page_title: Hatching (heraldry)
section_title: Other systems
hierarchical_section_title: Hatching (heraldry) / Genesis / Other systems
caption_attribution_description: English: The enlarged hatching table of de Rouck
context_page_description: Hatching is a conventional system for monochrome denotation of heraldic armory, whereby the tinctures are represented by dots and lines. This technique is employed in cases where colours, for either aesthetic, practical or economic reasons are not reproduced - e.g. on surfaces such as woodcuts or engravings, seals and coins.
  Several systems of hatchings were developed during the Renaissance as an alternative to tricking, the earlier method of indicating heraldic tinctures by use of written abbreviations. The present day hatching system was developed during the 1630s by Silvester Petra Sancta and Marcus Vulson de la Colombière. Some earlier hatching methods were also developed, but did not come into wide use.
  Tricking is an alternative method which has the same purpose as hatching.
context_section_description: The French heraldist Imbert de la Phalecque and his Italian counterpart Goffredo di Crollanza claimed that the work of Philippe de l'Espinoy was the first one that adopted the hatching system applied in the blazon. His two-volume book was published in Douai in 1631 and in 1632 respectively. (A facsimile of l’Espinoy's book titled Recherche des antiquités et noblesse de Flandre was published in 1972.) This city, now in France, was then part of Flanders. The illustrations in this book include 1,121 escutcheons, standards and seals of armorial bearings, on wood, besides 58 copperplate illustrations that at first sight appear to have hatchings. If one however compares these "hatchings" with the descriptions, then one finds out that there isn't any system in it at all. For instance Gules is alternately indicated by horizontal or vertical or diagonal lines or is left blank. It seems l'Espinoy considered lines and dots merely as a sort of artistic additions which he put in at random. There is no hatching table at all.
  Most other known hatching systems also originated in the Low Countries. The tiny hatching table of the above-mentioned Jacob Franquart, to be found in his Pompa funebris Alberti Pii Austriaci (1623), was the earliest hatching method after Zangrius. The Cistercian abbot from Antwerp and historian and genealogist Christophe Butkens also developed his own system, but it was used by him in an inconsequent way which led to the misunderstandings and the resultant sudden disappearance of this system. The hatching table of Thomas de Rouck was radically different from that of Zangrius. Aegidius Gelenius was one of the most respected Cologne historians of his time. He developed a late hatching system but it did not gain popularity. Gelenius was deeply influenced by Petra Sancta and both the men met personally several times in Cologne. Gelenius also studied the coats of arms and antiquities of the Rhenish nobility in the territory neighboring the Low Countries. However, Gelenius’ hatching system is identical only at two points with Petra Sancta, indicating that he consciously tried to develop an independent system but failed to make a serious cut, or it can also indicate that Petra Sancta's system was not yet fully developed when they met in Cologne. If this is true, it makes certain the primacy of de la Colombière as the inventor of the hatching system.
  The last hatching method was developed by Charles Segoing, a French heraldist and royal historian in 1654 (Armorial universel, contenant les armes des principales maisons de l'Europe. Paris, 1654). His system is similar to the method of Petra Sancta. On the table X of his work, Otto Titan von Hefner published still another system of hatching from 1639, attributed to Lobkowitz. (On page 49, footnote 4 Hefner names his source as Rietstap's Handboek der Wapenkunde, p. 96.) His book titled Philippus Prudens contains as many as 27 engraved portraits of the Portuguese kings, among them several with hatched coat of arms, but there is no hatching table at all. However, in his earlier book from 1636 we can really find a hatching table. (One of the book censors was Christophe Butkens.)
  In 1632 Lobkowitz was sent to the Low Countries where he became a renowned preacher and missionary. His first book Steganographia ars orthographia was published in 1636 in Brussels when he was a professor at the Leuven University – the same city where Jan Baptist Zangrius was also active. Here Lobkowitz published a major work titled Theologia Moralis ad prima, eaque clarissima principia reducta printed by Perus Zangrius (Lovanii, typis ac sumptibus Petrus Zangrius, 1645). His book titled Philippus Prudens containing some hatched arms was published in 1639 by Balthasar Moretus in Antwerp. The coats of arms were engraved by Cornelis Galle the Younger, after the drawings of Erasmus Quellinus the Younger (Antwerp, 1607 - Antwerp, 1678), a Flemish Baroque painter, and the engraving of the frontispiece was made by Jacob Neefs (Antwerp, June 3, 1610 – 1660), also after a design by Erasmus Quellinus the Younger
caption: Hatching table of Thomas de Rouck (1645)
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