Talk:Charge (heraldry)/Archive 1

Ordinaries

How come Ordinaries have almost as much space in this article as they have in Ordinaries (main article)? The Heraldry article seems to imply that ordinaries are different than charges.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.69.137.10 (talk) 05:07, 28 February 2007 (UTC).

Female Moors

It seems to me that some Moors in heraldry are female. Does anyone have any information on this? --Daniel C. Boyer 19:38, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have found some. --Daniel C. Boyer 19:15, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Moors in General

What is meant by '[t]he Moor or "blackamoor" is inaccurately shown as being African'? The last time I checked, Moors ARE African, specifically, primarily from the Maghreb. PubliusFL 15:48, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Should it be changed to read, "sub-Saharan African"? --Daniel C. Boyer 17:02, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure, that would probably be clearer. PubliusFL 08:44, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

"Wicked Fence"

Does anyone have more information or an actual blazon on this: http://zeljko-heimer-fame.from.hr/descr/si-obc07.html ? --65.174.35.65 16:34, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That fence looks like it's a wicker fence to me, it's probably a typo. --ACDragonMaster 23:11, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Cantaloupe????

User:Daniel C. Boyer mentioned on this page and cantaloupe that "the cantaloupe can be a charge in heraldry." I queried whether he had a source, and he said [[Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Cantabria_Surrealist_Group|here] that it "Appears in arms of Santo Estêvão in Portugal."

http://www.fisicohomepage.hpg.ig.com.br/tvr-sestevao.htm shows a picture, but the accompanying text is

Armas - Escudo de verde, águia romana de prata, realçada de negro, assente sobre um raio de ouro, entre cinco pedras de ouro, realçadas de negro, em chefe e uma espingarda de ouro, guarnecida de azul, posta em faixa e apontada à dextra, em ponta. Coroa mural de três torres. Listel branco com legenda a negro : " SANTO ESTÊVÃO - TAVIRA ".

According to Babelfish, "cinco pedras de ouro" translates as "five gold rocks."

In response to a query, Melvyn Jeremiah, of The Heraldry Society, commented:

Anything can be used as a charge in heraldry, and probably has been somewhere in the world if not in England. There are various dictionaries of heraldry which might help with regards to the use of a particular heraldic device, or if you are interested primarily in English heraldry then Papworth's Ordinary may help once you have worked out how to use it. On-line there is no ready reference source I could recommend as entirely comprehensive or reliable.

Incidentally, Thomas de Cantelupe (Bishop of Hereford 1275-82) used as an heraldic charge a leopard's face jessant-de-lis which seems to have been the traditional emblem of the Cantelupe family. A derivation subsequently figures in the arms of the See of Hereford.

Since "anything can be used as a charge in heraldry," the statement that the cantaloupe can be is vacuously true. However, I have not yet found any evidence that it is commonly used, and apparently does not appear on the arms of Santo Estêvão.

Comments welcome. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:03, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Maiden in her modesty

Can anyone actually get me a cite on this? --Daniel C. Boyer 16:19, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Diminutives

Part of this section got repeated somehow? How to fix this? --Daniel C. Boyer 19:13, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Too much...

This article seems to have far too much information dumped into a very disorganized space. Rather than listing every single different charge that the author could find (not to mention full of broken links!) why not focus on just a few major and a few unusual examples of each? Perhaps make a seperate list of known charges or something. And then to find virtually any practical information, such as definitions of what some of the terms applied to the different charges mean, one has to delve through nearly the entire article, those it may be better to simply have a seperate section for, rather than describing them at whim. Altogether, could use a lot more organization, but I really don't know much at all about the subject matter so I'm not sure I'd want to mess with it. It does need some serious cleanup, though, I'd say. --ACDragonMaster 23:09, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree; amendment by chainsaw might not be a bad thing. Anything may appear as a charge, and probably has; this article should say that, rather than attempt to demonstrate it, and then refer to e.g. Fox-Davies The Art of Heraldry for a mind-numbing collection of examples. —Tamfang 17:30, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Assuming that the average layman is not very grateful to be told that some town he's never heard of bears a flower of a species he's never seen, I'm going to chop out most of the examples, leaving only those that are

• very frequent (like lions, roses, eagles) and/or
• prominent (like stags' attires in the arms of Württemberg) and/or
• distinctive of one country (like cookpots in Spain).

