Tinctures Used in Heraldic Devices in the Manesse Codex

by Coblaith Muimnech

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This page includes statistical information on the tinctures seen on the shields and escutcheons in the Manesse Codex. Field tinctures, charge tinctures, and field-and-charge tincture combinations are addressed separately.


Field Tinctures

Ninety-six of the devices (almost three-quarters of them) have single-tincture fields. The most common tincture, accounting for over 36% of single-tincture fields, is or. Second most common, accounting for one quarter of single-tincture fields, is azure. Gules and argent together account for another 30%. Most of the remaining fields are sable, the rest vert.

Twenty-six (almost twenty percent) of the devices have fields equally divided between two tinctures. Or is again the most common tincture, appearing in almost half of these fields. Gules and azure each contribute to about 40% of them. Sable is part of a third of them, and argent almost a quarter. Less than 8% of the fields contain vert.

Three fields are divided equally among three tinctures. All of them contain gules. Two include argent, the same number sable, and one each or and azure.

The remaining six fields are divided equally between a single tincture and a pattern made up of two, so that one half of the field is one tincture and one-quarter each of two others. Half the half-fields are gules, the other half or. Azure, sable, and argent account for three quarter-fields each, gules two, and or one.


Charge Tinctures

In 104 of the devices, the primary charge or charges have a single dominant tincture. Roughly 30% of these charges are sable, almost 20% are gules, and another 35% are split between argent and or. There are four devices with charges proper that are predominantly brown, two with charges that are vert, and one with charges purpure.

Twelve devices' charges have two equally dominant tinctures. In two cases, these charges are checky (one azure and sable, one argent and gules). The others are simply partly one tincture, partly another. (There's a sickle in one device, for instance, with an argent blade and a brown handle.) Argent and gules each appear in three of these, azure two, and or, sable, brown (used in proper), and vert one each.

The only fur seen in the document is vair. It appears in two ordinaries (a pale and a saltire), once on a gules field and once on an or field.

Three devices feature charges proper with multiple tinctures.

There were only six charged charges in the manuscript, all of them ordinaries (three bends, a pale, a fess, and a bordure). Two each were gules, azure, and sable. One of each sported argent charges, the second gules and sable ordinaries each had or charges, and the second azure ordinary had purpure charges.


Field-and-Charge Combinations

I was interested not only in the numbers of fields and charges in various tinctures that appear in the text, but in which ones were most often used together. For simplicity's sake, I'm only considering charges with a single dominant color that appear against a single field tincture. This is the raw data:

 or charges

argent charges

sable charges

gules charges

azure charges

vert charges

brown (proper) charges

 or field

0

1

15

10

4

2

3

 argent field

0

0

5

5

1

0

0

 sable field

1

3

0

2

1

0

0

gules field

3

9

3

0

0

0

1

 azure field

12

4

7

0

0

0

0

 

On fields or, the most common charge tincture is sable, followed by gules. Fields argent also see sable and gules charges most, but in equal numbers.

On fields azure, the most common charge tinctures are or and sable. On gules most common is argent, followed by or and sable. And on sable, argent is most common, then gules.

 

If we look at things from the opposite point of view, we see that:

Most or charges appear on azure fields. Argent charges most commonly appear on gules fields, followed by azure and then sable.

Sable charges are most likely to appear on or fields, followed by azure and then argent. Gules charges are seen most often on or fields, then argent. Azure charges are seen most often on or, then sable and argent, and both vert charges are on or fields.

Three sets of charges proper that are predominantly brown appear on or fields, one on gules.



 

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