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FOTW Heraldic Dictionary

Last modified: 2024-10-12 by rob raeside
Keywords: heraldry |
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Editor's Note: This page was originally the result of information sent to FOTW by James Dignan. Until November, 2003, it was hosted at Željko Heimer's Flags and Arms of the Modern Era webpage. The work is incomplete, but presented as a very basic primer for heraldry. Additional information and corrections by Geoff Kingman-Sugars are in italics.

I've suggested to Giuseppe that I write an occasional article every few days dealing with one aspect of English heraldry. I'm not an expert at the subject, although I am interested (as are my parents, so I've known about these things from an early age!). Therefore, if anyone spots a mistake in what I write, please tell me!

This series of articles will hopefully be collated on the WWW page somewhere, although I haven't the ability to do that, so someone else will have to. All these articles (if I remember) will have a subject line starting with the word HERALDRY, so that you can ignore them if you're not interested.

I welcome feedback on whether you think these articles are a good idea or not as well.

For anyone who is interested in learning more about heraldry, may I suggest any of the books of A.C. Fox-Davies, especially the wonderful "A Complete Guide to Heraldry" Nelson & Sons, London, 1969)

James Dignan, 1996


Topics covered:
  1. HERALDRY I: Tinctures
  2. HERALDRY Ia:: Tinctures addendum - Furs
  3. HERALDRY II: Partitions of the shield
  4. HERALDRY IIa: More Partitions
  5. HERALDRY III: The Ordinaries
  6. HERALDRY IIIa: Other Ordinaries, Base and Chief, Fimbriation
  7. HERALDRY IV: The Sub-Ordinaries, part 1