Of course, your judgement of what meets these criteria may differ. —Tamfang 18:44, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I see that this article recently absorbed List of heraldic charges. If it had been on my watchlist two months ago, I would have opposed such a merger.

• Reserve Charge (heraldry) for what is typical, the charges which by their frequency help to define heraldic style. That is part of what I attempted to do two weeks ago (and nobody commented at the time).
• Let List of heraldic charges have the imp, zinc miner, cochlea, pangolin, coelacanth, emu, caricatured mosquito, heliotrope, taro plant, demi-triangle, Futuramic aircraft, Franke Tower, shako, Assyrian ideogramme, rugby goal posts, piece of calico, ...
• The fillet cross and the cotise should be mentioned, if at all, at cross and bend.

—Tamfang 05:08, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

"small" charges

In grouping together the lozenge, billet, roundel, mullet, crescent, fleur-de-lis, cross (other than ordinary), escallop, ermine spot, goutte and heart, I had in mind charges that have been used (frequently) as differences or (at least occasionally) in fields semé. Any comments on this grouping? Does my criterion make sense? What would you add or subtract? —Tamfang 05:56, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Daniel C. Boyer objects:

rv a lot of what is in essence vandalism -- most of the "subordinaries," for instance, are no such thing and have never been so called by anyone until these edits

A careful reader might perceive that I did not call them subordinaries; I put "subordinaries" in scare quotes, pending a better label for the group, and attempted to indicate that the first few have (arbitrarily and misleadingly) been so called. —Tamfang 21:27, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

There is no point is making a category of "small charges" whether or not they are called "subordinaries" in scare quotes -- there is no heraldic significance to some "small charges" being separated from other common charges. Only a few of these have ever been identified as subordinaries. Furthermore, while there are a few charges that constantly occur in fields semy, there is no intrinsic significance to these, and any charge (with a few obvious exceptions, such as the bordure) can be semy. --Daniel C. Boyer 17:30, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Is there more heraldic significance to separating plants from animals?

Yes. Animals have "attitudes" but plants do not. --Daniel C. Boyer 14:39, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

As for the classification of some of them as "subordinaries", has that ever had any practical value or effect? Are there rules of difference, perhaps, that give a rustre more weight than a fleur?

Yes, any charge can be semy, but in practice not many often are. Similarly my "small charges" are more likely to straddle a counterchange line than is a tower or a lion. At least that's my impression.

I haven't found this last to be true at all. --Daniel C. Boyer 13:00, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

There's a Rietstap-searcher on the web; is the full text available? I'd love an opportunity to count keywords. —Tamfang 17:42, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Sex it up!

This article looks plain and boring. I suggest it could be enhanced with images of examples of at least the most basic aspects of each 'type' of symbol, and a colour chart etc. --Mal 08:07, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Colours, metals and furs are a different subject. Charges are not necessarily "symbols." Thus these aspects are properly dealt with in other articles. --Daniel C. Boyer 20:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I do think it would be nice to see some examples of the things the article refers to. The WikiProject template on the parent subject itself has this:

I think the article looks boring as just plain text. --Mal 00:52, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Rampant

Why does "rampant" redirect to this obscure mention of an animal's pose in this article? I was expecting to revisit my friend, the article on Bungie and machine rampancy. whatever. 136.176.100.79 (talk) 09:47, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to convert the redirect page to a disambiguation page. —Tamfang (talk) 05:19, 22 December 2007 (UTC)