[antir-heralds] Semy musings

[Roger Carbol]

> I'd be interested in others' observations along the same lines. Have
> you seen 'cut from cloth' semy arrangements in period armory when
> there's a primary present?  How about erratic when the 
> charges in semy are the primary charge group?

I'm happy to add my own half-remembered, completely insubstantiated, utterly without citation, thoughts on the matter.

As far as I can recall, period artists simply crammed in whatever semy charges they could manage.  Given that a considerable amount of the art of the time was not representative, and that heraldry itself has not generally been representative in any case, I suspect this is a defensible position to take on the matter.

That being said, I seem to recall semy fields being 'clipped' by primaries -- that is, it looks like the field was painted, and then the primary dropped on it, so if a half-fleur-de-lis in the semy got stomped on by the primary, well heck, that was just too bad.  Again, I can't at this particular time provide an example of that, but it certainly seems to fit in my memory, and that's about the best I can offer at short notice.

If such things were up to me, I'd suggest that an armoury consisting of a semy field only be considered field primary, but, hey, I'm not even sure period practice would support that, so, take it with a lozenge of salt.   In period, I can certainly imagine that a person with, say, Argent,  a Pellet, would be perhaps represented by Argent, Pelletty.  I shall leave such matters with my More Experienced Brethern (and Sistern).

Thine in Service,
Rogez du Pont, Montengarde