Last update: 7 December 2006
Terrestrial heraldry is a fascinating subject, and interested readers are directed to Heraldica, a very good site with an awful lot of relevant information, and this concise summary; this page is simpler with good pictures. Much of the information is relevant, with the necessary changes, to Dekavurian heraldry too.
As the military origin of the name suggests, echeaudes were originally used to identify different troops in battle and subsequently during military tournaments. The oldest echeaudes, which represented the many warring families in the first centuries after the Dekavurian landings (see History), were very simple, consisting of something of one colour placed on top of something of another colour; later echeaudes became more elaborate.
Echeaudes are commonly seen on flags and standards announcing the presence of the bearer and on official documents. Thus, when the Vaidza is in residence at Valdaborga, three of his flags fly above the palace: one with his own personal echeaude, one with the echeaude of the Vaidza's office, and one with the echeaude of the city of Valdaborga. When he visits his brother in Mashkla, the first two of these flags accompany him and join the flags for his brother and the city of Mashkla while he is there. Similarly, the Shipwrights' Guild has its own echeaude, which flies on a flag above all of its buildings alongside a flag with the echeaude of the appropriate town or city.
The official responsible for assigning new echeaudes, and resolving disputes over existing ones, is known as the Echeaude-givair [M]. Among the requirements for this post are a well-ordered mind, a capacious memory, and a very thick skin, this last being necessary to handle the large number of disputes which inevitably arise when similar echeaudes are contested.
The right-hand-side is regarded as being more important or significant than the left, and in general anything asymmetrical on the echeaude points to the toise unless described otherwise. The most important area of the echeaude is the top right corner.
There are no absolute values for any of the hives; any appropriate tint is allowable as long as the resulting hive cannot be mistaken for another. In general, the following may be said about each hive; the first six are much the commonest, particularly in older echeaudes, and the last four were not often used before 840.
The "furs" of terrestrial heraldry have no Dekavurian equivalents.
| Hive | Province | Precious | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Suart | Mashkla | isarne | iron |
| Reu | Valdaborga | ruvigne | ruby |
| Bloif | Galena [1] | saviere | sapphire |
| Brun | Esgaidon | jes | copper, brass |
| Leuf | Dezdre | asil | malachite, which is very rare in Dekavur |
| Pourpre | Caldura [1] | pourpre | |
| Hui | Lerin | estref | snow |
| Geoil | Dima | ? | |
| Greun | Cotora | mariede | emerald |
| Groif | (not used) | selubre | silver |
| Himble | Licadala | ? | |
| Gout | (not used) | gout | gold |
[1] The reason that ten provinces rather than nine are listed is the fault of Kaldurthan the Wary (see the history). From a heraldic point of view, Kaldurthan was redeemed in 905 when he became fed up with the proliferation of systems of describing echeaudes - there were at least five in use by that time - and ordered an overhaul of the whole lot. The results are what you are reading now.
The background of an echeaude (the "field" in terrestrial terminology) is known as the gronde [F]: because this word is feminine, all adjectives referring to it take the feminine inflection. Upon the gronde may be placed zero or more echeves [F] (essentially simple geometric shapes), and upon these may be placed zero or more çues [M] ("things", or objects.)
Çues are very rarely of more than one hive.
The first element in a tiée describes the colouring of the gronde; if there are no echeves or çues, this is all the tiée consists of. If the gronde is of a single hive, it is described as being aule of that hive; these are not, obviously, very interesting, and only two have ever been officially granted: aule-reue in 736 to one particularly bloodthirsty local ruler by the name of Alfritha, and aule-himble in 974 to Savula, the southernmost town in Dekavur.
Echeaudes with a estraude gronde are more common. If the çues of a estraude gronde are of more than one hive, the ordering of the hives is entirely up to the artist; they are subject to the usual limitation that çues of a denc-hive may not be placed on a gronde of a lit-hive, nor vice versa. Three estraudes-grondées echeaudes are shown below; in order, they are:
The commonest dille-rieves are shown below. The hives into which the gronde is deaute are named starting in the top right corner, or the centre of the top side in the case of druse-deaute and drusejauge-deaute. The first seven echeaudes below are all deaute suarte a greune, and the tiée of the first would thus be flé-deaute suarte a greune.
Divisions may be into more than two sections: figure 1 is fiur-flé-deaute suarte a greune, where fiur means "four". Where there are fewer colours than sections, the colours repeat in the same order; thus the tiée of figure 2 is ait-flé-deaute reue bloive a huie, and that of figure 3 ait-flé-deaute reue huie bloive a huie.
A gronde which is tris-jauge-deaute contains nine sections, not three; figure 4 is tris-jauge-deaute leuve a gele, and figure 5 is similarly tris-drusejauge-deaute leuve a gele. Jauge-deautes grondes of more than two divisions very rarely have more than two hives. Espreud is almost always of eight pieces, as shown.
If more than two hives make up a gronde which is jauge-deaute or drusejauge-deaute, they are identified in rows from the top, starting from the top right; for example, figure 6, the echeaude of the powerful Enwy dynasty of southern Dekavur, is drusejauge-deaute huie suarte greune huie. [An equivalent tiée for this echeaude is huie, greun lim-trisi, suart toise-trisi.]
