[ANSTHRLD] Armory-Fieldless Question

[Jennifer Smith]

On Sun, Nov 10, 2002 at 05:17:17PM -0600, Etienne wrote:
> Does "(Fieldless) On an annulet purpure a cross overall Or charged with
> a thistle purpure slipped and leaved vert" run afoul of the four layers
> problem when there is no field?

I did not conflict check this yet.

A quick precedents search *seems* to lean towards 'yes'; I'll put the
relevant bits I found below.  Firstly, however, "(fieldless)" is always
counted as a layer, even if it's invisible.  Where it's unclear is in
the use of an 'overall' charge.  For purposes of contrast, they're
considered to be laying directly on the field, not on the charge they're
overlying, but for the purposes of counting layers, well:

   [Argent, on a pile between two catamounts combattant sable a sword
   inverted proper transfixing a skull argent.]  Note: this is not four
   layers since we do not count overall charges as adding another
   layer." (LoAR 8/96 p.9).

[What's the overall charge in that blazon?? - Emma]

Older, but...

   [A gurges... overall on a sinister gore a <charge>] "This is four
   layers (field, gurges, gore <charge>). ..." (LoAR 2/92 p.18).

I found several other older precedents that also seem to indicate that
overall charges ARE counted as a separate layer.  In which case your
proprosed badge does indeed run afoul of the layer limit.

-Emma

--
Jennifer Smith
jds at randomgang.com