A Complete Guide to HeraldryFox-Davies, Arthur Charles
History
A Complete Guide to Heraldry
Fox-Davies, Arthur Charles
Heraldry -- Great Britain
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 {97} 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:
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