With the 15th century came a fashion of dividing the shield into more than four squares, six and nine divisions being often found in arms of that age. The heraldry books, eager to work out problems of blazonry, decide that a shield divided into six squares should be described as “Party per fesse with a pale counterchanged,” and one divided into nine squares as bearing “a cross quarter-pierced.” It seems a simpler business to follow a 15th-century fashion and to blazon such shields as being of six or nine “pieces.” Thus John Garther (15th century) bore “Nine pieces erminees and ermine” and Whitgreave of Staffordshire “Nine pieces of azure and of Stafford’s arms, which are gold with a cheveron gules.” The Tallow Chandlers of London had a grant in 1456 of “Six pieces azure and silver with three doves in the azure, each with an olive sprig in her beak.”
Squared into more than nine squares the shield becomes checky or checkered and the number is not reckoned. Warenne’s checker of gold and azure is one of the most ancient coats in England and checkered fields and charges follow in great numbers. Even lions have been borne checkered.
Warenne bore “Checky gold and azure.”
Clifford bore the like with “a fesse gules.”
Cobham bore “Silver a lion checky gold and sable.”
Arderne bore “Ermine a fesse checky gold and gules.”
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| Phelip Lord Bardolf. | Whitgreave. | Tallow Chandlers. | Warenne. |
Such charges as this fesse of Arderne’s and other checkered fesses, bars, bends, borders and the like, will commonly bear but two rows of squares, or three at the most. The heraldry writers are ready to note that when two rows are used “counter-compony” is the word in place of checky, and “compony-counter-compony” in the case of three rows. It is needless to say that these words have neither practical value nor antiquity to commend them. But bends and bastons, labels, borders and the rest are often coloured with a single row of alternating tinctures. In this case the pieces are said to be “gobony.” Thus John Cromwell (14th century) bore “Silver a chief gules with a baston gobony of gold and azure.”
The scocheon or shield used as a charge is found among the earliest arms. Itself charged with arms, it served to indicate alliance by blood or by tenure with another house, as in the bearings of St Owen whose shield of “Gules with a cross silver” has a scocheon of Clare in the quarter. In the latter half of the 15th century it plays an important part in the curious marshalling of the arms of great houses and lordships.
Erpingham bore “Vert a scocheon silver with an orle (or border) of silver martlets.”