692 HERALDRY [ESCUTCHEON". point, where the point of one escutcheon is placed opposite to the base of that below ; counter-vair (/<), where those of the same colour are placed base to base and point to point. At first the vair was drawn bell shaped (<?). In ermines (c) the field is sable and the spots white, in erminois (d) the field or and the spots sabls ; pean (/) is the reverse, having golden spots on a black field. Erminites resembles ermine, save that the two lateral hairs .of each spot are red. This fur, however, is seldom if ever used in English heraldry. Guillim in blazoning a fur prefixed the ! word " purfled." Potent (i) is a variety of vair, and often blazoned as " vair-potent." There is also a form of it called " potent- counter-potent " (g). Manchester, of the county of Stafford, bore " potent-counter-potent, argent and sable, a bend gules." The escutcheons or skins are T-shaped, and re semble a " potence," that is, a gallows or a crutch head. Ermine and vair are used almost to the exclusion of all other furs. Even erminois is very rare. The dukes of Britanny, earls of Richmond, bore "ermine" (this was the coat of John do Montfort, duke of Britanny, whose widow married Henry IV.); Lattin, " per pale argent and sable, a saltire engrailed ermines and ermine;" Beauehamp (old), "vair, a label gules ;" Gresley of Drakelow, " vair, ermine and gules ;" Calvert, "paly of 6 erminois and pean, a bend engrailed counterchanged." Of the colours, gules, azure, and sable are by far the most common in early bearings. They contrasted strongly with each other and with the metals. To preserve this contrast, arose the very early and general rule not to place metal upon metal, or colour upon colour. Scott takes the licence of a poet to break this rule in Marmion, whose falcon " Soar d sable on an azure field," and in Ivanhoe, where the black knight bears " a fetter lock and shakle bolt azure, on a field sable." He pleasantly defended himself by quoting the arms of the kingdom of Jerusalem, " argent, a cross potent between four crosses, all or," which thus violates this fundamental canon. The French call such coats " arme"s a engueris." There are a few other less illustrious but early instances. Venour, warden of the Fleet, 1480, bore gules on a fess sable, five escallops or, 2, 2, 1. Leycester of De Tabley : azure, a fess gules between three fleurs-de- lys or. Sir Richard de Rokesle, temp. Edward II.: " d azurc, a six lioncels d argent, a une fesse de gules." When an object is given of its natural colour it is blazoned as " proper." Thus in the insignia of the order of St George and St Michael we have " the archangel encounter ing Satan, all proper ; " though the German family of Teufel displays a teufel or devil gules. A very striking contrast of colour is produced by a process called "counterchanging," where a shield is divided between two colours, and a charge plaeed over the dividing line is also divided between the same colours transposed. Chetwode of Chetwode : quarterly, argent and gules, four crosses patee counterchanged. Peyto of Chesterton : barry of six party per pale dancette, argent and gules couuterehanged. A very convenient practice of representing the tinctures by certain marks and lines arose in the 16th century, and is attributed to Padre Silvestre de Petro Sancto, an Italian. It was devised to allow of the representation of armorial bearings in drawings or engravings where it was incon venient to colour them. Planche "states the earliest known instance of the use of this method in England to be in an engraving of the seals of the regicides attached to the death warrant of Charles I. Sir E. Bysshe in Upton, 1654, gives a representation of these marks. Or (fig. 3) is re presented by hatched points ; silver is plain ; azure is repre sented by horizontal lines, gules by vertical lines ; those for purpure are drawn diagonally from sinister to dexter. and those for vert from dexter to sinister. For sable, the lines are vertical and horizontal ; for sanguine, diagonal, FIG. 3. Representation of Tinctures, a, or; b. arpcnt; c, azure; d, gules : c, purpure; /, sable; j/, vert; A, sanguine ; , tenud. or in saltire, from right to left and left to right, a compound of purpure and vert : and for tenne, diagonal from sinister to dexter, and horizontal, a compound of purpure and azure. PARTS OF ARMS. These are (1) the escutcheon ; (2) the ordinaries ; (3; partition lines ; (4) charges. The Escutcheon. The Escutcheon, ecu, or shield, called in blazon the field, upon which all lines are drawn and charges delineated, represents the shield borne in war upon which the arms of the knight were displayed. The figure of the shield varied in heraldry as in war. First came the long-pointed, kite- shaped shield or " pavesse," slightly convex, and used with chain armour. As late as the reign of Eichard I. and John such may be seen on early effigies, com monly but by no means always with out armorial bear ings, which w r ere not then generally in FIG. 4. FIG. 5. From the I3ayeux tapestry. use (fig. 4). Varie ties of this are the heart-shaped or pear shaped shields (fig. 5), and sometimes a shield representing a third part of a cylinder with square top and bottom, much used in siege operations. Early in the 13th cen tury was introduced the small heater-shaped shield, also triangular but narrow, short, and somewhat lancet-shaped. This was in use in the reign of Henry III., and in the Early English period of architecture (fig, 6). The three water budgets of Ros appear on a shield of similar form of the date of Edward I. in the Temple Church (fig. 7). As coats Fig. 6. Fig. 7. Fi. 8. of arms were then simple, this shield was large enough to contain them without crowding, and therefore with suffi cient distinctness. When drawn or carved in architec ture it is suspended by its " guiges " or shield straps, either upright or by the upper sinister angle, when it is said to be "couche." Fig. 8 is from the great seal of Thomas de Beauehamp, earl of Warwick, and shows the form of shield in use during most of the Edwardian period. As fluted and fancy plate armour came into fashion, the shield also altered its figure and became four-sided, and concave in the top and side edges, with a central point
below ; a notch also was cut in the upper dexter corner to