St Quintin of Yorkshire bore “Gold two cheverons gules and a chief vair.”
Sheffield bore “Ermine a cheveron gules between three sheaves gold.”
Cobham of Kent bore “Gules a cheveron gold with three fleurs-de-lys azure thereon.”
Fitzwalter bore “Gold a fesse between two cheverons gules.”
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| Chaworth. | Peytevyn. | Sheffield. | Cobham. |
Shields parted cheveronwise are common in the 15th century, when they are often blazoned as having chiefs “enty” or grafted. Aston of Cheshire bore “Party sable and silver cheveronwise” or “Silver a chief enty sable.”
The Pile or stake (estache) is a wedge-shaped figure jutting from the chief to the foot of the shield, its name allied to the pile of the bridge-builder. A single pile is found in the notable arms of Chandos, and the black piles in the ermine shield of Hollis are seen as an example of the bearing of two piles. Three piles are more easily found, and when more than one is represented the points are brought together at the foot. In ancient armory piles in a shield are sometimes reckoned as a variety of pales, and a Basset with three piles on his shield is seen with three pales on his square banner.
Chandos bore “Gold a pile gules.”
Bryene bore “Gold three piles azure.”
The Quarter is the space of the first quarter of the shield divided crosswise into four parts. As an Ordinary it is an ancient charge and a common one in medieval England, although it has all but disappeared from modern heraldry books, the “Canton,” an alleged “diminutive,” unknown to early armory, taking its place. Like the other Ordinaries, its size is found to vary with the scheme of the shield’s charges, and this has persuaded those armorists who must needs call a narrow bend a “bendlet,” to the invention of the “Canton,” a word which in the sense of a quarter or small quarter appears for the first time in the latter part of the 15th century. Writers of the 14th century sometimes give it the name of the Cantel, but this word is also applied to the void space on the opposite side of the chief, seen above a bend.