Heraldry

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Heraldry sketch by tribemun.jpg
A knight easily identifiable by his heraldry as belonging to House Qorgyle - by Tomasz Jedruszek. © FFG
Calling the Banners. © FFG
A Dothraki flying Queen Daenerys Targaryen's banner - by Régis Moulun. © FFG

Heraldry is the art and science of blazoning coats of arms. It is an important part of the Seven Kingdoms feudal structure. Heraldry is used by the royalty and nobility as a sign of status. Most noble houses have their own designs, and variants of these designs are adopted only by members of the house. Coats of arms are commonly used by knights in tourneys and on the battlefields as a way to identify allied from enemy soldiers in the heat of battle; conversely, mystery knights that want anonymity use blank or nonexistent coats of arms.

Heraldry in Westeros and in the real world

Overall, the heraldry of the Seven Kingdoms seems to be quite similar to that of medieval Europe, at least in purpose. Most of the Seven Kingdoms use escutcheon-shaped coats of arms; Dorne, however seems to favor circular coats of arms that are not widely seen anywhere else. There is little or no mention of the heraldic vocabulary of Westeros: in the real world heraldry has its own collection of jargon known as blazonry, whereas in Westeros arms tend to be described in standard English.

The arms of a house belong to that family, as in Germany and Italy, and may be used only by trueborn descendants of that house.[1][2] Bastards sometimes use the arms of their father's house with the tinctures reversed, cf. House Blackfyre.

Tinctures

It is worth noting that real world heraldic rules and terminology seem to have little formal use in Westeros and may in fact be non-existent,[3] including the well-known rule of tincture which dictates that metals (argent and or, i.e. white and gold) should not be placed over other metals, and colours (vert, gules, azure, sable and purpure, i.e. green, red, blue, black and purple) should not be placed over other colours. Examples of this rule being broken include:

It is possible and perhaps likely that George R. R. Martin wanted to depict an earlier medieval society, before the rules of heraldry were well-developed and well-accepted.

However, the tincture known as "furs" are used in Westeros heraldry; for example:

In traditional heraldry no distinction is made between white, silver and light grey, which are all named "argent". Likewise, both gold and yellow are called "or". That is not so in Westeros: white, (light) grey and silver are treated as distinct tinctures and can be used together on a coat of arms. Examples are:

Many of the available blazons of Westerosi coats of arms are notable in their lack of detail; for instance the blazon for the coat of arms of House Blanetree (maple leaves, green and brown, strewn on a field of yellow) fails to tell us how many maple leafs the shield should have, and gives only the vaguest indication of how they should be placed. In some cases the blazons manifest in quite poor designs rendering them of little use for recognition on the battlefield, for example:

For practical reasons, traditional heraldry uses a very limited set of tinctures; it was not always practical or possible to reproduce subtler color variations in the numbers and time constraints found. Besides, coats of arms are meant to be recognizable from far away and are often employed in shields and other pieces of equipment that are subject to abuse, neglect and disrepair. Even today, many pigments show some degree of color degradation, often severe, when consistently exposed to sun rays, rain and other influences.

This limited palette is not the case in the Seven Kingdoms, where heraldic descriptions include ambiguous colours such as:

The use of physical material descriptions like 'oak', 'masonry' or 'sand' in Martin's heraldic descriptions also complicates matters because it is uncertain whether these refer to a shade of colour or an attempt to actually represent these materials pictorially, such as painting the grain of the oak or the bricks of the masonry. Such detail would seem difficult to render on fabric surfaces such as flags, surcoats or the livery of men-at-arms or servants. This however reflect the real world use of the tincture "proper".

Devices and charges

Charges are objects or figures placed on a shield. Many of the devices and charges used in the heraldry of Westeros derive directly from traditional sources and include creatures such as lions, stags and birds, and symbols such as stars, weapons and ships. There are some notable differences in Martin's designs though:

The use of seven-pointed stars to represent the Faith of the Seven. Seven-pointed stars are rare in traditional heraldry and vexillology, with a notable exception being the flag of Australia. Examples include:

The use of very detailed pictures, particularly humanoid figures, such as:

In reality, these figures would be difficult to render on shields and flags with any accuracy or consistency.

The use of detailed creatures and figures on the shield that would normally only appear as supporters in traditional coats of arms, such as:

The use of fauna and flora specific to Westeros, such as:

Ordinaries

Some charges with simple geometric shapes are so common that they are often classified separately as ordinaries. These include:

