Livery coats & heraldry rules

[Sal]

OK, I wouldn't want to hijack Craig's thread in the 1100-1500 section, so following his suggestion I'm posting this here as well (see Craig - I'm not evil ).

I wanted to make livery coats for our group, and started thinking about it at the weekend. The coats themselves will be red and white, with a dog's head in gold on the left breast (on the red). If I want a dog on the back of the coat as well, is that allowed given that ordinarily you wouldn't have a gold dog on a white background?

Thanks

[craig1973]

Hi Sal
I'll lower your evil rating

What about red body with white sleeves?

[wat the tyler]

Livery doesn't follow the "rules" of heraldry as such and colours/metals are commonly found together (colour to colour and metal to metal etc).

Livery colours don't even replicate what the lord's colours are necessarily either as the lords heraldry was for him alone and the livery is for his liveried men.

As an example you have the Duke of Buckingham who's heraldry is yellow with a red chevron (or charged chevron gules ... something like that) whereas his livery colours are black and red.

Hope that helps.

[Gerald ye Herald]

Sal you could make the coats with the back like the front, ie: white in
Dexter (right) Red in Sinister (left) as white is argent (silver) heraldic rules
dictate you cannot have metal on metal ie; gold on silver.

Another alternative if putting gold on silver or vise versa is to add a thick
black outline to the heraldry being applied, this 'Lifts' the heraldry from the
under colours/metals.

Hope this helps

Regards
Ye Herald

[Sal]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys!

you could make the coats with the back like the front, ie: white in Dexter (right) Red in Sinister (left)

When you're talking about the back of the coat, does that mean white on the right as you look at it? i.e. all of the left side of the coat as you wear it is red, all of the right side is white (front and back?) If you're talking about the front, then it's blazoned from the point of view of being behind the shield isn't it? So that something described as being on the left of the shield is actually on the right as you look at it? I shouldn't try and think about these things in the morning before I've had at least 2 cups of coffee!

We were planning on having all of the left side (as you wear it) of the coat in red (with a small gold dog on the front left breast), the whole of the right side of the coat in white, and a larger gold dog on the centre of the back. If it's a large dog on the back of the coat then it will span the red and the white, which breaks the metal/metal rule, which is why I was checking if this was allowed. If I can get round this by outlining in black, then that's fine

I'm sure I'm making this sound much more complicated than it actually is, so I think I need to go and get a coffee. If I haven't sorted it out by the time we come to Knight's school, I'll chat to you in person

[gregory23b]

Sal, I am sure you are aware that livery covers a range of things, sometimes a cloth dole (for the immediate household) to then be made up and also merely badges showing affiliation on top of that are things called bends which appear to be in essence sashes in the appropriate colours and more economical and less work to make. You can also have combinations of livery eg your local one plus the 'livery' badge identifier of the cause, eg supporter of the Yorkist cause might have a combo. eg livery coat in the colour then say a murrey and azure bend with a badge on top of them.

The Hausbuch shows what may appear to be bends in a German context, can't post up the pics as am at work, but they are sashes that go over one shoulder down into the belt, with a badge too.

JK

[Gerald ye Herald]

Sal George23b is correct with his idea another way is to have the rear gold lion on a small red shield (escutcheon) placed on the white.

If you want to stay with the original coat details, but we can discuss it at KS as you suggested.

Regards
Gerald