Treatments

Page Contents

1 Seme Fields

2 Usage

3 Catalog

Treatments are patterns of repeated shapes that are typically applied to the field but can also be applied to the larger ordinaries or divisions. Most treatments expect two colours to be used.

By default, mulletty has the field strewn with five pointed stars. Alternatively you may use mulletty of n points; where n can be 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10 and the word "points" is optional.

The following treatments with fixed colour roundels are also supported:

bezanty, hurty, platy

Seme Fields

It is also possible to create your own treatments by defining a field "strewn" with charges, for example argent seme de bees or, a white field scattered with yellow bees.

Herald's Notebook: As we have seen, Blazon is a mish-mash of words from various languages that have often been anglicised both in spelling and pronunciation. In this case, seme (alternatively semy) originates from the French verb semer which means to sow, or to scatter, so the objects in question are "scattered" across the field.

DrawShield also supports two different objects scattered together, so for example:

sable semy de comets or and etoiles argent

will display yellow comets and white stars scattered alternately across a black field.

Usage

The two colour treatments can be given in two variations, for example:

azure fretty or and

fretty azure and or

Produce the same treatment, the first colour is the "background" the second the "foreground", although there is not always a clear distinction.

In the treatments with the fixed colour roundels the background colour always comes before the treatment name.

Herald's Notebook: Although two objects shown semy together can provide some pleasing effects the heraldic provenance is uncertain, so best avoided if you want to be historically accurate.