A blazon is a written description of a coat of arms, using precise language and French terms. It describes the shield’s field, tinctures, fur coats, charges, supporters, crest, and motto. Artists can interpret blazons differently, but the combination of elements makes each shield unique. A formal blazon and pictorial representation are often kept as heirlooms.
A blazon is a formal written description of a shield or coat of arms. The language used in such descriptions is also known as blazon. Coats of arms follow a very precise formula that allows people to reproduce shields from written descriptions alone, and can be quite simple or extremely complex. Students of heraldry are familiar with the blazon, although this complex and arcane language may seem totally incomprehensible to ordinary civilians.
Many of the terms used in heraldry are of French origin, including the term “blazon” itself, because French was once the formal language used by English clerks and heraldry originates in England. The common blazon practice of placing adjectives after nouns is also a legacy of French; thus a phrase like “a blue field” means “a blue background”.
When describing a coat of arms, a precise formula is used. First the “field” of the shield is described; the field is simply the background and can have a dye, color, fur, or pattern. There are seven acceptable tinctures in modern heraldry: o (gold), argent (silver), azure (blue), gules (red), purpure (purple), sable (black), and verde (green). There are eight different fur coats, including the ermine, a pattern based on ermine fur. The shield may also have divisions created by a band, stripe, chevron, combination of bars, and so on, in which case the divisions are described top to bottom and left to right.
After the shield, the primary charge, or figure, on the shield is described. A charge can take any form, though mythical beasts are often used. If secondary charges appear, these are also described. If the bearer is entitled to such things as supporters, figures holding up the shield, these are also described in the blazon. If a crest is at the top of the shield, it is included and the motto at the bottom of the shield will also be described.
It may interest you to know that when artists draw shields from the description in a blazon, they can come out very different. The shape of the shield, for example, is not very important in most cases and can be manipulated to fit a particular application.
It is the combination of elements that makes a shield unique. For example, a blazon might describe a coat of arms as “argent a bend sinister vert global a griffin rampant purpure”, meaning that the shield is argent with a green stripe running from right to left, and a purple griffin in place of battle covers the shield. There are several ways this blazon could be represented pictorially, but they would all be recognisable.
When someone requests the coat of arms, if their request is accepted, a formal blazon will be written to describe the shield. A pictorial representation will also commonly be drawn, and these formal documents are often kept as family or business heirlooms.
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