A Complete Guide to Heraldry. Arthur Charles Fox-Davies
outer edges of the ordinary.
I think also that the word "arched" should now be included as a partition line. I confess that the only form in which I know of it is that it is frequently used by the present Garter King of Arms in designing coats of arms with chiefs arched. Recently Garter has granted a coat with a chief double arched. But if a chief can be arched I see no reason why a fesse or a bar cannot equally be so altered, and in that case it undoubtedly becomes a recognised line of partition. Perhaps it should be stated that a chief arched is a chief with its base line one arc of a large circle. The diameter of the circle and the consequent acuteness of the arch do not appear to be fixed by any definite rule, and here again artistic requirements must be the controlling factor in any decision. Elvin in his "Dictionary of Heraldic Terms" gives a curious assortment of lines, the most curious of all, perhaps, being indented embowed, or hacked and hewed. Where such a term originated or in what coat of arms it is to be found I am ignorant, but the appearance is exactly what would be presented by a piece of wood hacked with an axe at regular intervals. Elvin again makes a difference between bretessed and embattled-counter-embattled, making the embattlement on either side of an ordinary identical in the former and alternated in the latter. He also makes a difference between raguly, which is the conventional form universally adopted, and raguled and trunked, where the ordinary takes the representation of the trunk of a tree with the branches lopped; but these and many others that he gives are refinements of idea which personally I should never expect to find in actual use, and of the instances of which I am unaware. I think, however, the term "rayonné," which is found in both the arms of O'Hara and the arms of Colman, and which is formed by the addition of rays to the ordinary, should take a place amongst lines of partition, though I admit I know of no instance in which it is employed to divide the field.
METHODS OF PARTITION
The field of any coat of arms is the surface colour of the shield, and is supposed to include the area within the limits formed by its outline. There are, as has been already stated, but few coats of a single colour minus a charge to be found in British heraldry. But there are many which consist of a field divided by partition lines only, of which some instances were given on page 69.
A shield may be divided by partition lines running in the direction of almost any "ordinary," in which case the field will be described as "per bend" or "per chevron," &c. It may be:
| Per fess | Fig. | 48 |
| Per bend | " | 49 |
| Per bend sinister | " | 50 |
| Per pale | " | 51 |
| Per chevron | " | 52 |
| Per cross | " | 53 |
| (though it should be noted that the more usual term employed for this is "quarterly") | ||
| Per saltire | Fig. | 54 |
But a field cannot be "per pile" or "per chief," because there is no other way of representing these ordinaries.
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A field can be composed of any number of pieces in the form of the ordinaries filling the area of the shield, in which case the field is said to be "barry" (Figs. 55 and 56), "paly" (Fig. 57), "bendy" (Fig. 58), "chevronny" (Fig. 59), &c., but the number of pieces must be specified.
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Another method of partition will be found in the fields "checky" (or "chequy") and lozengy; but these divisions, as also the foregoing, will be treated more specifically under the different ordinaries. A field which is party need not necessarily have all its lines of partition the same. This peculiarity, however, seldom occurs except in the case of a field quarterly, the object in coats of this character being to prevent different quarters of one coat of arms being ranked as or taken to be quarterings representing different families.
CHAPTER VIII
THE RULES OF BLAZON
The word "Blazon" is used with some number of meanings, but practically it may be confined to the verb "to blazon," which is to describe in words a given coat of arms, and the noun "blazon," which is such a description.
Care should be taken to differentiate between the employment of the term "blazon" and the verb "to emblazon," which latter means to depict in colour.
It may here be remarked, however, that to illustrate by the use of outline with written indications of colour is termed "to trick," and a picture of arms of this character is termed "a trick."
The term trick has of late been extended (though one almost thinks improperly) to include representations of arms in which the colours are indicated by the specified tincture lines which have been already referred to.
The subject of blazon has of late acquired rather more importance than has hitherto been conceded to it, owing to an unofficial attempt to introduce a new system of blazoning under the guise of a supposed reversion to earlier forms of description. This it is not, but even if it were what it claims to be, merely the revival of ancient forms and methods, its reintroduction cannot be said to be either expedient or permissible, because the