Thus the vertical parting of a metal and a colour known as party produced the pale, and a horizontal division the fesse or bar, and these combined to form the cross suggested by the quarterly lines. An oblique or slanting parting gave rise to the bend, and the crossing of two such produced the St. Andrew's cross or saltire. A combination of the lines of a saltire with a quarterly division produced the varied field called gyronny. The border almost suggested itself. A cutting off of the upper half or head of the shield yielded the chief, and of a fourth part the quarter. One other of these applied pieces, or ordinaries as they were called, was the cheveron, formed of two strips issuing from the lower edges of the shield and meeting in a point in the middle, like the cheverons forming the roof timbers of a house. Another ordinary was the pile, which was often threefold with lines converging towards the base as in fig. [72]. Sometimes a shield was charged with one of smaller size called a scutcheon, and the middle of this was occasionally cut out to form a voided scutcheon or orle. Flanches, as they are called, are very rarely found; they are formed by drawing incurving lines within each side of the shield. An even series of pales yielded a vertical striping called paly, and of piles, pily, while an even number of bars became barry. Undulated or waved bars formed wavy, and sometimes paly and pily stripes were also waved (fig. [19]). In early examples the bend was often bended or curved. Bends are so represented in one of the shields in Westminster abbey (fig. [4]), in some of the shields over the nave arcades in York minster, and on a number of monumental effigies. A narrower bend which overlaid everything was known as a baston (see fig. [60]). A number of narrow bends produced bendy, but the lines were then straight. A field divided into squares or checkers formed checky, and when divided into what are now called lozenges it became lozengy. Pales, fesses, crosses, saltires, borders, and cheverons sometimes had their edges engrailed by taking out of them, as it were, a continuous series of bites separated by sharp points, and the lower edge of a chief or the inner margin of a border was often indented like the edge of a saw; but in early heraldry engrailing and indenting were interchangeable terms. An indented fesse was anciently called a daunce. Cheverons, fesses, bars, etc. were occasionally battled, through the upper line being formed into battlements. A fesse was often placed between two cheverons, as in the well-known arms of FitzWalter; or between two very narrow bars called cotises, or pairs of cotises called gemell bars. Cheverons, bends, and pales were also sometimes cotised. Cotises were often of a tincture different from that of the ordinary which they accompanied, and sometimes indented or dancetty as in the arms of Clopton (fig. [5]) and Gonvile. The ground or field could be relieved by the use of vair or ermine, or by the addition of fretting or trellis-work or other simple means. It was also not unfrequently powdered with small crosses, fleurs-de-lis, or billets; often in conjunction with a larger charge like a cinqfoil or a lion.
Fig. 4. Shield with curved bend or baston of Henry de Laci earl of Lincoln, c. 1259, in the quire of Westminster abbey church.
Fig. 5. Arms of Clopton, sable a bend silver and two cotises dancetty gold, from a brass c. 1420 at Long Melford in Suffolk.
Almost from the beginning every kind of device was charged or painted upon shields, either singly or in multiple, and upon or about such ordinaries as crosses, cheverons, and fesses. Birds, beasts, and fishes, and parts of them like heads, or feet, or wings; flowers, fruits, and leaves; suns, moons or crescents, and stars; fleurs-de-lis, crosses, billets, roundels, rings, etc.—all were pressed into the service. The great rule as to colour held good as regards charges, and it was not permissible to paint a red rose upon blue or a gold star upon silver; but a red rose upon gold or a silver star upon blue was quite right.