Line (heraldry) - Rarer Lines and Recent Inventions

Rarer Lines and Recent Inventions

The rare line bevilled modifies the bendlets in the arms of Thomas Roy Barnes and the pairle in the arms of Rovaniemi, Finland. This lightning-bolt type of line with one zigzag is to be distinguished from angled, in which the line takes a 90-degree upwards turn before another 90-degree turn, continuing parallel and in the same direction from the old line. There is a South African example of bevilled to sinister, and a bend double bevilled can be seen in the arms of Philip Kushlick School.

A line trefly shows protuberances in the form of trefoils.

The arms of St. Paul's Cathedral in Regina, Saskatchewan contain a bordure its inner line looping in foils of poplar of the field within the bordure at each angle and at regular intervals between.

The arms of Carmichael show a fess "wreathy," which may or may not be strictly speaking a line of partition, but it does modify the fess; the coat is not blazoned as a "wreath in fess". James Parker calls this "tortilly."

The 20th century saw some innovations in lines of partition. Erablé, a series of alternating upside-down and rightside-up maple-leaves, is a typically Canadian line of partition, though the College of Arms in London has used it in a few grants (but compare the cross nowy erablé in the arms of Katherina Fahlman Selinger Schaaf. A Finnish line of partition, invented by Kaj Cajander and called kuusikoro, which is called fir-tree topped in Britain, and which the Canadian Heraldic Authority coined the term sapiné to blazon, resembles fir trees; in the arms of Guy Selvester this is called sapinage. A line resembling fir twigs, and so called in British blazon, is called sapinagy in Canada (though sadly there is no example of it in the online Canadian Public Register), and havukoro in Finland.) Other 20th-century examples of lines, or things akin to lines, include the 1990 grant to Albersdorf-Prebuch, also in Austria, in which the upper line of the fess takes the form of fruit, the bottom of vine-leaves. (It is debatable what the distinction is between such lines, and examples such as the arms of Bierbaum am Auersbach, a town in Styria, in which three pears grow from a pall.)

The South African Bureau of Heraldry has developed the line of partition serpentine(which has also been called 'ondoyant'), which is rather like wavy, but with only one "wave", one complete cycle of a sine wave; the serpentine in the arms of the Mtubatuba Primary School is defined as "dexter to chief and sinister to base". (Similar is the German "im Schlangenschnitt" (snake-wise).) It has also developed the uniquely South-African lines of division (which can also form the ends of a charge) nowy of a Cape Town gable (now called just nowy gabled), and nowy of an Indian cupola. Similarly, the fess line in the arms of the Council for Social and Associated Workers is nowy of a trimount inverted, the fess in the arms of Mossel Bay is nowy of two Karoo gable houses, the chief in the arms of the Lenasia South-East Management Committee is nowy of an Indian cupola, the chief in the arms of the Genealogical Society of South Africa is double nowy gably and that of Frederick Brownell is gably of three. The arms of the Reyneke Bond (i.e. Reyneke Family Association) are Per fess, in each flank double nowy fitchy to base, Azure and Or, a lion rampant per fess of the second and Gules, a chief Or. The plain chief identifies these as the arms of a family association. The arms of Itsokolele, South Africa include a chief double fitchy inverted.

Broad fitchy couped is a line of South-African origin similar in appearance to a mine-dump or escartelly with sloping sides.

Chevrons can be topped with a fleur-de-lys, and ordinaries with non-straight edges (particularly if they are dancetty or engrailed) can have the points topped with demi fleurs-de-lys. It has sometimes been said that in some reference works flory-counter-flory (and flory) is treated like a line of partition, even though strictly speaking it is not - though it has been used for centuries that way in the royal arms of Scotland blazoning the double tressure (Public Register of Arms, Lyon Court, Edinburgh) and used by the College of arms in blazoning coats like that of Sutherland of Dunstanburgh Castle (Gules, a chevron flory-counterflory between in chief three mullets and in base a lymphad all or) and is used by the South African Bureau of Heraldry blazoning the coat of Huis Tankotie of the University of Pretoria (Per fess, flory counter-flory, Argent and Azure, in base within the flower an annulet Sable; a bordure counterchanged)and Emmanuel-Opleidingsentrum in the South African Bureau of Heraldry's online database. (Flory is sometimes varied with other shapes than the fleur-de-lys, when it is blazoned as flory of.)

A vague and unhelpful blazon of the 27th Air Division of the United States Air Force provides for a "bordure of distinctive outline".