[antir-heralds] some questions of Piles and Tridents

[Caitrina Lions Blood]

Thank you Tecangl.  The example you chose of a pile is an excellent one.  I
believe some of the confusion could have been due to one of the examples
given to me which shows a very different rule of measure.
http://www.sca.org/heraldry/primer/ordinaries.html 

Another good question posed is how is a herald or client to know which
example they should use if they differ? 

Caitrina

-----Original Message-----
From: Britt [mailto:tierna.britt at gmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2007 5:25 AM
To: Caitrina Lions Blood
Cc: antir-heralds at antir.sca.org
Subject: Re: [antir-heralds] some questions of Piles and Tridents

> 1) With regards to a Pile fimbrated, where exactly should the two upper
> points of the pile terminate? And how does the fimbriation affect this?
> (Meaning, should the fimbriation end at the corners? Or in some other
> location).

Any ordinary fimbriated should be exactly the same proportion as the
same ordinary not fimbriated.  Fimbriation should be slender, but not
so skinny as to be invisible from any distance.

A correctly-drawn pile is three-fifths of the shield wide at the top,
with one-fifth of the width being field on either side.  The device of
Alphonse de Lorraine on the kingdom Roll of Arms is an extremely good
example of proper pile width and a well-fimbriated pile:
http://badger.cx/heraldry/roll/display.php?id=422


> 2) If a trident was on said pile and since a pile is an ordinary, does it
> 'maintain' the trident and therefore carry no heraldic weight? Or can it
in
> and of itself be used as a CD?

It is a tertiary charge and subject to CDs under RfS X.4.i. and X.4.j.
depending on what's in the other armory.

A maintained charge is one held by another charge and usually lies on
the field (or whatever the other charge lies on).

The Glossary of Terms has definitions of primary, secondary, tertiary
and maintained charges.  http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/regs.html

- Teceangl