1. The Chiefe; a bar of colour across the upper part of the shield, signifies authority or chief-dom, as the source of all order, power, and peace.
2. The cross, as an ordinary, distinguished from the cross as a bearing, consists simply of two bars dividing the shield into four quarters; and, I believe, that it does not in this form stand properly as a symbol of Christian faith, but only as one of Christian patience and fortitude. The cross as a symbol of faith is terminated within the field.
3. The Fesse, a horizontal bar across the middle of the shield, represents the knight’s girdle, or anything that binds and secures, or continues. The word is a corruption of fascia. Sir Francis Drake received for arms from Queen Elizabeth a Fesse waved between two pole-stars, where it stands for the waved surface of the sea, and partly, also, to signify that Sir Francis put a girdle round the earth; and the family of Drummond carries three diminutive Fesses, or bars, waved, because their ancestor brought Queen Margaret safe through many storms.
4. The Bend, an oblique bar descending from right to left of the holder of the shield, represents the sword belt. The Latin balteus and balteum are, I believe, the origin of the word. They become bendellus and bendellum; then bandeau and bande. Benda is the word used for the riband round the neck of St. Etheldreda, in the account of her death quoted by Du Cange. I believe, also, the fesse stands often for the cross-bar of the castle gate, and the bend for its very useful diagonal bar: this is only a conjecture, but I believe as likely to be true as the idea, certainly admitted in heraldry, that the bend sometimes stands for a scaling ladder: so also the next four most important ordinaries have all an architectural significance.
5. The Pale, an upright bar dividing the shield in half, is simply an upright piece of timber in a palisade. It signifies either defence or enclosure.
6. The Pile, a wedge-shaped space of colour with the point downwards, represents what we still call a pile; a piece of timber driven into moist ground to secure the foundation of any building.
7. The Canton, a square space of colour in either of the upper corners of the shield, signifies the corner-stone of a building. The origin and various use of this word are very interesting. The Greek κανθός, used by Aristotle for the corner of the eyes, becomes canto, and then cantonus. The French coin (corner), is usually derived from the Latin cuneus; but I have no doubt it is one corruption of canton: the mediæval-Latin cantonus is either an angle or recess, or a four-square corner-stone. The heraldic canton is the corner-stone of a building, and the French cantonnier is a road-mender, because the essential thing in repairing a road is to get its corner or edge firm.
8. The Chevron, a band bent at an angle (properly a right angle), with its point upwards, represents the gable or roof of a house. Thus the four last-named ordinaries represent the four essentials of a fixed habitation: the pale, its enclosure within a given space of ground; the pile, its foundation; the canton, its wall, and the chevron its roof.
9. The Orle, a narrow band following the outline of the shield midway between its edge and centre, is a more definite expression of enclosure or fortification by moat or rampart. The relations of this word, no less than that of the canton, are singular, and worth remembering. Du Cange quotes under it an order of the municipality of Piacenza, that always, in the custom-house where the salt-tax was taken, “a great orled disk” should be kept; “dischus magnus orlatus,” i.e., a large plate, with a rim, in which every day fresh salt should be placed. Then note that the word disk is used in the Middle Ages, either for a plate, or a table, (the “holy disk” is the patina of the sacrament), but most generally for a table, whence you get the old German disch; our dish, the French disner, diner; and our dinner. The disk cut out into a ring becomes a quoit, which is the simplest form of orle. The word ‘orle’ itself comes, I believe, from ora, in old Latin, which took a diminutive, orula; or perhaps the ‘l’ was put in merely to distinguish, to the ear, a margined thing, ‘orlatus,’ from a gilded thing, ‘auratus.’ It stands for the hem of a robe, or the fillet of a crown, as well as for any margin; and it is given as an ordinary to such as have afforded protection and defence, because it defends what is within it. Reduced to a narrow band, it becomes a ‘Tressure.’ If you have a sovereign of 1860 to 1870 in your pocket, and look at the right hand upper corner of the Queen’s arms, you will see the Scottish Lion within the tressure decorated with fleur-de-lys, which Scotland bears in memory of her treaty with Charlemagne.