Hatching (heraldry)

Hatching (sometimes called hachure, from the French word) is a conventional system for monochrome denotation of heraldic armory, whereby the tinctures (colours) are represented by dots and lines.

This technique is employed in cases where colours, for either aesthetic, practical or economic reasons are not reproduced – e.g. on surfaces such as woodcuts or engravings, seals and coins.

Several systems of hatchings were developed during the Renaissance as an alternative to tricking, the earlier method of indicating heraldic tinctures by use of written abbreviations.

The present day hatching system was developed during the 1630s by Silvester Petra Sancta and Marcus Vulson de la Colombière.

Besides this, tinctures were designated in the fields and on the ordinaries and charges by tricking: R for rosso (gules), A for azure, N for nigro (sable), G for gialbo (Or), and B for biancho (argent).

The four other authors to produce hatching systems in the 17th century – de la Colombière, Petra Sancta, Gelenius, and Lobkowitz – also had close connection with heraldists and artists in these territories.

The earliest hatching system was developed by Jan Baptist Zangrius, a copperplate engraver, publisher, typographer and bookseller from Leuven, in 1600.

The artists from the Spanish Low Countries (where by all probability the heraldic hatching systems were invented), that is to say from the neighbouring territories to France, visited Paris very often.

Colombière's ideas suited the king's taste too, as a result he departed Grenoble and settled in Paris, where he devoted his entire energy to study heraldry.

Between 1624 and 1634, Petra Sancta stayed with his lord in Cologne where he fought against the rising Protestantism through his sermons and religious discussions, including through two of his emblematic books published in 1634 and 1638, respectively.

Later he settled down in Rome and published his famous treatise on heraldry there, but during the late 1620s and the early 1630s he stayed in the Spanish Low Countries and the neighbouring territories.

According to the data from the Plantin-Moretus archive, the emblems in Petra Sancta's 1634 book were initially prepared by artist-engravers in the service of the Jesuit monks, and then redone by André Pauwels (Andries Pauli, 1600–1639) between December 1631 and June 1634 for Balthasar Moretus (1574–1641).

Certainly, Petra Sancta must have at least held consultations with the engravers who were preparing illustrations for his books to explain his concept or to develop a coherent method to designate tinctures by mutual agreement.

Designation of tinctures by hatching requires copperplate engravings, as the tiny areas in the escutcheons need lines more closely spaced than woodcuts can produce.

The last hatching method was developed by Charles Segoing, a French heraldist and royal historian in 1654 (Armorial universel, contenant les armes des principales maisons de l'Europe.

His first book Steganographia ars orthographia was published in 1636 in Brussels when he was a professor at the Leuven University – the same city where Jan Baptist Zangrius was also active.

Christoffel Plantin (1520–1589), grandfather of Balthasar Moretus, set up his printing shop called 'De Gulden Passer' (Golden Compasses) in Antwerp in 1555, publishing both Catholic and Protestant literature.

The Parisian Book Society knew several representatives of a number of leading engravers originating from the Netherlands, for instance, the famous Jodocus Badius (1462–1535) from Asse, and the not-so-famous Johannes Lodoicus Tiletanus (1566–1581) from Tielt.

The German jurist and heraldist Eucharius Gottlieb Rink (1670–1746) introduced hatching for the gray (Eisen = iron) and proper (Naturfarbe).

He maintained that the first one is needless, but the second one has its own importance, because he had noticed himself that old armorials produced by heralds, at least in Germany, also made a difference between iron-colour (Eisenfarbe) and the white colour (weisse Farbe), when they omit the term Argent.

He also recommended to study the work by Johann David Köhler titled Programma de auctoribus incisurarum, to learn about the origin of hatchings.

[4] The German heraldist Christian Samuel Theodor Bernd (1775–1854) introduced hatching for some other tinctures such as Umbra (sienne, earth-color), Rotgelb (yellow-red, orange), Stahlblau (steel blue) and Blutfarbe (sanguine).

Hatching for iron (ferro) and steel (acciaio) were introduced by two Italian heraldists Guelfi Camaini and Goffredo di Crollanza, but these were rarely used.

The colour and hatching of marten (in German Marderfell, in Czech kunina, and in Hungarian nyest) is identical with the red (gules) tincture[citation needed].

[citation needed] In the poem of Konrad von Würzburg we can read kelen rôt (line 985) transformed into modern German as pelzrot.