Tincture (heraldry)
Two additional colours appeared, and were generally accepted by heraldic writers, although they remained scarce, and were eventually termed stains, from the belief that they were used to signify some dishonour on the part of the bearer.
[2] German and Nordic heraldry rarely make use of purpure or ermine, except in mantling, pavilions, and the lining of crowns and caps.
[15] The five common colours in heraldry are gules, or red; sable, or black; azure, or blue; vert, or green; and purpure, or purple.
The alternative name in French, sinople, is derived from the ancient city of Sinope in Asia Minor (Turkey), which was famous for its pigments.
These were termed "stains" by some of the more influential heraldic writers and supposed to represent some sort of dishonour on the part of the bearer, but there is no evidence that they were ever so employed and they probably originated as mere variations of existing colours.
[5][18] Nevertheless, the belief that they represented stains upon the honour of an armiger served to prevent them receiving widespread use, and it is only in recent times that they have begun to appear on a regular basis.
Other furs sometimes encountered in continental heraldry, which are thought to be derived from vair, include plumeté or plumetty and papelonné or papellony.
The use of "white" in place of "argent" would be consistent with the Victorian practice of heraldic blazon that discouraged repeating the name of a tincture in describing a coat of arms, but if it were merely intended as a synonym of "argent", this placement would clearly violate the rule against placing metal on metal or colour on colour (see below).
Other exceptional colours have occasionally appeared during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: The arms of the Jewish Autonomous Region in Russia have a field of aquamarine.
[31] There seems to be some confusion about the colour crimson, as in some cases it is treated as a separate tincture, while in others it is used to specify the shade of gules to be employed by the artist.
[32] Similar issue exists about a blue-green colour referred to as teal[33][34][35] or turquoise[36][37] which is either treated separate or as a specific shade of azure or céleste.
The use of landscapes in heraldry fell out of fashion during the Victorian era, when heraldic scholars and artists began looking to earlier and simpler periods of armorial design for inspiration.
However, there are relatively few occasions in which the conjunction "or" would appear in the blazon of a coat of arms, and if properly worded, which meaning is intended should be readily apparent from the context.
The names of all tinctures and charges are capitalized, although the word "proper", indicating the colour of nature, is not, and internal commas are entirely omitted.
The only U.S. state flag to be directly based on English heraldry, it is the arms of George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, who founded the colony of Maryland in 1632.
Intended chiefly for printing and engraving, the system which eventually gained widespread acceptance was that of Silvestro de Petra Sancta, a Jesuit priest and heraldic scholar, originally published in 1638.
[52] Nine additional hatchings, published by Marcus Vulson de la Colombière in 1639, were intended to represent other colours, although none of them correspond with regular heraldic tinctures, and they have never been used in British armory.
[2][53] French heraldry also uses tricking to depict heraldic tinctures, using O for or, A for argent, G for gules, S for sable, B for bleu, V for vert, P for purpure or pourpre; and Pr for propre.
[2] In German heraldry, G is used for gelb (yellow or gold), W for weiss (white or silver), R for rot (red), S for schwarz (black), B for blau (blue), Gr or a shape like an upright leaf for grün (green), and Br for braun (purple).
Heraldry has been influenced by allegorical and astrological views,[citation needed] including the idea of sympathies and antipathies among stars, minerals, animals, plants, and people.
[citation needed] The lore of sympathies originated with the Babylonians, who saw gems and rare minerals as the concentrates of cosmic powers.
[full citation needed] During the late medieval period and Renaissance, there was an occasional practice of blazoning tinctures by gemstones, or by references to the seven classical "planets" (including the sun and the moon).
In his work Le Blason des Couleurs (1414), Courtois developed a heraldic system consisting of the tinctures, planets and carbuncles, together with the virtues, metals, months, the zodiac, and weekdays.
[citation needed] His main contribution was the development of a gemstone-planetary blazon that related colour to gemstone to planet: or, topaz, the sun; argent, pearl, the moon; gules, ruby, Mars; sable, diamond, Saturn; azure, sapphire, Jupiter; vert, emerald, Venus; purpure, amethyst, Mercury; tenné, jacinth, dragon's head (ascending lunar node); sanguine/murrey, sardonyx, dragon's tail (descending lunar node).
These links indicate that heraldry in the 15th century was strongly under the influence of magical views and alchemistic ideas, which were in turn connected to the lore of sympathies between colours, planets, gemstones, metals, virtues etc.
In his book Traité du blason (1465), Clément Prinsault deals with the relation of colours to the virtues, the seven planets, the 12 celestial signs, gemstones, weekdays, the three elements etc.
The English historian and heraldist Sir Henry Spelman (1564–1641) used the symbols of the planets to designate tinctures in his 1654 book Aspilogia.
[full citation needed] Sir John Ferne (d. 1609) enumerates 14 different methods of blazon: 1. by colours; 2. by planets; 3. by precious stones; 4. by virtues; 5. by celestial signs; 6. by the months of the year; 7. by the days of the week; 8. by the ages of man; 9. by flowers; 10. by the elements; 11. by the seasons of the year; 12. by the complexions of man; 13. by numbers; and 14. by metals.
German heraldry used trefoil to designate colours other than the seven main tinctures ("qui ultimus color alibi signo trifolii ♣ pinguitur").
The Austrian troubadour and herald Peter Suchenwirt (c. 1320 – 1395) used gemstones to designate the tinctures even earlier (c. 1355) in the coat of arms of the Hungarian king Louis the Great (1342–1382).
