Ordinaries

Ordinaries

Ordinaries are certain charges in common use in arms, and in their simple forms are bounded by straight lines, so that they may well be supposed to have had their origin in the bars of wood or iron of different shapes used for fastening together or strengthening the portions of which the Shield might be composed. Their number has never been precisely agreed upon, but most heralds reckon nine principal ones which they call honourable, namely, the cross, the chief, the pale, the bend, the bend sinister, the fesse, the bar, the saltire, and the chevron. The following charges are generally reckoned as subordinaries, namely, the bordure, the canton, flanches, the gyron, the inescutcheon, the orle, the quarter, the pile, and the tressure, all of which appear to encroach, as it were, on the field. To these are added the fret, the label, the pall, and others, but there seems to be little reason to separate them from several other rectilinear charges. The diminutives of the ordinaries(which are never charged) may be reckoned as follows:--Fillets and Barrulets, Pallets, Bendlets, Scarpes, Closets, Cotises, Chevronels, Crosslets, and Saltorels. But there is much diversity; some consider the bar to be but a diminutive of the fesse. [See Synoptical Table.]

An ordinary of arms is sometimes used in the sense of a collection of coats of arms, arranged under the various bearings.