[antir-heralds] can you charge a quarter?

[Ursula Whitcher]

Britt wrote:
> On Nov 11, 2007 10:02 PM, Ursula Whitcher <ursula at math.washington.edu> wrote:
>> The SCA's Glossary of Terms lists the charged canton as reserved to
>> people with augmentations of arms.  What about the quarter (a peripheral
>> charge like a canton, occupying 1/4 of the field)?  Is there any reason
>> that a quarter can't be charged?
> 
> Quarter is to canton as chevron is to chevronel.  Different size of
> the same basic thing.  Of the quarter, Parker says, "As already
> pointed out, it seems in ancient to have ben practically synonymous
> with the Cauntel or Canton." then also, "It may be observed, perhaps,
> that in modern English arms the quarter is comparatively rare, the
> canton having superseded it. In the French arms, however, the term
> franc-quartier is frequently used, which appears to be neither so
> large as a quarter nor so small as a canton, but like the latter has
> its definite position in the dexter chief. The name franc-canton is
> synonymous with it. The term quartier by itself is seldom, if ever,
> employed except in connection with quarterly(fr. ecartelé)."

Would historical practice make any difference?  I'm not really up on the 
history of augmentations of arms, but I can imagine a situation in which 
augmentations were invented relatively late (at a time when the canton 
had more or less superseded the quarter), so that the use of charged 
quarters and the use of charged cantons as augmentations weren't at all 
contemporary.  (Of course, that assumes that the early quarters *were* 
sometimes charged.)

> And finally, it's appearance rather than dimensions which cause trouble.
> 
> RfS XI.4. Arms of Pretense and Augmentations of Honor -Armory that
> uses charges in such a way as to appear to be arms of pretense or an
> unearned augmentation of honor is considered presumptuous.

But it would only appear to be an unearned augmentation if you were 
enough of a herald to interpret charged cantons as augmentations, but 
neither distinguished the quarter from the diminutive version nor were 
able to recognize augmentations from particular regimes.

Ursula Georges.