Chief (heraldry)

In heraldic blazon, a chief is a charge on a coat of arms that takes the form of a band running horizontally across the top edge of the shield.

Writers disagree in how much of the shield's surface is to be covered by the chief, ranging from one-fourth to one-third.

In some medieval and Renaissance drawings of coats of arms, the chief is drawn even deeper, so that it fills almost all the top half of the shield.

The chief can be used as a mark of cadency, in order to difference the coat of arms in a minor line of a family, though this is rare and practically confined to cases in which a system of bordures is the usual method of showing cadency and the undifferenced coat of the family already has a bordure.

In Italy, chiefs are added to the coats of arms of families or locales to indicate political orientation.