Blazon

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This is an article about Heraldry. Blazon (blason) is also a term used in Romantic Poetry (see Blason).

In heraldry and vexillology, a blazon is a formal description of, most often, a coat of arms or flag that enables a person to construct or reconstruct the appropriate image. A coat of arms or flag is therefore not primarily defined by a picture, but rather by the wording of its blazon.

The term blazon may also refer to a formal description of other objects, such as badges, banners, and seals.

1 Grammar of blazon
2 Blazon complexity
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

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Grammar of blazon

Image:PB Scrope CoA.png

To ensure that the pictures people draw after reading the descriptions are accurate and reasonably alike, blazons follow a set of rules:

The first thing the blazon describes is the tincture (colour) of the field (background). In some cases of "landscape heraldry" all or part of the field is some sort of landscape, and there is at least one case in which the field is the sea.
Next the blazon describes the placement and tinctures of the different charges (objects) on the shield. The charges are described from the shield's top to the base and from dexter (Latin: "right") to sinister ("left"), defined from the shield-bearer's point of view, not the observer's (the shield-bearer's right is the viewer's left and vice versa).

For example, one might emblazon Azure, a bend Or by drawing the following, a blue field with a type of charge called a "bend" (diagonal division of a particular width) of tincture "Or" (gold): Image:PB Ostergotland CoA.png A given coat-of-arms may be drawn in many different ways, all considered equivalent, just as the letter "A" may be printed in many different fonts while still being the same letter. For example, the shape of the shield is almost always immaterial.

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Blazon complexity

Full descriptions of shields range in complexity:

Arms of Östergötland, Sweden: "Gules a Griffin with Dragon Wings, Tail and Tongue rampant Or armed, beaked, langued and membered Azure between four Roses Argent."

Image:PB Gdańsk CoA.png Image:BlasonBRETAGNE.PNG

"Ermine" (the arms of Brittany)
"Azure, a bend Or" (over which the families of Scrope and Grosvenor fought a famous legal battle)
"Sable, two swords crossed in saltire argent, between four fleurs-de-lis Or, all contained within a bordure purpure"
"Party per fess argent and sable, in chief a falcon close vert, in base a plate charged with a fleur-de-lis vert"
"Party per fess: The chief Argent, charged with five bezants, the centre bezant charged in chief with a Latin cross of the field, on a canton in sinister base of the first, a bucket: The base party per pale Azure and Argent, the dexter side charged with three rings conjoined at their centres in pairle, the sinister side charged with a bend sinister Azure bearing three quatrefoil of the field. Behind the shield a pastoral staff. The shield contained within a cartouche and ensigned with an ecclesiastical hat supporting six tassels on either side of the shield."
"Quarterly, I three lions' heads affrontés crowned Or; II chequy Gules and Argent; III Azure, a river in fess Gules bordered Argent, thereupon a marten proper, beneath a six-pointed star Or; IV per fess Azure and Or, overall a bar Gules, in the chief a demi-eagle Sable displayed addextré of the sun in splendour, and senestré of a crescent Argent, in the base seven towers three and four, of the third; enté en point Gules, a double-headed eagle Proper on a peninsula Vert, holding a vase pouring water into the sea Argent, beneath a crown Proper with bands Azure; overall an escutcheon barry of eight Gules and Argent impaling Gules, on a mount Vert a crown Or, issuant therefrom a double cross Argent; overall an escutcheon tierced in pale a lion rampant Gules crowned Or, Gules a fess Argent and Or on a bend Gules three allerions Argent."

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References

Brault, Gerard J. (1997). Early Blazon: Heraldic Terminology in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, (2nd ed.). Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press. ISBN 0-85115-711-4.
Elvin, Charles Norton. (1969). A Dictionary of Heraldry. London: Heraldry Today. ISBN 0-900-45500-4.
Parker, James. A Glossary of Terms Used in Heraldry, (2nd ed.). Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle Co. ISBN 0-8048-0715-9.

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