Diminutive Size

07 Mar 2020 - Diminutives of the Fess, Bend and Pale

Width of Bars

Back when I started DrawShield I knew more about programming than I did about heraldry so when it came to implementing bars, palets and bendlets I wrote some clever code! This code allowed you to draw any number of bars, palets and bendlets and it would adjust the widths and spacing of the items so that they would fit into the available space.

Fortunately for the sake of heraldic accuracy a correspondent very gently pointed that things don't work like that! Each of these items, sometimes known as diminutives, has a defined width, relative to width of its "parent" ordinary. And, there are other named diminutives that have even narrower widths

So I rewrote things for greater accuracy and to add the missing diminutives. The only remaining issue is how wide each of these items should be. There seems to be fair degree of "artists' licence" but here are examples of the relative widths as currently implemented by DrawShield

The Fess and its diminutives

Note, that as far as I am aware, there is no equivalent of the closet for the pale and the bend.

The Pale and its diminutives

The Bend and its diminutives

Note that there is also a scarpe, which is just a bendlet sinister.

Your Thoughts

So the purpose of this post is two-fold: to place on record the currently implemented widths of diminutives and to give you the chance to have your own views here - just click on the reply button below!

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