FLASQUES, always borne in pairs, are two pieces hollowed out at each side of the shield: FLANCHES and VOIDERS are modifications of this bearing. The last, says Leigh,[95] "is the reward of a gentlewoman for service by her done to the prince or princess." It is not improbable that it was borrowed from a peculiar fashion in female costume which prevailed temp. Richard II. Chaucer uses the word _voided_ in the sense of removed, made empty, and this is probably the origin of the term. [Illustration] When a shield is divided into eight acute-angled triangles, by lines drawn perpendicularly, horizontally, and diagonally through the centre, it is blazoned by the phrase '_gyronny_ of eight,' and so of any other number of equal partitions of the same form. If one of these triangles occur singly it is termed a _gyron_. For this term the nomenclature of heraldry is indebted to the Spanish language, in which it means a gore, gusset, or triangular piece of cloth. The family of Giron, subsequently ennobled as Dukes of Ossona, bear three such figures in their arms, from the following circumstance. Alphonso VI, king of Spain, in a battle with the Moors, had his horse killed under him, when, being in great personal danger, he was rescued and remounted by Don Roderico de Cissneres, who, as a memorial of the event, cut three triangular pieces from his sovereign's mantle, which being afterwards exhibited to the king, he bestowed on his valiant follower an adequate reward, and gave him permission to bear three gyrons as his arms. The English family of Gurr, whose surname was probably derived from the village of Gueures, near Dieppe, bear 'gyronny ... and ...' as a 'canting' or allusive coat. Some derive this species of bearing from a kind of patchwork mantle of various colours. Hence, doubtless, also arose that picturesque species of bearing called _chequy_, consisting of alternate squares of different tinctures. Chaucer and Spenser use the word _checkelatoun_; probably in this sense: "His robe was _cheque-latoun_." _Knight's Tale._ "But in a jacket, quilted richly rare Upon _checklaton_, was he richly dight." _Faerie Queen._ The chequered dress of the Celtic nations, still retained in the Highland plaid or tartan, may, in some way, have originated the chequered coat of heraldry. At all events, this is a more probable source than the chess-board, from which some writers derive it.