Blazon
In heraldry and heraldic vexillology, a blazon is a formal description of, most often, a coat of arms or flag, which enables a person to construct or reconstruct the appropriate image. A coat of arms or flag is therefore not primarily defined by a picture, but rather by the wording of its blazon (though often flags are in modern usage additionally and more precisely defined using geometrical specifications). Blazon also refers to the specialized language in which a blazon is written, and, as a verb, to the act of writing such a description.
Other objects, such as badges, banners, and seals may be described in blazon.
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Grammar
A blazon follows a rather rigid formula.
- Every blazon of a coat of arms begins by describing the field (background). In a majority of cases this is a single tincture, e.g. Azure (blue).
- Next the principal charges are named, with their tincture(s); e.g. a bend Or.
- The principal charge is followed by any charges placed around or on it.
A composite shield is blazoned one panel at a time, proceeding by rows from chief (top) to base, and within each row from dexter (the right side of the bearer standing behind the shield) to sinister, i.e. from the viewer's left to the right.
A given coat-of-arms may be drawn in many different ways, all considered equivalent, just as the letter "A" may be printed in many different fonts while still being the same letter. For example, the shape of the shield is almost always immaterial.
Because heraldry developed at a time when English clerks wrote in French, many terms in English heraldry are of French origin, as is the practice of placing most adjectives after nouns rather than before.
Complexity
Full descriptions of shields range in complexity, from a single word to a convoluted series describing compound shields:
- Arms of Brittany], France: "Ermine"
- "Azure, a bend Or", over which the families of Scrope and Grosvenor fought a famous legal battle, see image above.
- Arms of Östergötland, Sweden: "Gules a Griffin with Dragon Wings, Tail and Tongue rampant Or armed, beaked, langued and membered Azure between four Roses Argent."
See also
External links
- A Heraldic Primer, by Stephen Gold and Timothy Shead, explaining the terminology in detail.
- A Grammar of Blazonry by Bruce Miller.
- "Commonly Known" Heraldic Blazon/Emblazon Knowledge (an SCA related page with a lengthy dictionary of blazon terms)
License
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Blazon".
