Heraldry

Heraldry is the science and art of describing coats-of-arms, also referred to as achievements or armorial bearings. Its origins lie in the need to distinguish participants in battles or jousts and to describe the various devices they carried or painted on their shields.

Shield and lozenge

Traditionally, as women did not go to war, they would not have a shield. Instead, their coats-of-arms would be shown on a lozenge, usually a square standing on one of its corners. As women may now serve in the armed forces in a number of countries, some armigerous women prefer to use a shield anyway. A parallel usage for noncombatant clergymen could be found sometimes on the European continent, with the occasional placement of arms on a cartouche (an oval-shaped vehicle for their display). For more detail on the use of the lozenge (subject to certain rules) by women in the British heraldic tradition, see the separate article on the lozenge.

Related Topics:
War - Lozenge - Square - Armed forces - Armigerous - Clergy - Europe - Oval - Lozenge

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Very rarely and almost invariably in non-European contexts, such as the arms of Nunavut, the former Republic of Bophuthatswana and some Algerian civic heraldry of French colonial origin, specific shapes of shield are specified in the blazon (and the specific type of shield is sometimes followed to the extent, as in the arms of Gauteng, that structures in the shield (in that case "shield thongs") function as charges).

Related Topics:
Arms of Nunavut - Bophuthatswana

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In rare instances the shield may be blazoned as being displayed on a cartouche, the tincture of which is then specified.

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The arms of The Lady Thatcher and the late Sir Denis Thatcher, Bt

Related Topics:
The Lady Thatcher - Sir Denis Thatcher, Bt

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A lozenge, the traditional shape of a woman's coat of armsA shield, traditionally used only by a man

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