Talk:Tincture (heraldry)

message: Concerning this paragraph:
: The rule of tincture has had an influence reaching far beyond heraldry. It has been imposed on flags, or perhaps it should be put, applied to the design of flags, so that the flag of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach was modified to conform to the rule.[26] The rule of tincture has also influenced World Wide Web design with respect to what colour font should be placed on what colour background. Almost all license plates and traffic signs, intentionally or unintentionally, follow it.
Is it really fair to say that the choice of font color on Web pages and the color of license plates and traffic signs all stem directly from the rule of tincture, or would it be more correct to say that these things all stem independently from the same kind of universal design sense about maximizing contrast? -- Skaraoke 01:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The "universal design sense about maximizing contrast" is the rule of tincture. --EncycloPetey 01:07, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is absolutely false.  The rule of tincture is a technical rule, not a practical rule.  Sable a lion rampant pean is a perfectly acceptable coat as far as the rule is concerned (furs being amphibious), though it is essentially invisible.  --Daniel C. Boyer 18:49, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If furs are amphibious I will eat toadfeathers.2604:2000:C682:B600:FC9C:4C2:2514:9A8F (talk) 17:06, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

text: What about rewriting the paragraph so it acknowledges some kind of indirect relationship between the Rule of Tincture and modern signs and license plates without asserting that they are direct descendants of the RoT (which seems to be untrue)? --Skaraoke 21:45, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But it's not untrue.  Modern highway signs, at least, were developed with a conscious knowledge of the rule of tincture.  --Daniel C. Boyer 14:46, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps, but only with regard to the general rules of contrast as discussed above. I doubt that everyone who designed road signs had a working knowledge of heraldry in general and the rule of tincture in particular. --<SPAN STYLE="font-family:monospace; color:#008800; background-color:#ffffcc; border:1px solid #ff4444;"> B.D.Mills </SPAN> (T, C) 01:07, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Speaking as a web designer, and computer scientist here, this is clearly a case of independently evolved rules.  The web design rules of contrast were developed from a distinctly modernist perspective, influenced by a long history of computing before the web, which I might point out, was for a very long time dominated by green text on black (vert on sable), a violation of tincture.  Current web design is entirely modernist in its approach, with very little regard to design traditions like Heraldry.  (Although the more I learn about it, the more I want to apply it, for instance in regards to logos and even icons). -- Deadwisdom (talk) 10:18, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

text: Daniel, modern signs were developed specifically with conscious knowledge of reflective white light, which is not bound by any metal nor color rule by any name, you could even say it while spitting tobacco tinctured saliva and it'd still be true as the only thing Luminescent White does not contrast with is another luminescent white. Perhaps you are thinking not of tinctured rules but mistaking the ways everything exists? There are no "rules" as things exist because they are either  real or they are not, there is no rule of the greatest having less worth than the least in an lower to hierarchy, it is just the way everything exists. Matters of grave import are not left to depend on whether or not anyone and everyone will follow rules. Language does not serve it's purpose except when it labors so that others can share thoughts that there might be understanding, for instance "Or"  being written as any word other than "Ur" or "Ore" goes against the very nature of The Word itself when spelled the same as a conjunction. Dirtclustit (talk) 00:29, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Rule of Tincture

message: According to the article, furs are distinct from tinctures.
The article should therefore be split and the sections about furs be moved to fur (heraldry).
--Phil | Talk 11:37, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)
:Actually, they aren't distinct from other tinctures, though you're right that articles should probably exist for ermine and vair, with variants. --EncycloPetey 06:17, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This is absolutely wrong.  Furs are tinctures, as are metals, colours (including staynard colours), and proper is a tincture as well.  --Daniel C. Boyer 19:52, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Split furs out 

message: Heraldry has been nominated to be improved by Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive. Vote for this article there if you want to contribute. --Fenice 19:56, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Improvement drive

message: # Red = Gules
# Orange = ?
# Yellow = Or
# Green = Vert
# Blue = Azure
# Purple = Purpure
Georgia guy 18:51, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The heraldic name for orange is orange, but it is not regarded by heraldic writers as one of the basic tinctures. There are only seven tinctures recognized by English heralds, and the list has been quite stable since the oldest known heraldic treatises in English. Orange appears as an extremely rare oddity, and the term tenné is more commonly used for an orangey colour, though it is not the same as Crayola orange. Orange as a noble colour is a relatively modern concept, and I can't think of any uses off the top of my head earlier than the period of the Dutch Revolt (late sixteenth century). In that case, the choice was made to pun off the name of William of Orange, who was a leader of the movement. --EncycloPetey 06:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: But does orange appear in arms in this context?  I know there are some extremely unusual usages in South Africa and the Netherlands.  --Daniel C. Boyer 19:53, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

