty. After studying the system as explained herein, I would recommend as practice the endeavouring to properly describe the armorials in an illustrated work, a Peerage for instance, with subsequent reference to the authentic blazon for confirmation or correction. Conversely a sketch should be made from a blazon, and then compared in a similar way with the illustration. For this purpose Foster’s Peerage and Baronetage, 1881-3, with its beautiful woodcuts after drawings by Dom Anselm and Forbes Nixon, will be of admirable service, and at the same time will familiarize the student with excellent heraldic design. The achievements in that work are represented with great strength and directness, and have much affinity with the spirit of the mediaeval work, and are therefore worthy of careful study. At the same time any tendency to make a style (which may easily become an eccentricity) into an aim rather than an incident should be carefully avoided.
Blazon is not intended to enable two persons to depict a coat exactly alike in petty detail, but rather that each in rendering the subject in his own fashion may be correct in essentials, so that there can be no question of what coat is intended. Similarly, when a Patent of Arms refers to those “in the margin” thereof “more plainly depicted” (i.e. more legibly than in the technically worded blazon), it is not meant that the treatment (it may be bad) or the exact quality of tincture (it may be discoloured) is to be copied, and this is by no means an unnecessary warning, as experience has shown.
In naming the parts of the field or general surface, it must be remembered that the shield of arms is regarded as being held in position in front of its bearer: the side towards the right shoulder being called the dexter, and that towards the left the sinister. Of these the former is “more worthy” than the latter; that is to say, a charge that is not centrally placed would be to the dexter rather than to the sinister side of the shield; this, it may be remembered, being the reverse of the manner of wearing medals and orders on the breast. The upper part of the shield is the chief and the lower part the base, the former naturally taking precedence over the latter. This is important in relation to the blazon of parti-coloured fields.
Fig. 34.
In order to facilitate the accurate placing of objects in their intended positions on the field its various parts were thus named (Fig. 34):—
A. Dexter
B. Middle
C. Sinister
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