Line (heraldry) - Embattled and Variants

Embattled and Variants

A line embattled is a square wave, representing the battlements of a castle.

When a fess is embattled, only the topmost edge is altered (as in the arms of Muri bei Bern). If both edges are to be embattled, the term embattled-counter-embattled (or counter-embattled, as in the arms of Sir Cecil Denniston Burney) is used. In this case the lines are parallel. If gaps face gaps, the term bretessé is used. There is at least one emblazonment suggesting that the orle is only embattled on its outer edge.

Italian armory has a variant, Ghibelline battlement, with notched merlons.

In a line raguly the extensions are oblique rather than orthogonal, like the stumps of limbs protruding from a tree-trunk.

Dovetailed is as in carpentry. Unlike embattled, gaps face gaps.

Potenty may be considered a variant in which the points are extended to T-shapes ("potent" means a crutch).

A line embattled grady or battled embattled consists of series of two or three steps, as if each merlon has a smaller merlon atop it. Parker's glossary says that double-embattled may be the same as this.

The arms of Schellenberg, in Liechtenstein, provide an example of embattled "with three battlements." The bordure in the arms of Boissy l'Aillerie, in Val d'Oise, France, has nine battlements (and the bordure is also masoned and contains doorlike openings).

A very unusual occurrence of embattled occurs in the arms of the 136th Military Police Battalion of the United States Army: Sable, a fesse enhanced and embattled Or, overall a magnifying glass palewise rim Argent (Silver Gray), the glass surmounting and enlarging the middle crenel between two merlons, the handle Gules edged of the second bearing a mullet Argent.

The arms of Baron Kirkwood show two chevronels round embattled (the merlons are rounded rather than squares). There are also examples of embattled pointed and embattled in the form of mine dumps.

James Parker cites the arms of Christopher Draisfield: "Gules, a chevron raguly of two bastons couped at the top argent."

The arms of Zodwa Special School for Severely Mentally Handicapped Children show a chevron dovetailed, the peak ensigned with a potent issuant.

Some examples also exist of urdy, where the line is in the shapes of the upside-down and rightside-up "shields" of vair (this is to be distinguished from couped urdy, in which the couping takes a pointed form). The arms of Winfried Paul Reinhold Steinhagen are Per chevron, the peak in the form of a merlon round urdy of four, Gules and Or, in chief a horse forcene and a goat clymant respecting one another, Argent, and in base a bull's head Sable armed Argent; a chief per fess in the form of a wall with three watchtowers, Azure and Argent, the latter charged with a strand of barbed wire throughout, Sable. The "unusual, if not unique" arms of Lourens Du Toit are Per fess of three pallets urdy Sable and Or.

The arms of the Royal Australasian College of Dental Surgeons have a bordure emblazoned "dentate," although this appears to be quite similar to dovetailed.