Page:EB1911 - Volume 13.djvu/337

 “Ermine two flaunches azure with six golden wheat-ears” was borne by John Greyby of Oxfordshire (15th century).

The Label is a narrow fillet across the upper part of the chief, from which hang three, four, five or more pendants, the pendants being, in most old examples, broader than the fillet. Reckoned with the Ordinaries, it was commonly used as a means of differencing a cadet’s shield, and in the heraldry books it has become the accepted difference for an eldest son, although the cadets often bore it in the middle ages. John of Hastings bore in 1300 before Carlaverock “Gold a sleeve (or maunche) gules,” while Edmund his brother bore the same arms with a sable label. In modern armory the pendants are all but invariably reduced to three, which, in debased examples, are given a dovetailed form while the ends of the fillet are cut off.

The Fret, drawn as a voided lozenge interlaced by a slender saltire, is counted an Ordinary. A charge in such a shape is extremely rare in medieval armory, its ancient form when the field is covered by it being a number of bastons—three being the customary number—interlaced by as many more from the sinister side. Although the whole is described as a fret in certain English blazons of the 15th century, the adjective “fretty” is more commonly used. Trussel’s fret is remarkable for its bezants at the joints, which stand, doubtless, for the golden nail-heads of the “trellis” suggested by his name. Curwen, Wyvile and other northern houses bearing a fret and a chief have, owing to their fashion of drawing their frets, often seen them changed by the heraldry books into “three cheverons braced or interlaced.”

Huddlestone bore “Gules fretty silver.”

Trussel bore “Silver fretty gules, the joints bezanty.”

Hugh Giffard (14th century) bore “Gules with an engrailed fret of ermine.”

Wyvile bore “Gules fretty vair with a chief gold.”

Boxhull bore “Gold a lion azure fretty silver.”

Another Ordinary is the Giron or Gyron—a word now commonly mispronounced with a hard “g.” It may be defined as the lower half of a quarter which has been divided bendwise. No old example of a single giron can be found to match the figure in the heraldry books. Gironny, or gyronny, is a manner of dividing the field into sections, by lines radiating from a centre point, of which many instances may be given. Most of the earlier examples have some twelve divisions although later armory gives eight as the normal number, as Campbell bears them.

Bassingbourne bore “Gironny of gold and azure of twelve pieces.”

William Stoker, who died Lord Mayor of London in 1484, bore “Gironny of six pieces azure and silver with three popinjays in the silver pieces.”

A pair of girons on either side of a chief were borne in the strange shield of Mortimer, commonly blazoned as “Barry azure and gold of six pieces, the chief azure with two pales and two girons gold, a scocheon silver over all.” An early example shows that this shield began as a plain field with a gobony border.

With the Ordinaries we may take the Roundels or Pellets, disks or balls of various colours. Ancient custom gives the name of a bezant to the golden roundel, and the folly of the heraldic writers has found names for all the others, names which may be disregarded together with the belief that, while bezants and silver roundels, as representing coins, must be pictured with a flat surface, roundels of other hues must needs be shaded by the painter to represent rounded balls. Rings or Annelets were common charges in the North, where Lowthers, Musgraves and many more, differenced the six rings of Vipont by bearing them in various colours.

Burlay of Wharfdale bore “Gules a bezant.”

Courtenay, earl of Devon, bore “Gold three roundels gules with a label azure.”

Caraunt bore “Silver three roundels azure, each with three cheverons gules.”

Vipont bore “Gold six annelets gules.”

Avenel bore “Silver a fesse and six annelets (aunels) gules.”

Hawberk of Stapleford bore “Silver a bend sable charged with three pieces of a mail hawberk, each of three linked rings of gold.”

Stourton bore “Sable a bend gold between six fountains.” The fountain is a roundel charged with waves of white and blue.

The Lozenge is linked in the heraldry book with the Fusil. This Fusil is described as a lengthened and sharper lozenge. But it will be understood that the Fusil, other than as part of an engrailed or indented bend, pale or fesse, is not known to true armory. Also it is one of the notable achievements of the English writers on heraldry that they should have allotted to the lozenge, when borne voided, the name of Mascle. This “mascle” is the word of the oldest armorists for the unvoided charge, the voided being sometimes described by them as a lozenge, without further qualifications. Fortunately the difficulty can be solved by following the late 14th-century custom in distinguishing between “lozenges” and “voided lozenges” and by abandoning altogether this misleading word Mascle.

Thomas of Merstone, a clerk, bore on his seal in 1359 “Ermine a lozenge with a pierced molet thereon.”

Braybroke bore “Silver seven voided lozenges gules.”

Charles bore “Ermine a chief gules with five golden lozenges. thereon.”

Fitzwilliam bore “Lozengy silver and gules.”

Billets are oblong figures set upright. Black billets in the arms of Delves of Cheshire stand for “delves” of earth and the gads of steel in the arms of the London Ironmongers’ Company took a somewhat similar form. 