Ordinary Description Example
Heraldry - Fess.svg
Fess
a horizontal band House Blackbar
House Blackbar
Heraldry - Pale.svg
Pale
a vertical band, meaning an upright stake, whence "palisade" House Hayford
House Hayford
Heraldry - Bend.svg
Bend
diagonal band, from dexter chief to sinister base. "Sinister" and "dexter" mean left and right respectively, but they are from the point of view of someone holding the shield, so they are reversed from an observer's viewpoint. House Hasty
House Hasty
Heraldry - Bend sinister.svg
Bend sinister
The bend sinister goes the other way, from sinister chief to dexter base. House Blount
House Blount
Heraldry - Chief.svg
Chief
a broad band across the top of the shield; "chief" also describes a location near or towards the top of the shield. House Bywater
House Bywater
Heraldry - Cross.svg
Cross
meaning always an upright cross; a very common ordinary in European heraldry (with an obvious religious meaning), but seems to be less common in the Seven Kingdoms. House Gower
House Gower
Heraldry - Saltire.svg
Saltire
a diagonal cross House Estren
House Estren
Heraldry - Pile.svg
Pile
roughly equilateral triangle with the top edge of the shield as its base House Burley
House Burley
Heraldry - Pall.svg
Pall
a Y shape House Coldwater
House Coldwater
Heraldry - Pall reversed.svg
Pall reversed
an upside-down Y shape House Flint (Flint's Finger)
House Flint of Flint's Finger
Heraldry - Bordure.svg
Bordure
a border parallel with the edge of the shield; called simply border in the books House Merryweather
House Merryweather
Heraldry - Orle.svg
Orle
a shield-shaped ring - similar to a bordure but does not reach the edge of the shield, leaving a small gap of the main field tincture. House Mooton
House Mooton
Heraldry - Tressure.svg
Tressure
a thinner orle
Heraldry - Double tressure.svg
Double tressure
two tressures, one inside the other. House Greenfield
House Greenfield
Chevron a horizontal band with a kink in the middle, so that it slopes downwards towards both edges of the shield
Heraldry - Canton.svg
Canton
a square in dexter chief House Bolling
House Bolling

Variations of the field

Divisions of the field.

The field of a shield, is sometimes made up of a pattern of colors, or variation. A pattern of horizontal (barwise) stripes, for example, is called barry, while a pattern of vertical (palewise) stripes is called paly. A pattern of diagonal stripes may be called bendy or bendy sinister, depending on the direction of the stripes. Other variations include chevrony, gyronny and chequy. For further variations, these are sometimes combined to produce patterns of barry-bendy, paly-bendy, lozengy and fusilly. Semés, or patterns of repeated charges, are also considered variations of the field.[4][5]

Examples

 a pine tree covered with snow in a pale green pile, on white The arms of the House Mollen has a "pile" :"A snow covered pine tree on a pile light green on a white"
 inverted pall between three lion's heads, yellow on black Some pieces like the pall or chevron may be oriented in different ways, thus, the image of the House Jast has a pall inverted " inverted pall between three lion's heads, yellow on black "
 A blue wavy bend on gold All the ordinaries can also undergo various changes in size or edge, for example the bend that loads the image of the House Goodbrook is called "wavy" A blue wavy bend on gold '
 vairy orange and blue; upon a black canton, a golden stag beneath an orange bend sinister Finally, an ordinary can load another ordinary, so the image of the House Bolling has a canton charged with a bend: "vairy orange and blue; upon a black canton, a golden stag beneath an orange bend sinister".

Divisions of the field

The field of a shield in heraldry can be divided into more than one tincture, as can the various heraldic charges. Many coats of arms consist simply of a division of the field into two contrasting tinctures. These divisions are considered to lie next to each other rather than on top of each other and thus the rule of tincture can be ignored. For example, a shield divided azure and gules would be perfectly acceptable. A line of partition may be straight or it may be varied. The variations of partition lines can be wavy, indented, embattled, engrailed, nebuly, or made into myriad other forms.[6][7]

In general, if the field is divided and every segment has to be blazoned (e.g. each has a different charge on it), they are blazoned in the following order: dexter to sinister, then chief to base. In the case of "party per cross" or "quarterly", the four segments are typically numbered in this order.

A direwolf gray on pristine white snowfield Thus, the image of the House Stark is a shield plain, a term that generally can not be transcribed: " A direwolf gray on pristine white snowfield "
Quarterly, first and fourth in a field of yellow sun rose in the second and third a crescent white on a blue field The crest of the House Tarth he is a shield "party per cross", usually blazoned "quarterly": Quarterly, first and fourth a yellow sun on a rose field in the second and third a white crescent on a blue field
Two swans fighters, black and white from one to the other, beaked and hung with gold and white field advantage black The crest of the House Swann is "party per pale" Two swans fighters, black and white from one to the other, beaked and hung with gold and white field advantage black

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.

house Baratheon House Lannister personnel de Joffrey Baratheon The arms of Joffrey Baratheon consists Per pale the Arms of his paternal and maternal families[2].

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.[8] 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.[9]

Maison Frey House Lannister personnel Arms of Ser Cleos Frey The arms of service Cleos Frey quartered arms of Frey with arms of Lannister.
personnel of Big Walder Frey The personal coat of arms of 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 many other Walder Freys.[10]

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.[11]

arms of House Blackwood arms of House Blackwood : A flock of ravens on scarlet surrouning a dead weirwood upon a black escutcheon.

