Divisions

Divisions are partitions of the field into separately coloured sections. Some times the larger ordinaries or other charges are also coloured using one of the simpler divisions, such as a roundel per pale azure and or. DrawShield supports the following divisions.

Divisions of Two Tinctures

"Large" divisions - per pale, per fess, per bend, per chevron, quarterly, per pile, per saltire

More "pattern like" divisions - barry, bendy, paly, pily, fusily, chevronny, gyronny, with most of these you can also specify the number of "bars" e.g. barry of 8, gyronny of 12 etc.

There are also variants of the above, but with a fixed number of "bars" - barry-bendy, barry-pily, fusily-bendy, paly-bendy, pily-bendy, barry-indented-one-in-the-other.

"Smaller" divisions - chape, chausse

Some authorities regard lozengy as a division. DrawShield handles lozengy as a treatment, however the end result appears identical when drawn.

Divisions of Three Tinctures

The following divisions need three tinctures to be provided, the tinctures are typically given in the order top right and "clockwise" around the shield - per pall, tierced-in-bend, tierced-in-fess, tierced-in-pale, tierced-in-chevron

The division per pile is rather special, as it can take either two tinctures (in which the pile itself takes the 2nd tincture); or three tinctures (in which the three parts are coloured from left to right).

List of Tinctures

The tinctures applied to each part of a division may themselves be complex tinctures such as treatments. When these appear in a list they may be ambiguous and need to be separated by a semi-colon. See the longer discussion and examples on the treatment page.

Edge Types

All of the "larger" divisions may be drawn with a pattern along the lines of separation, instead of a straight line. See the page on edges for more details. In addition, there are two special divisions which have pattern edges only along the named edge - quarterly-per-pale, quarterly-per-fess

Two Divisions

It is also possible to have two different divisions on the same shield, as long as the second division is described as counterchanged. The second division will overlay the first, but with the colours reversed.

Notes

Some divisions are treated slightly differently when they appear on flags - further details can be found on the Flags page.