A System of Heraldry - Clan Strachan Society

OF THE TINCTURES, &c. 13
So then formal shields, above given, are ancient and honourable signs, and
by all nations, tor placing on them the fixed figures of noble families, yet in the
blazon of them, neither the form nor position of the shield is ever mentioned,
though it be the continent, or containing part of armories ; and whether we consider
the shield itself as a solid or geometrical body, or as the imitation of such a
body, drawn with lines or purfles, by a pen or pencil, upon paper, or any thing :
The superficies of that geometrical body, or the space within the bounding lines, is
called with us and the English, thejicld; by the Italians and Spaniards, campo;
and by the Latins, area, fundus, campus ; and must be of the tinctures received in
this science, of which I proceed
to treat.
CHAP. IV.
OF THE TINCTURES, OR ARMORIAL COLOURS.
THE essential parts of arms, (by some called the Elements of Armories), by
our former definitio'n, are Tinctures and Figures. Tincture is a general word
for metals and colours made use of in the science of heraldry ; and, in place of it,
the French use the word Emaux, i. e. Enamelling, in placing colour upon gold and
silver, the two metals in armories.
The tinctures, or armorial colours are seven, viz. two metals, gold and silver,
and five colours, blue, red, black, green, and purple.
These tinctures are said, by Sylvester Petra Sancta and others, to be taken from
the liveries of the four companies which acted upon the Roman theatres ;
and Me-
nestrier would have them brought from the Roman legions, as in his L' Origine de
1'Art du Elason.
In this science, tinctures, as well as figures, have their proper and fixed terms all
Europe over, to which heralds hold close in their blazons so that almost all na-
;
tions understand arid receive them in these terms, as an universal language, whiclr
\vc very much owe to the French. And the terms of the tinctures are these :
Or,