Let's go right back to
part 2, shall we?
If you've been with this series since the start, you'll remember that I started out with the 'core' tinctures - colours, metals and furs - gules, sable, vert, azure, argent, or, ermine and vair.
Time for the rest!
The other common
colour is purple, or
purpure. Additional to that are a number of other colours, usually referred to as
stains: the most common of these are:
- tenné - from an old French word from which we get, unsurprisingly, 'tawny', is a brownish orange shade
- murrey - a 'mulberry' shade, sort of reddish-purple
- sanguine - from an old French word meaning (obviously enough) blood red, is an orangey-red shade.
Stains are mostly only known in post-mediaeval heraldry, and often found in livery. For those who remember Robert Lewis Stevenson's "Black Arrow", set in the Wars of the Roses:
"The chief part were in Sir Daniel’s livery, murrey and blue, which gave the greater show to their array."
Murrey and blue seems to have been quite common as a livery - the Duke of Clarence and Richard of Gloucester (Richard III), among a number of Yorkist lords.
And then we come to the extra furs, which come in a bewildering array I'll just list with handy examples from
Coat of Arms Design Studio.
 |
| Counter-Vair |
 |
| Ermines |
 |
| Erminois |
 |
| Pean |
 |
| Potent |
 |
| Counter-potent |
And there you have it. Heraldry 101.
I hope you enjoyed this series - I'll stick up a handy index post in a couple of days so you can find things.
Respectfully dedicated to the memory of Arthur Whitaker, teacher, Methodist local preacher and my grandfather, without whom I'd not love a number of the things I do today, and whose much thumbed and loved copy of "
Boutell's Heraldry
" has been my, and thus your, guide through this series.
Nice one Mike, I've enjoyed the Heraldry posts, thanks!
ReplyDeleteI think there's a simple reason for those other tinctures mostly showing up later: they aren't clear bright colours to help you spot your lord (or your soldiers) on a battlefield.
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