text: In the English language, orange was not considered a separate colour to yellow until about the 1700's. Before then, orange and yellow were not distinguished, in much the same way that light blue and dark blue are both considered shades of blue. In Russian, light blue and dark blue have separate names in much the same way that we give separate names to red and pink (which themselves were not distinguished in Shakespeare's time). --<SPAN STYLE="font-family:monospace; color:#008800; background-color:#ffffcc; border:1px solid #ff4444;"> B.D.Mills </SPAN> (T, C) 01:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heraldric name of orange 

message: There was a Renaissance practice of sporadically blazoning colors with symbolic names of gemstones or planets.  It's not of extreme significance in itself (and a number of late 19th century / early 20th century authors of heraldic reference works deprecated it), but it's a facet of heraldic history, and should probably be included in this article.  Here are tables boiled down from a table posted by User:David H. Flint on Talk:Gules --
Tincture	Planet 	Gemstone
Or      	Sun    	Topaz
Argent  	Moon   	Pearl
Azure   	Jupiter	Sapphire
Gules   	Mars   	Ruby
Purpure 	Mercury	Amethyst
Vert    	Venus  	Emerald
Sable   	Saturn 	Diamond
Stain            	Node         	Gemstone
Tenné            	Dragon's Head	Jacinth
Sanguine / Murrey	Dragon's Tail	Sardonyx
What's currently a problem is that the individual tincture articles (such as Gules, Vert, etc.) now include problematic listings of claimed associations of colors with jewels, planets, zodiac signs, Greek classical elements, days of the week, months, metals, trees, flowers, birds, and virtues with each of the tinctures.
Unfortunately, the associations of planets with colors given in these articles often contradict the well-documented historical heraldic associations given in the table above (for example, Vert is listed as associated with Mercury, not Venus), and the associations of metals with colors given in the article contradict the well-known old "alchemical" assignments of different metals to the seven classical planets (which a broadly-educated Renaissance scribe who was interested in this kind of symbolism would have been well-aware of) -- for example, Gules is listed as associated with Mars (as is traditional), but then is given a non-traditional association with the metal copper.
And all the rest of it (zodiac signs, Greek classical elements, months, trees, flowers, birds, and virtues) seems to be undocumented, and not likely to be documentable with a reliable heraldic source.
I propose changing all the individual tincture pages so as to include the historical gemstone / planet associations listed in the tables above (as documented in the sources given on Talk:Gules), and possibly also the corresponding metal associations according to article Classical planets in western alchemy (I am not sure this association was ever made by heraldic writers, but such an association between colors and metals was made by historical alchemists / occultists), and junking everything else. AnonMoos 03:51, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Renaissance gemstone/planet blazoning, and problems with individual tincture pages

message: I added the tables to this article page, and trimmed and revised the seven individual tincture article pages accordingly (hopefully completely consistently!). AnonMoos 23:14, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Done

message: I noticed there's no pronunciation guide for the tincture terms - for example, when talking in English, does 'Vert' have a silent 't', like the French 'vert', or not? Ditto for 'Argent', ...? 82.46.233.129 13:48, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You can find this information on the corresponding Wiktionary entries, if you're curious. --EncycloPetey 17:36, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Pronunciation?

message: If is it correct link, why links to :en:Rule of tincture ? If is it correct, please replace links in the de: article. Else will my bot remove it in the next time too.JAn Dudík 19:34, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please ask the editors on de WP to correct this.  Their links are not our responsibility.  Please do not assume that de in right and en is wrong. --EncycloPetey 19:46, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  de interwiki 

