CADENCY

Cadency is the system to distinguish coats of arms within the same family, for example to distinguish cadet branches from the senior line.  Because of inherited designs for arms, family members will often have similar arms.

English heraldry uses items added to the shield to distinguish the senior family line from cadet branches.  These include the martlet, annulet, rose, fleur-de-lis, crescent, and the mullet (star consisting of straight rays, which originally represented a spur).

Remember that just because a shield contains these charges, it does not necessarily belong to a cadet branch however.  These charges also occur quite often in basic arms.

ORDINARIES   (Back to Introduction to Heraldry)

Ordinaries (simple bold lines) and their separate class called "honorable ordinaries," which represent more complex patterns on shields, are somewhat like a division, but are customarily treated as charges.   They will often cast a shadow on the field when painted, and will normally extend to the edge of the field.

Ordinaries include:

The Cross
Saltire or diagonal cross
Pale, which is a vertical stripe
Fess, or horizontal stripe
Bend, which is a diagonal stripe from the viewer’s upper left to lower right.  A lower left to upper right version is known as a bend sinister
Chevron, or angled stripe with the point upwards.

Each of the above ordinaries is commonly said to take up one-third of the field in theory, though in practice they are usually made somewhat narrower.

An ordinary is normally drawn with straight lines, but each may have line variations that include:
Wavy
Engrailed (scalloped with points outward) or
Invected (opposite of engrailed)
Indented (zigzag)
Embattled (like battlements)

Sub-ordinaries are a separate class of charges consisting of a geometrical shape that is subordinate to the ordinary.
These include:

Orle—inner border, not touching the sides of the shield
Tressure—thin border around a shield, similar to the orle, but only half as wide
Double Tressure—two tressures—may also have a Triple Tressure
Chief—band running across the top of the shield
Bordure—border around a shield,
Canton—a charge placed in the upper dexter (the side of the shield facing the beholder's left) corner
Flaunches—one of two semicircles protruding into the field from the sides of the shield

When ordinaries appear in parallel series, English blazon gives them different names.

Diminutives are thinner, smaller versions of the ordinaries.

These include bars (diminutives of the fess), pallets, chevronels, and bendlets.

French blazon makes no such distinction and would say for example:
Une fasce, deux fasces (One fess, two fesses).

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