Any combination of hives may be used for a deaute gronde, subject to recognisability; figure 7 (tris-rite-deaute suarte leuve a pourpre), granted in 846 to the family of Kerthen of northern Dima, is exceptional with three denques hives.
In and us, which of course mean "in" and "out", are relative to the first-named hive; the points of an in-jasdi-rit-deaute gronde point to the right, and those of an us-jasdi-flé-deaute gronde point downwards. Druse-fiursi and druse-jasdi typically slope to the right, or to the top if applied to a vertical dille-rief.
A fruitful source of controversy is the debate about which types of dille-rief should be regarded as distinct. It is not always easy, for example, to distinguish jasdie and vaite at a distance, and occasionally one echeaude which differs from another only in its dille-rief has been granted by one Echeaude-givair only to be revoked by another.
Drusefiursi, literally "sloping square", means "diamond", and is often used to represent precious stones and other minerals. There are synonyms for the denques-hives of drusefiursies: reu, bloif, and leuf are respectively ruvigne, saviere, mariede, and suart is queul (i.e. "coal"). A pourpre drusefiursi, is known as an antiste, from "amethyst", and a brun drusefiursi is also called an agaite, i.e. "agate". The canonical example is in the echeaude of Gemmaborgo: huie, brun jauge, saviere, ruvigne, mariede, a antiste.
Lim rit and toise rit are often abbreviated to lim and toise. The exact proportion of an echef is up to the artist, but - except in the cases of the trisis - it typically occupies at least a fifth and at most a third of the area of the echeaude. By default, the trisis all point at the centre of the echeaude; larger trisis are described as pointing "to houd", "to feue", and so on as appropriate.
An echef may be placed on top of a deaute gronde provided that the hive of the echef is of the opposite group of that of the majority of hives of the gronde; thus a gronde which is tris-rit-deaute suarte reue a huie may have a flé of geoil on top, but not one of bloif.
The tiées are respectively:
Number 2 is the official echeaude of the town of Abontca; however the echeaude is often rendered in a form closer to number 1 or 3. It would be a very brave bearer who attempted to use one of these two without having any actual connection to Abontca, and an even braver Echeaude-givair who would dare to give official recognition to either of them. Of course, it would be much less likely to confuse 1 and 3 with each other, and much potential trouble would have saved if the official grant to Abontca had been either of them rather than number 2.
When two or more çues are present, it is often necessary to describe their relative positions and orientations. For example, the tiée of number 4 is suarte, tou goutes drusefiursiringes autre-druse in, tou groives drusefiursiringes druse in; note the use of in "in" to specify the relative positions of the drusefiursiringes. This is the echeaude of the Jewellers' Guild, granted in 642; the colours, of course, represent gold and silver.
Numbers 5 and 6 show three leuves arfes. In number 5 they would be described as flé in houd du, i.e. "in flé pointing to houd", and similarly in number 6 as rit in toise du.
In numbers 7 and 8 the himble sivle is placed upon the druse; the tiée of number 7 is thus huie, himble sivle suarte druse an. Note that by default the su is placed on the middle of an echef. The tiée of number 8 is huie, himble sivle suarte druse an houd in, where houd in specifies its location at the top.
In number 9, the two reus sivles are on the gronde, not the echef, and so the tiée is huie, tou reue sivles, suarte druse. Combining this with number 7 gives number 10, whose tiée is huie, tou reus sivles, himble sivles suarte druse an.
An echeaude may, at the discretion of the appropriate ruler, be altered when the bearer earns a mark of distinction or dishonour; typical marks are respectively a jauge-deaute marque and a suart feue.
A married woman bears the echeaude of her husband on a diamond, i.e. the usual square rotated by 45 degrees. The lines of the echeaude retain their orientation; thus a druse on a married woman's echeaude runs from edge to edge and resembles a rotated flé or rit. An unmarried woman may not bear an echeaude.
It sometimes happens that no surviving male descendant remains alive to continue bearing the family echeaude. In such circumstances, a surviving female descendant is known as an arge (i.e. "heiress", purely in the sense of being permitted to "inherit" the echeaude); if she marries, her sons may, at their discretion, combine the echeaude of her husband (A) with that of her father (B); the echeaude is divided in two vertically, with A on the right and B on the left. Further combinations are, of course, possible if later sons marry other arges; all of these are best ilustrated with the following diagrams, in which "A=B" means "A marries B, who is an arge". Note that there are two different ways to combine four echeaudes, except when they combine two with two; one way avoids further subdivision and keeps the component echeaudes the same size if possible, while the other makes it clear who married whom and in which order.
Further marriages to arges potentially increase the number of partitions even further; however, it is very rare to proceed past sixteen, for obvious and practical reasons.
The hives are sorted in the order shown above, progressing down the columns; thus suart comes first, followed by hui and reu, and ending with gout. The echeves are sorted in the following order, irrespective of partition lines or other modifications:
The first entry in the bloif beu after the two aule-echeaudes is thus suart, houd hui, the echeaude of the family of Astreno.