Arms divided into two compartments by a horizontal line are said to be parted per fesse; when the line is perpendicular, parted per pale; and so of the others. Ridiculous as it may seem, our ancestors, from the reign of Edward II to that of Richard II, affected this kind of dress. In a contemporary illumination, John of Gaunt is represented in a long robe divided exactly in half, one side being blue, the other white, the colours of the House of Lancaster. Chaucer’s Parson, just now quoted, inveighs against the “wrappings of their hose which are departed of two colours, white and red, white and blue, or black and red,” making the wearers seem as though “the fire of St. Anthony or other such mischance had consumed one half of their bodies.” “These party-coloured hose,” humorously remarks Mr. Planché, “render uncertain the fellowship of the legs, and the common term a pair perfectly inadmissible.” But to return to the honourable ordinaries. The cross. It would not be difficult to fill a volume with disquisitions upon this bearing, forming, as it does, a prominent feature in the heraldry of all Christendom; but I must content myself with a general view, without entering much into detail. The cross, as the symbol of Christianity, naturally engaged the reverent and affectionate regard of the early Christians, a feeling which lapsed first into superstition, and eventually into idolatry. In those chivalrous but ill-directed efforts of the princes and armies of Christian Europe to gain possession of the Holy Land, the cross was adopted as the sign or mark of the common cause; it floated upon the standard, was embroidered upon the robes, and depicted on the shields of the enthusiastic throng whose campaigns hence took the designation of Croisades, or Crusades. On subsequent occasions the cross was employed in this general manner, especially when the interests of the church were concerned, as, for instance, at the battle of Lewes in 1264, when the soldiers of the baronial army marked themselves with a white cross for the purpose of distinguishing each other from the king’s forces.[92] The plain cross, or cross of St. George, is the most antient form of this bearing; it differed, however, from the form now in use in having the horizontal bar placed higher than the centre of the upright. The alteration was doubtless a matter of convenience to allow the common charges of the field, when any occurred, a more equal space. But the cross has been so modified by the varying tastes of different ages, that Dame Juliana Berners, at a time when armory was comparatively simple, declares that “crossis innumerabull are borne dayli.” The principal and most usual varieties of this ordinary are described in the ‘Boke of St. Albans.’ One of the most interesting forms is the cross fitchée, or ‘fixibyll,’ because being sharpened at the lower end it could be fixed into the ground, like the little crosses in Catholic cemeteries. It probably originated in the cross antiently carried by pilgrims, which answered the purpose of a walking-staff, and served, when occasion required, for the use of devotion. Next to this may be reckoned the cross patée, the cross-crosslet, the cross patonce, and the cross moline, called in the Boke a “mylneris cros,” “for it is made to the similitude of a certain instrument of yrne in mylnys, the which berith the mylneston.”[93] The plain cross corded, or entwined with ropes, was borne, according to the same authority, in the “armys of a nobull man, the which was some tyme a crafty man (handicraftsman), a roper as he himself said.” These crosses are fully described in the larger treatises on heraldry, together with numerous others. Berry’s Encyclopædia Heraldica enumerates no less than THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-FIVE varieties.
| Crosslet fitchee | patee | patonce | moline | Calvary. |
The saltire, popularly called St. Andrew’s cross, is formed like two bends crossing each other in the centre of the escocheon. A great variety of opinions has existed as to its origin. Some authors take it for an antient piece of harness attached to the saddle of a horse to enable the rider, sauter dessous, to jump down.[94] Others derive it from an instrument used in saltu, in the forest, for the purpose of taking wild beasts; but neither of these hypotheses seems very probable. Leigh says, “This in the old tyme, was of ye height of a man, and was borne of such as used to scale the walls [saltare in muros] of towns. For it was driven full of pinnes necessary to that purpose. And walles of townes were then but lowe as appeared by the walls of Rome, whiche were suche that Remus easelye leaped over them. Witnesseth also the same the citie of Winchester whose walls were overlooked of Colbrande, chieftaine of the Danes, who were slayne by Guye, Erle of Warwike.” The cheveron, which resembles a pair of rafters, is likewise of very uncertain origin. It has generally been considered as a kind of architectural emblem. Leigh, speaking of a coat containing three cheveronels, or little cheverons, says, “The ancestour of this cote hath builded iij greate houses in one province,” and this remark applies with some truth to the Lewkenors of Sussex, who bore similar arms, though whether assumed from such a circumstance I cannot ascertain. The pile is a wedge-like figure based upon the edge of the shield, and having its apex inwards. The following etymons have been suggested: 1, pilum, Lat. the head of an arrow; the Spaniards and Italians call this ordinary cuspis. 2, pile, French, a strong pointed timber driven into boggy ground to make a firm foundation. 3, pied, French, the foot; in French armory it is called pieu. I cannot admit any of these derivations, though perhaps my own etymon may not be deemed less irrelevant, viz. pellis, the skin of a beast, whence our English terms pell, pelt, peltry, &c. The skin of a wild beast, deprived of the head and fore legs, and fastened round the neck by the hinder ones, would form a rude garment, such as the hunter would consider an honourable trophy of his skill, and such as the soldier of an unpolished age would by no means despise; and it would resemble, with tolerable exactness, the pile of heraldry. The QUARTER is, as the word implies, a fourth part of the field, differing in tincture from the remainder; and the CANTON, a smaller quadrangular figure in the dexter, or sinister, chief of the escocheon, so called from the French cantoné, cornered.
