From: velde2@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Francois Velde)
Newsgroups: rec.heraldry
Subject: Re: A favor....
Date: 11 Jan 93 15:32:29 GMT
Organization: Homewood Academic Computing, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu

In article <7w+3_bg@rpi.edu> habura@vccnw04.its.rpi.edu (Andrea Marie Habura) writes:
>Folks, I've been doing some research into regional armory, and I wonder if 
>any of you can help me out with the following blazon terms:
>
>Tranche failli and tailland and retranche: This is one of the funky German
>field divisions, and this phrase describes a per fess line. There are no
>charges on the field. "Tranche" means "per bend" in French blazon, and 
>"tailland" is "per bend sinister". "Failli" has a group of Modern French
>meanings centering on "bankrupt, lacking"; "retranche" means "cut off" in
>Modern French. I have an intuition, however, that "retranche" here means
>"and again per bend", which would make this a sort of super-indented line
>leaning over in a bendwise direction.

Failli is the past participle of "faillir", which means to fail.
In French heraldry, failli qualifies a chevron which is broken (and you
mnust specify which side).  Your blazon, however, "tranche failli en
taillant et retranche", sounds exactly like one in Woodward, plate 55, 
and matches another meaning of failli: " it is also said of these partition
lines which in some German coats are carried only a portion of their distance".
The meaning is then: start out from the upper-left corner with a tranche
(divided per bend), "fail" midway by switching to "taille" or per bend 
sinister, and start again per bend ("retranche"). The result is a zig-zag,
or a piece-wise linear partition in 3 pieces, going south-west, south-east,
south-west.

>Entravailles: "entrave" means "shackles" in Modern French. Any ideas?

The root would be "travailler", to work, or to chisel. Menestrier (1761)
says: entravaille' is said of birds displayed who have a baton [a cotice
couped at the ends] or something else slipped in between their wings and 
their feet." Woodward says it is synonymous with interlaced (e.g. azure,
three fess argent, a chevron or interlaced).

>Enchaussure: "Enchausser" is a French verb meaning "to straw up", which makes
>me think that this is either a sheaf of wheat or a haystack. However, the
>French words for these objects are not even remotely similar. The word may be
>related to the French blazonry term "chausse'". 

This has to do with Continental partitions, namely chape' and chausse' 
(the ' after the e indicates a diacritical mark, and that the word is 
the past participle of a verb). Chape' is a partition consisting of two
lines, starting both from the same point in the middle of the top of
the shield, and going down sideways, one to the left and the other to the
right. It is an abstract representation of a hood, and figured on the 
arms of the Carmes monks. If the middle is argent and the sides are 
gules, it would be blazoned argent chape' gules. Chausse' (which means
"shoed") is the reverse: the two lines start from the point and move up
to each upper corner: it represents a shoe. It is sometimes called enchausse'.
An enchaussure would be one half of this, i.e. the left or the right triangle
of a enchausse figure, standing by itself. When the lines start from the
side of the shield, it is called embrasse' (embraced).  When the lines 
are convex rather than straight, it is a chausse'-ploye' (or chape'-ploye').
When the field is both chape' (hooded) and chausse' (shoed) it is called
ve^tu (clothed).

>Retrait: I'm pretty sure this means "couped", but can't prove it.

Woodward again: "it is said of an ordinary which only touches one edge 
of the shield, and does not proceed very far towards the other." it is
used for fess (or bars), pales, bends. I suppose it is like couped on
one end. 

Woodward's treatise has a French glossary, where all these terms can be
found, as well, sometimes, as "translations" into English blazons. (e.g.
the chausse and chape figures he describes using piles).

-- 

	Francois Velde
Newsgroups: rec.heraldry