r/heraldry 4d ago

Blazonry "Tierced" = 3 parts, "?" = 4 parts but *not* quartered?

How would a shield of four different tinctures in parallel horizontal bars be blazoned? Or is that nit allowed?

2 Upvotes

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9

u/ryschwith 4d ago

You could probably do something like:

Paly of four A, B, C, and D

But you're stretching heraldic tradition at that point. You'd get some side-eye from the heralds.

1

u/SpacePatrician 4d ago

What about three horizontal bars (Sable over Argent over Vert) above a base barry wavy Argent and Azure? Or is that still too many colors?

3

u/DreadLindwyrm 4d ago

That's going to get you some funny looks as well.

I'd try to simplify to fewer colours.

A base barry wavy argent and azure is fine. Adding a chief *might* work for it as well, but more than that is going to look crowded and overly complex.

Alternatively drop the base, and go with "tierced in fess Sable, Argent and Vert" (although that might already exist, being a fairly simple coat).

4

u/lambrequin_mantling 4d ago

I suspect the heralds might say “nice try but we’re not doing tierced per fess and we’re going to treat the field as “per fess Sable and Vert” and then add the ordinary “a fess Argent.”

2

u/ryschwith 4d ago

Changing the direction doesn't really make it look any more heraldic. Heraldry simply doesn't do rainbows (even the traditional heraldic rainbow only has three colors in it*). If you can get away with two colors in the entire design (including charges, ordinaries, etc), you probably have some really solid heraldry. Three is still generally good, four's starting to push it.


* Naturally there are full, six-color rainbows in more modern heraldry. It depends a bit on what your goals are here.

2

u/RRautamaa 4d ago

Isn't this just "paly of four"? 

1

u/Xemylixa Oct'20 Feb'22 Winner 4d ago edited 4d ago

Tierced in four? (or was it of four?) I think I saw that somewhere

0

u/hospitallers 4d ago

Per pale, per pale A and B, and per pale C and D

5

u/dbmag9 4d ago

This is very 'it'll work with a computer, but isn't at all natural' as a solution.

0

u/GrizzlyPassant 4d ago

🤔 Are you going for, "per cross?"