The following figures rank as sub-ordinaries, viz. Flasques, Flanches, the Fret, Border, Orle, Tressure, Gyron, &c.
Flasques, always borne in pairs, are two pieces hollowed out at each side of the shield: FLANCHES and VOIDERS are modifications of this bearing. The last, says Leigh,[95] “is the reward of a gentlewoman for service by her done to the prince or princess.” It is not improbable that it was borrowed from a peculiar fashion in female costume which prevailed temp. Richard II. Chaucer uses the word voided in the sense of removed, made empty, and this is probably the origin of the term.
When a shield is divided into eight acute-angled triangles, by lines drawn perpendicularly, horizontally, and diagonally through the centre, it is blazoned by the phrase ‘gyronny of eight,’ and so of any other number of equal partitions of the same form. If one of these triangles occur singly it is termed a gyron. For this term the nomenclature of heraldry is indebted to the Spanish language, in which it means a gore, gusset, or triangular piece of cloth. The family of Giron, subsequently ennobled as Dukes of Ossona, bear three such figures in their arms, from the following circumstance. Alphonso VI, king of Spain, in a battle with the Moors, had his horse killed under him, when, being in great personal danger, he was rescued and remounted by Don Roderico de Cissneres, who, as a memorial of the event, cut three triangular pieces from his sovereign’s mantle, which being afterwards exhibited to the king, he bestowed on his valiant follower an adequate reward, and gave him permission to bear three gyrons as his arms. The English family of Gurr, whose surname was probably derived from the village of Gueures, near Dieppe, bear ‘gyronny ... and ...’ as a ‘canting’ or allusive coat. Some derive this species of bearing from a kind of patchwork mantle of various colours. Hence, doubtless, also arose that picturesque species of bearing called chequy, consisting of alternate squares of different tinctures. Chaucer and Spenser use the word checkelatoun; probably in this sense:
“His robe was cheque-latoun.”
Knight’s Tale.
“But in a jacket, quilted richly rare
Upon checklaton, was he richly dight.”
Faerie Queen.
The chequered dress of the Celtic nations, still retained in the Highland plaid or tartan, may, in some way, have originated the chequered coat of heraldry. At all events, this is a more probable source than the chess-board, from which some writers derive it.
Most of the ordinaries have their diminutives, as the bendlet, the pallet, the cheveronel, &c. These are usually bounded by straight lines; but the ordinaries themselves admit of a variety of modifications of outline, as follows: 1. Indented, like the teeth of a saw. According to Upton, this line represents the teeth of wild beasts, but Dallaway derives it from a moulding much employed in Saxon architecture. 2. Crenelle, or embattled, like the top of a castle, (Lat. crena, a notch.) The ‘licentia crenellare’ of the middle ages was the sovereign’s permission to his nobles to embattle or fortify their mansions. 3. Nebuly (nebulosus,) from its resemblance to clouds. 4. Wavy, or undulated. 5. Dancette, like indented, but larger, and consisting of only three pieces. 6. Engrailed, a number of little semi-circles connected in a line, the points of junction being turned outward. Johnson derives this word from the French ‘grêle,’ hail, marked or indented as with hailstones. And 7. Invecked, the same as the last, but reversed.