Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/727

Fig. 9. ORDINARIES.] allow the lanes to reach its rest, which projected from the breastplate, as in the shields upon the tower of the chapel of the Babingtons at Dethick, and on their tombhouse at Kingston (fig. 9). Such shields were called " chancr6e," or " a la bouche." They are fre quently carved as an ornament in the Perpendicular style of architecture. As the shield ceased to be used in war, and was only known as a repre sentation upon tombs or in pedigrees, it was altered to suit the fashionable practice of introducing large numbers of quartered coats, frequently twenty or thirty, and some- tira.33 a hundred, as in an escutcheon of the earls of Hun tingdon in Burnham church. In ths construction of tho shield, while actually used in war, great strength had to be combined with as much light ness as possible, and this was attained by the use of cuir- bouilli and plates of horn stretched upon a wooden frame. The cramps and cross pieces employed to stiffen the whole are sometimes seen upon early shields, and are supposed, with much reason, to have been painted or gilded as ornaments, and to have given rise to the bars or ordinaries which predominate in the first simple coats. Our acquaintance with the forms and fashions of the earlier shields is chiefly derived from their representations on tombs, but the actual shield of John of Gaunt was long preserved in old St Paul s, and that of the Black Prince still hangs above his tomb at Canterbury, as do those of his father and of Henry V. at Westminster. An unmarried woman did not place her arms upon an escutcheon, but, whether maiden or widow, upon a lozenge, an early practice in allusion probably to a fusil or distaff. When married she shared the shield of her husband. 1 The lozenge is an ancient usage, being found in th3 seals of English ladies of the middle of the 1 4th century, and in Scotland a century later. In modern heraldry the shields of knights of an order are usually oval or circular, called "cartouche" shields, and encircled with a ribbon bearing the motto of the order. When married the knight s arms are blazoned alone within the ribbon, and again repre sented with those of his wife in a second shield encircled with a plain ribbon, and placed on the sinister side of the other. The dexter side of the escutcheon is that on the proper right of the bearer add therefore on the left of the spectator. To secure due precision in blazoning, nine points, indi cated by as many names, are taken on the surface of the shield. These (represented by the letters in fig. 10) are at the top in a horizontal line three, the middle, dexter, and sinister chief ; at the base three, also horizontal, the middle, dexter, and sinister base ; and in the central or vertical axis also three, of which the upper is the honour point, the lower the nombril point, and the middle the fess point the central point of the shield. The last three are of course in a line with the chief and base middle points. Before passing to the ordinaries, it will be convenient Kere to mention a species of decoration applied to the shield, which, though not strictly heraldic, is often used in early heraldry and called "diaper." A shield "diapered," " bracteatus," is covered with a ground pattern usually in squares or lozenges with a flower or scroll work in each 1 When an eminent geologist and proprietor of a well-known patent lozenge left his business for the militia, and after a short time returned to civil life, it was said " So maidens who to Hymen yield Exchange the lozenge for the shield, But, when they lose the best of men, Return to lozenges again." Fig. 10. 693 compartment. The idea is said to be copied and named from the linen cloths of Ypres. An often-quoted example of diaper, and a very good one, is the shield of Robert de Vere upon his tomb at Earls Colne (fig. 4). Also the shield of William de Valence upon his effigy in Westminster Abbey is a very fine example of diaper. There the ground is divided into small squares, and each contains a pattern. The row of shields in the tabernacle work of the old chapel of St Stephen s, Westminster, exhibits some fine specimens of diapered work in squares, lozenges, and circles. The shield of Earl Warren at Castle Acre Priory is a good example of diaper, as is the counterseal of Thomas le Despenser affixed to a Kenfig charter ia 1397 (fig. 11). FKJ. 11. CountiTse.,1 of Thomas le Dcsjieusc. . Ordinaries and Partition Lines. The Ordinaries, or, as they are called in most heraldic books, " the honourable ordinaries," have been supposed to represent the clamps or fastenings of the shield, converted into ornaments by painting or gilding. They may be regarded as nine in number the chief, the pale, the fess, the chevron, the bend, the cross, the saltire, the pile, and the quarter. When charged they are drawn somewhat broader than when blank, and each has one or more diminutives. All were more or less in use in the earliest times of heraldry, and they were then drawn more boldly and narrower than is now the custom. When such of the ordinaries as admit of it are cut short so as not to reach to the margin of the field, they are said to be humettee or couple. Partition Lines, closely allied to the ordinaries named from them, are the lines by which shields may be divided, and which vary both in direction and pattern. It will be convenient to notice these before proceeding to a detailed account of the ordinaries, as the partition lines will be constantly referred to in the examples. When the field is divided in the direction of an ordinary it is said to be "party per" that ordinary, as party per fess or per bend. Party per chief is rare, party per pile or per quarter un^ known ; party per cross is called quarterly ; party per cross and per saltire is gyronny. When the partition line is mentioned without qualification, it is a straight line, but it may be broken in a variety of ways, as indented, dancette, engrailed, invected, undy, nebuly, embattled, dove-tailed, and raguly. These partition lines in some cases, if not in all, have arisen from the outline of a charge or

bearing. Thus Charnels of Snareston at first bore eleven