message: Any objection to moving most of #Vair and its variants to Vair? —Tamfang (talk) 23:03, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolutely not, please do it someone, also Tincture (heraldry) #Ermine.  → User: Perhelion 14:24, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: You're bumping a 9-year-old discussion about something that was done ages ago.  Nobody here is still participating in that discussion.  There's already a stand-alone article on Vair, and you deleted the link to it in this article.  There's also an article on Ermine, and you deleted the link to that as well.  P Aculeius (talk) 17:26, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The split didn't actually remove the excessive detail from this page when it moved, so no, I don't think it was "done ages ago"; it was half-done ages ago, perhaps, but never finished. Also, it would make much more sense to have a Fur (heraldry) page with both of them and the more minor furs included. 157.131.199.198 (talk) 23:45, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  vair 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I'm intrigued to learn that the English College capitalizes tinctures because they are nouns.  In French blazon they definitely are nouns (as shown by the de before each), but what's an example of an English blazon in which it's clear from the syntax that they're not adjectives? — The only difference between English and French in the names of the (principal) tinctures is English vert vs French sinople; in French vert is an adjective, so you can't say de vert. —Tamfang (talk) 09:01, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't believe they're nouns in English.  If anyone claims that they are, they're committing a serious grammatical error.  Most of the authoritative treatises in English don't capitalize tinctures, although there are two conventions that are often excepted: or is often capitalized in order to distinguish it from the conjunction "or", although if carefully blazoned there should be no confusion; and some writers hold that the first tincture mentioned in a blazon should be capitalized, probably deriving this rule from the habit of capitalizing the first word in a blazon, which was usually a tincture.  However, many writers follow neither of these conventions, and capitalize only the first word in the blazon.  Note that capitalization was not standardized in English until the end of the 18th century, so older blazons often capitalized any word the writer considered "important".  To some extent people still do this to this day (hence the persistence of "title case").  In decorative calligraphy, such as that used in patents of arms by the College of Arms, it's normal to do this, both to make what might otherwise look like a wall of text look more interesting, and also to draw attention to important points.  However, the fact that the College of Arms currently uses one manner of capitalization or, for that matter, omits most punctuation, has no bearing on the actual arms or for that matter, how anybody else would blazon them.  Capitalization and punctuation are not part of a coat of arms, and like the shade of paint used to portray a particular tincture, are entirely up to the artist.  On a side note, it looks as though vert is used in some French heraldry instead of sinople, but it may be considered archaic.  P Aculeius (talk) 15:18, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

text: I'm not very well versed in French grammar, but I'm not sure you can infer that tinctures are nouns in French merely because de is used with them.  It simply means "of", and at least in English you can certainly say, "of green" or "of gold" without the colours becoming nouns.  In a French blazon, "de sinople" literally translates as "of vert" or "of green", where we would certainly consider the tincture an adjective.  Of course, we wouldn't say "of" in an English blazon, but that's purely a matter of convention.  So unless French categorizes adjectives and prepositions differently than English, I'd say that tinctures are still adjectives in French blazons.  P Aculeius (talk) 03:48, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  Although boundaries between parts of speech are more fluid in English, we don't generally use "of" before adjectives.  I'd be amazed to learn that anyone has ever described me as a man of bulky or of clever.  In my opinion "of gold" means made of the metal; "of green" (offhand I can't think of an example other than describing a garment) is elliptical for "of green cloth", I guess.  —Tamfang (talk) 04:31, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Whether it's elliptical or not, it occurs regularly with colours and patterns (cloth of plaid, sea of green, explosion of yellow).  Gold isn't an exception, notwithstanding the fact that it can also be a noun.  A field of gold isn't the same as a ring of gold.  But if you think of these as words normally considered adjectives being used as though they were nouns, couldn't the same thing be happening in French?  I suppose, grammatically, we could say that "green" can be a noun used to describe the concept of greenness, even in English, but in the phrase, "a lion rampant vert", "vert" is clearly an adjective.  Does that change if we say "a lion of green" instead of "a lion green"?  Maybe.  But even if we suppose that tinctures are used as nouns in French blazon, they're clearly not in English.  Perhaps some heraldic authority has reasoned that "if they're nouns in French, and English heraldry uses the terminology of Norman French, then they must be nouns in English too."  But that's a rather pedantic analysis.  Normally I'm rather friendly to reasoning from etymology, but in the phrase "a lion green", the word "green" is indisputably an adjective in English grammar, and the fact that such a phrase has heraldic significance can't simply convert one part of speech into another.  I note that the grammatical distinction between nouns and adjectives isn't really relevant for capitalization purposes in French blazon, since common nouns aren't capitalized in French; in German all nouns are capitalized, but in English only proper nouns are, and tinctures aren't proper nouns.  So whatever's going on with capitalization in current grants of arms has nothing to do with English or French grammar.  It's purely a stylistic or decorative convention currently used by some heralds, but with no binding force, since "argent, a lion vert reaping wheat or" blazoned in 1780 or 1890 is exactly the same as "Argent, a Lion Vert reaping Wheat Or" blazoned in 2000.  P Aculeius (talk) 13:20, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  nouns 