Inheritance and Younger sons

In Westeros arms belong to a family, and any trueborn child may use the family arms. This is similar to the practice in German heraldry, and converse to the practice in British heraldry, where only the head of the family may use the family arms; other members of the family have to difference their arms in some way. In Westeros this is not compulsory, though many choose to adopt their own personal arms, usually a minor variation on the arms of their house. For example:

 personnel arms of Valarr Targaryen The coat of arms of Prince Valarr Targaryen consists of coat of arms House Targaryen with a red border.[1]
 personnelarms of Maekar Targaryen The coat of arms of Prince Maekar has four three-headed dragons on a black field instead of one for the image of the House Targaryen because it is the fourth son of king Daeron II.[1]
 personnel arms of Ser Loras Tyrell .The arms of Ser Loras Tyrell has three gold roses on a green field instead of one for the image of the house Tyrell because he was the third son of Lord Mace Tyrell [12]. Similarly, his older brother, Ser Garlan Tyrell, features two golden roses on his own personal coat of arms as the second son of the family.[13]

Bastards

Bastards do not have the right to use the arms of their families. The custom is thus a bastard using arms (when knighted for example) adds a distinction, called "breaking". This can be in the form of a color inversion on their own coats of arms, with the addition of a possible red bar sinister.

House Targaryen House Blackfyre Arms of House Blackfyre, founded by a bastard of the House Targaryen, has the colors reversed.[14]
House Frey  personnel arms of Walder Rivers The coat of arms of Walder Rivers, bastard son of Lord Walder Frey, has the colors reversed and a red bend sinister.[15]
House Blackfyre House Bracken personal arms of Aegor Rivers The coat of arms of Aegor Rivers "Bittersteel", a bastard son of Aegon IV Targaryen. He has combined the sigills of House Bracken (his mothers house) and House Blackfyre.

Canting

Martin makes use of canting arms to represent some of the houses in his books. Canting arms are a type of heraldic pun, whereby the blazon of the shield makes a direct reference to the name of the family. Examples include:

In other houses the canting refers not to their name of the family, but to their ancestral seat. Examples include:

House Words

In real world heraldry there are family mottos that are often shown on a scroll under the shield in a coat of arms (except in Scottish heraldry where they are placed above the shield). In Westeros these are called house 'words'.

Heraldic homage

Some of the Houses and their blazons are tributes to other authors. For example:

  • House Rogers.svg
    House Rogers can be seen as a tribute to Roger Zelazny, and the unicorn and maze device on that house's arms to be representative of two of Zelazny's works: "Unicorn Variations" and the "Chronicles of Amber" series. This latter features "The Pattern", a labyrinth-like inscription that orders the multiverse.
  • Jack Vance is acknowledged in two houses, House Vance of Wayfarer's Rest and House Vance of Atranta. The use of dragons in both Vance houses' shields could refer to another award-winning work, "The Dragon Masters".
    • In the Atranta branch, the use of the tower could refer to Vance's Nebula Award-winning 1966 work "The Last Castle". House Vance of Artranta.PNG
    • In the Wayfarer's Rest branch, the circle enclosing the pair of eyes could symbolize the title of "The Eyes of the Overworld", from The Dying Earth series.House Vance of Wayfarer's rest.PNG
  • Another House that can be seen as a tribute is House Peake - to Mervyn Peake, the author of "Gormenghast" trilogy. The Lord of the House is called Titus (just as a main protagonist of the trilogy) Peake. The history and coat-of-arms also feature three castles that the family owned before it was left with only one, and the name of the one remaining castle is Starpike, which is similar to Steerpike, the name of the main antagonist of the trilogy. House Peake.PNG

Martin also homages one of his own characters, the Great and Powerful Turtle from Wild Cards, in House Tudbury. House Tudbury.png

See also

Software

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 The Hedge Knight.
  2. 2.0 2.1 A Game of Thrones, Chapter 7, Arya I.
  3. http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Heraldry_in_Westeros/
  4. Arthur Charles Fox-Davies. A Complete Guide to Heraldry isbn 1417906308 (Kessinger Publishing,year 2004) page 101
  5. Heraldry Variations of the field
  6. Stephen Friar and John Ferguson. Basic Heraldry. (W.W. Norton & Company, New York: 1993), 148.
  7. Heraldry Divisions of the field
  8. Thomas Woodcock & John Martin Robinson. The Oxford Guide to Heraldry. (Oxford University Press, New York: 1988), 14.
  9. Edmundas Rimša. Heraldry Past to Present. (Versus Aureus, Vilnius: 2005), 38.
  10. A Clash of Kings, Chapter 17, Tyrion IV.
  11. Heraldry Marshalling
  12. A Clash of Kings, Chapter 22, Catelyn II.
  13. A Storm of Swords, Chapter 6, Sansa I.
  14. The Sworn Sword.
  15. A Feast for Crows, Chapter 38, Jaime VI.