Editing Heraldry (section)

===Marshalling===

To ''marshal'' two or more coats of arms is to combine them in one shield, to express inheritance, claims to property, or the occupation of an office.  This can be done in a number of ways, of which the simplest is impalement: dividing the field ''per pale'' and putting one whole coat in each half.  Impalement replaced the earlier dimidiation – combining the dexter half of one coat with the sinister half of another – because dimidiation can create ambiguity between, for example, a bend and chevron. "Dexter" (from Latin ''dextra'', right) means to the right from the viewpoint of the bearer of the arms and "sinister" (from Latin ''sinistra'', left) means to the left. The dexter side is considered the side of greatest honour.

{| style="text-align:left;border-collapse:separate;border-spacing:5px;"
| {{coa|Baratheon|l}}
| {{coa|Lannister|l}}
| {{coa|Baratheon of King's Landing|l}}
|The arms of [[Joffrey Baratheon]] are per pale the arms of his paternal and maternal families{{ref|AGOT|7}}.
|}

A more versatile method is quartering, division of the field by both vertical and horizontal lines.  This practice originated in Spain after the 13th century.<ref>Thomas Woodcock & John Martin Robinson. ''The Oxford Guide to Heraldry''. (Oxford University Press, New York: 1988), 14.</ref>  As the name implies, the usual number of divisions is four, but the principle has been extended to very large numbers of "quarters"; the largest number recorded being the arms of the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, featuring a total of 719 "quarters".

Quarters are numbered from the dexter chief (the corner nearest to the right shoulder of a man standing behind the shield), proceeding across the top row, and then across the next row and so on.  When three coats are quartered, the first is repeated as the fourth; when only two coats are quartered, the second is also repeated as the third.  The quarters of a personal coat of arms correspond to the ancestors from whom the bearer has inherited arms, normally in the same sequence as if the pedigree were laid out with the father's father's ... father (to as many generations as necessary) on the extreme left and the mother's mother's ... mother on the extreme right.  A few lineages have accumulated hundreds of quarters, though such a number is usually displayed only in documentary contexts.<ref>Edmundas Rimša. ''Heraldry Past to Present''. (Versus Aureus, Vilnius: 2005), 38.</ref>  

{| style="text-align:left;border-collapse:separate;border-spacing:5px;"
| {{coa|Frey|l}}
| {{coa|Lannister|l}}
| {{coa|Cleos Frey|l}}
|The personal arms of Cleos Frey are quartered Frey and Lannister.
|}

{| style="text-align:left;border-collapse:separate;border-spacing:5px;"
| {{coa|Big Walder Frey|l}}
|The personal coat of arms of [[Walder Frey (son of Jammos)|Big Walder Frey]] is made with the arms of [[House Paege]] (by his mother) and [[House Blackwood]] (by his grandmother). This helps distinguish it from the many other [[Walder Frey (disambiguation)|Walder Frey]]s.{{ref|ACOK|17}}
|}

The third common mode of marshalling is with an inescutcheon, a small shield placed in front of the main shield.  In Britain this is most often an "escutcheon of pretence" indicating, in the arms of a married couple, that the wife is an heraldic heiress (that is, she inherits a coat of arms because she has no brothers).  In continental Europe an inescutcheon (sometimes called a "heart shield") usually carries the ancestral arms of a monarch or noble whose domains are represented by the quarters of the main shield.<ref>[[w:Heraldry#Marshalling|Heraldry Marshalling]]</ref>
{| style="text-align:left;border-collapse:separate;border-spacing:5px;"
|-
| {{coa|Blackwood|l}} || Arms of [[House Blackwood]]: ''A flock of ravens on scarlet surrouning a dead weirwood upon a black escutcheon''.
|}