[ANSTHRLD] A cross between two anchors and two compass stars

Tim McDaniel tmcd at panix.com
Thu Dec 2 09:22:37 PST 2010


Quarterly sable and gules, a cross argent between in bend two anchors
Or and in bend sinister two compass stars argent.

On Thu, 2 Dec 2010, Jillian Birtciel <saintesun at gmail.com> wrote:
> I didn't realize crosses were throughout by default, I thought they
> were centered; although, in hindsight, that makes more sense...I've
> seen several crosses 'couped'.  If the explanation is necessary,
> then it must not be the default.

... There's still some confusion here. ...

"Throughout": for a cross, all four arms touch the sides of the
shield.
Centered: not a term of heraldry, just the common English term.

These are not alternatives.  I presume that it is possible for a
charge to be off-center yet still throughout ("enhanced" should be one
possibility).

An unmodified "cross" is, by default, a pale with a fess, with
straight sides, reaching all four sides of the shield.

> I think the other grammatical/stylistic issue I was up against is
> the tendency to try to group same colors together rather than split
> them.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of how that could even be
possible.  The order in which charges appear in the blazon determines
their absolute and relative locations, so changing the order would, I
think, change the emblazon, or at best confuse what is the primary
charge.

So don't make any effort at all towards that.  The basic notion is to
blazon it in the correct order with all tinctures, and then make a
pass to delete the first of two adjacent identical tinctures.

> To give my client further suggestions, are anchors a common charge
> at all historically?

I'd check the Pic Dic to at least tell whether it's period.

Danyll Lincoln
-- 
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com



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