Aux armes · a glossary of heraldic terms: notes

E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.

Thence we came forth to see, once more, the stars.

Dante Alighieri (1308–21). Divina Commedia. L'Inferno: Canto XXXIV.

1. Japanese mon (紋) emblems serve a similar function to heraldic badges. However the display of several categories of emblems, such as kamon (家紋) and mondokoro (紋所) are restricted to members of a specific family, hence these more closely correspond to both the arms and crests in European heraldry. This correspondence is not quite accurate, since the maedate (立物) borne on samurai helmets were the strict equivalents to heraldic crests, except that unlike crests they served no other purpose but for identification in battle.

2. Etymology. Mullet derives from the Old French term for the charge, molett, but its further etymology is obscure. The often claimed derivation from molette (molette d'éperon) or spur rowel is disputable, since the term was used in blazons long before rowel spurs were introduced to Europe in the thirteenth century. In early arms the mullet and estoile (star) were not distinguished and some diverse depictions of the same arms show either. Later, in a few arms from the late-thirteenth and mid-fourteenth centuries, the pierced charge was even blazoned as rouele/rouwel/rouwell (rowel).

3. The rule of tincture

In arms, the metals (Argent and Or) may not be placed on each other; nor may a colour be placed directly on another colour. The rule does not apply to badges, crests (except that the wreath complies with the rule) or supporters, but there are other exceptions:

• The rule does not apply to simple divisions of the field, nor to bordures (a narrow border edging the shield — although it applies to the placement of charges thereon).
• Heraldic furs, cadency marks, labels and proper charges are all exempt from the rule.
• Augmentations may be applied without regard to the rule.
• The ‘accessories’ of a charge are not subject to the rule; for instance, the blue claws of a golden lion may be placed on a red field (as in Fig. 7), as they are taken to be ‘on’ the charge even when shown directly on the field.
• Varied or party-coloured fields, that is, fields of a geometric pattern composed of a metal and a colour, may bear changes of contrasting metal or colour and, conversely, party-coloured charges may bear on any tincture of field which contrasts with the tinctures of the charge.
• Semé charges are disregarded by the rule. The choice of tincture for a charge must respect the tincture of the field and thus a ‘metal’ charge will necessarily be placed on semé charges also in a metal and likewise for colour on colour — although a different metal or colour is always used, unless the applied charges are fimbriated (that is, shown with a thin border in a colour if their tincture is a metal or vice versa). Otherwise semé charges themselves follow the rule in relation to the field.

There are several infringements of the rule of tincture, the earliest and most prominent being the arms of the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem (1099–1291), which had gold crosses on a silver field (blazoned: Argent a Cross potent between four plain Crosslets Or) — the transgression is ironically apt.