[ANSTHRLD] CD question

[tmcd at panix.com]

On Mon, 1 May 2006, Hedwig von Luneborg <lochherald at gmail.com> wrote:
> Does a bordure conflict with an orle?  I know this sounds like a simple
> question but I really don't have a clue.

Use the source, Luke.  The type CD rule is RfS X.4.e:

    e.  Type Changes - Significantly changing the type of any group of
     charges placed directly on the field, including strewn charges or
     charges overall, is one clear difference.

     Changing the type of at least half of the charges in a group is
     one clear difference.  Types of charges considered to be separate
     in period, for example a lion and an heraldic tyger, will be
     considered different.  A charge not used in period armory will be
     considered different in type if its shape in normal depiction is
     significantly different.  This means a lion would not be clearly
     different from a puma. ...

So there's two cases:
If both charges are period:
    then: were they considered different in period?
    else: do they look significantly different?

Bordures and orles are certainly period.  The Pic Dic (s.v. Orle)
dates it to c. 1255.  It doesn't date the bordure, but it literally
took me 2 seconds to open a random page in the middle of _Anglo-Norman
Armory II_ and find two of them.  (When I opened it again in Bends, it
took me 10 seconds.)  All the coats in ANA2 are period.

The only possible way there could not be a CD is if there was a blazon
difference in period but they were in practice used interchangably.
The only example off the top of my head is that cross bottony ==
cross crosslet, because the same coat for the same person was
sometimes drawn with one but sometimes with the other.  This rarely
happens, and didn't happen with orles and bordures.

In short: CD.

> When I conflict checked the original device I spelled the word
> "caboshed" and it came up with 170 items...4 of them bears...so
> imagine my surprise when it came back with a conflict with the word
> "cabossed" spelled differently and 19 more bear head entries not
> included on my original conflict check.  So, which way is the
> "correct" spelling

_An Heraldic Alphabet_ by Brooke-Little starts the definition with
    Caboshed (also Cabossed)

So there's no "correct" spelling.

> and shouldn't that be "fixed" or something...talk about a bit ticked
> off!

Thus the peril of doing a conflict check by searching for a particular
word.  You also missed "face" and "mask", though I don't expect that
to be a problem in this case: I wouldn't expect those term to be used
for bears, as the Pic Dic cites "mask" only for foxes and "faces" for
cats and leopards, and those would not conflict with a bear's head.
You also missed any misspelling, like if "cabosed" had somehow crept
into a registered blazon.

Normalization of terms takes place in categories in the Ordinary.
That's a more accurate way of searching, unless you know all the
heraldic synonyms (e.g., "reversed" and "contourny" and "to sinister"
are all used) and are also willing to chance misspellings.

Danihel Lindum Colonia
-- 
Tim McDaniel; Reply-To: tmcd at panix.com