To my understanding. Heraldy, all the activities of a herald, but primarily the art and science of armorial bearings, which is a herald's principal concern. The adoption of symbolic devices as a means of identification spread throughout the nobility of Europe in the 13th century and soon embraced corporations and institutions. HERALDY: The principal vehicle for displaying the heraldic devices is the shield. The crest, a subsidiary device, emerged in the late 14th century; it was modelled onto the helm. In pictorial representations the shield, on which the arms are borne, is surmounted by helm and crest; the latter is usually placed within a wreath or coronet, or rests upon a chapeau (a crimson cap turned up with ermine). The type and position of the helm indicates the rank of the bearer. In the late 15th century great nobles, and later certain corporations, were accorded supporters, creatures on either side of their shields to support them. At the same time insignia were used with arms; the garter of the Order of the Garter surrounded the shield; peers placed their coronets above their shields; and later orders and decorations were shown below the shield. The whole display is called an achievement of arms. In the design of arms a wide variety of symbols are used, depicted and arranged according to a series of conventions. Arms are hereditary; all male descendants of the first person to whom arms were granted or allowed bear the arms. Younger sons add small symbols, called marks of cadency, to their arms and crests. Arms are insignia of honour and so are protected by law. Today only the European monarchies, Ireland, Switzerland, South Africa, and Zimbabwe control the use of arms. In some countries there is non-noble or burgher heraldry, but this generally enjoys no protection. Tinctures are hues used in heraldry, which are denoted colours, metals, and furs. The colours are gules (red), azure (blue), sable (black), vert (green), and purpure (purple). Rarely used are murrey (sanguine), tenni (an orange-tawny colour), and bleu celeste (sky blue). The metals are or (gold, often represented by yellow) and argent (silver, invariably depicted as white). The furs are ermine (black spots on white) and such variations as erminois (black spots on gold) and vair (small symbolic squirrel pellets), alternately white and blue. The symbols used in heraldry are called charges. The principal charges are ordinaries--geometrical shapes such as the pale (a broad vertical strip), the fess (a horizontal strip), and the bend (a diagonal strip). Other charges are animate--beasts, monsters, humans, birds, fish, reptiles, and insects--or inanimate, which includes almost everything else. The field, the background of the shield, is "charged" with the charges. It may be plain, patterned (checkered), semi (strewn with little charges), or divided by a line or lines following the direction of the ordinaries. A shield divided into halves vertically is per pale, horizontally, per fess, and diagonally, per bend dexter (from upper right) or per bend sinister (from upper left). The dividing lines may be embattled (crenellated), wavy, or indented (zigzag). The top area of the field is the chief and the bottom the base. The shield is viewed as if being borne, so the viewer's left is the right, or dexter, and the viewer's right, the sinister. The top centre is the honour point, the middle centre the fess point, and the base centre the nombril point. To describe an achievement is to blazon it. The terms of blazon are in general a mixture of English and old French. Blazon is based in conventions that make it terse and unequivocal. Charges always face dexter, for example, and three charges on a shield are placed two in chief and one in base unless otherwise blazoned. There are many such conventions. The basic rules of blazon are to describe, in this order, the field, the principal charge (often an ordinary), other charges, and charges on charges. Adjectives follow the nouns they qualify, the tincture coming last; a red rampant lion on a gold shield is blazoned "Or a lion rampant gules." Badges are simple devices anciently used by nobles to mark their retainers and property and were displayed on their standards. They are now granted to people and institutions who bear arms. Augmentations are additions to arms to commemorate and often reward doughty actions. Charles II, for example, rewarded many loyalists by the grants of augmentation of his royal insignia and badges. Marshalling is correctly depicting an achievement of arms, particularly in connection with showing more than one coat on a shield. In marshalling, a married man impales the arms of his wife by placing the two coats side by side on one shield. If she is a heraldic heiress he places her arms on an inescutcheon, a small shield in the centre of his. An heiress may transmit her arms as a quartering to her descendants. Quartering is to divide the shield into four or more divisions by horizontal and vertical lines to accommodate the requisite number of inherited coats. A spinster bears her paternal arms in a lozenge (a diamond) with no crest. When married she uses the marital shield of arms only, and if widowed, she uses the marital arms on a lozenge. Certain officials, such as bishops and kings of arms, have arms appertaining to their office, which they impale to the dexter of their personal arms. I know we have a few UK Bartletts out there, anything to add? Tammy