CHAPTER X
QUARTERING AND MARSHALLING
In these "Peeps at Heraldry," we can only glance at much that should still be mentioned if space permitted.
We must say something, however, about quartering and marshalling, two very important departments in heraldry.
Hitherto, we have dealt with shields bearing only one coat of arms, but now we must speak of those which bear more than one.
Quartering means dividing the shield into quarters, so that several coats of arms may be represented on the same escutcheon. Fig. 54 shows the simplest form of quartering—viz., by two lines, fess-wise and pale-wise. This arrangement gives room for four different coats of arms, but if it is necessary to represent more than four, the shield is further cut up into the requisite number of divisions, then blazoned according to that number—e.g., "quarterly by eight," "by twelve," and so forth. It also sometimes happens that in a shield already quartered, each quarter has to be quartered again, and this arrangement is known in heraldry as "compound quartering." The four original quarters are then blazoned as "grand quarters," the secondary ones as "quarterly quarterings."
Fig. 54.
One of the chief uses of quartering is to record the alliances between different families, generally made through marriage.