message: March 6:
:
I don't see what about it is poorer than its replacement, and I'm not willing to read the whole MOS; couldn't you point to the relevant section? —Tamfang (talk) 02:00, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: This has already been threshed out between the editors involved.  The only thing that the MOS arguably applied to was the placement of the word "tincture" in the first sentence.  EncycloPetey felt that the MOS demanded it come at the beginning of the sentence; but because the term is somewhat ambiguously used by different authorities, and the original meaning is not the one used in the article, I wrote the sentence beginning with the things included and ending with the word "tinctures", which I thought was a better way of introducing the term.  In other words, I wrote, "Heraldry uses a palette of A and B, usually known as tinctures", which he revised to read "tinctures provide a palette of A and B".   The other things described as "poor writing style" were my failure to link the word "palette" to the disambiguation page by that title, and my failure to describe the heraldry involving tinctures as "European heraldry", to distinguish it from all the other heraldries.  When I reverted his changes, he reverted me back and carried the discussion over to my talk page.  Rather than getting caught in an edit war, we threshed out the issue and I more or less left his changes alone and focused on other parts of the article until I ran out of steam.  I mean to get back to the unfinished parts soon.  But before restoring the paragraph the way I wrote it, I'd like to hear from EncycloPetey or any other editors who might want to comment on the matter.  P Aculeius (talk) 03:36, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  lede 

message: Substituted at 08:52, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: The only color that is hard to see against sable is blue. I think heraldry uses a light purple but if it doesn't then okay that's hard to see too. But white/silver, yellow/gold, green, and red show up just fine. If sable had ever been a fur as its name implies the a few of the famous "violations" such as Albania would be legal.2604:2000:C682:B600:FC9C:4C2:2514:9A8F (talk) 17:06, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Sable was never a heraldic fur; it's simply the name assigned to "black" in French and English heraldry.  The concept of the furs as a distinct class of tinctures presumably dates to a much later period (bear in mind that the word tincture has an ambiguous meaning; it's not even clear that there was a rigidly-defined concept of tincture in the modern sense [meaning, the collection of metals, colours, and furs as equal things of the same basic kind] until long after the formative period of heraldry).  The rules respecting the use of tinctures developed over time, initially out of a desire for maximum visibility.  A prominent black charge on a red field has some visibility in bright light, but in dark or grimy battlefield conditions it may not have had, and smaller details would have been hard to work out.  Note that road signs adhere somewhat loosely to heraldic principles (at least in the U.S. and countries that follow U.S. sign conventions); red signs (STOP, YIELD, WRONG WAY, DO NOT ENTER, NO PARKING) all feature white lettering or backgrounds, never black; black lettering only appears on signs that are white or yellow.  Now, the rule against colour on colour is rather strictly adhered to in the west, but in Eastern Europe it's much less so, hence the Albanian arms.  Black or occasionally blue or green on a red field are found, but much less so than white or gold.  Legality doesn't really enter into it, though.  The "laws of heraldry" aren't laws in the sense we usually use that word, and aren't generally enforced against anyone who already bears arms, except in very limited circumstances.  And as Albania is a sovereign state, nobody can make it change its arms.  Albania can set its own rules for what tinctures can appear together, and when!  P Aculeius (talk) 17:31, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Was "Sable" ever a fur as its name implies?

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replies: text: Checked sources; second one seems okay; first one does not appear relevant, and search for similar information on the current web site failed for multiple reasons (common search terms, forums not browsable by non-registered users, registration not available to certain users, further information about registration locked to non-registered users), but forums not likely to be an authority anyway.  Deleting reference, but not statement (seems to be a logical inference; another reliable source can probably be found).  P Aculeius (talk) 12:23, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The symbols for ascending node and ascending node appear to be incorrect. They are both showing the symbol for Leo. Should they be: ascending node ☊ U+260A, and decending node ☋ U+260B, not ♌ U+264C?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.211.114.71 (talk) 08:34, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Astronomical Symbols