A Heraldic Primer: Special Variants of Ordinaries

There are four special variants of ordinaries which will be discussed here, Fimbriation, Voiding, Gemels, Cottices and Diminutives,.

Fimbriation

Fimbriation is a narrow edging around plain-line ordinaries and other simple geometric charges. It is used primarily to seperate a charge and the field of the same type of tincture (metal/metal or color/color).

Sable,a fess gules fimbriated argent

Sable, a chevron gules fimbriated argent.

Or, a pale argent fimbriated sable.

Voiding

The term voided applies to an ordinary or other simple geometric charge where only the outline of the charge is visible.

Sable, a fess voided argent.

Sable, a chevron voided argent.

Sable, a bend voided argent .

Gemels

Cottices

Cottices (singular cost) are a normally found in pairs and are thin (double diminutives) versions of the ordinary they accompany and flank it on either side. When cottices are present, the ordinary is called cotised, except in the case of a pale, where it is considered endorsed.

Sable, a fess cotisedargent.

Sable, a bend cotised argent.

Sable, a pale endorsed argent.

The bar is a diminutive of the fess, in that the bar is a narrower version of the fess.

Sable, a fess argent.

Sable, a bar argent.

Other ordinaries have their own diminutives:

The diminutive of a pale is a palet.		The diminutive of a bend is a bendlet.
Sable, a pale argent.	Sable, a palet argent.	Sable, a bend argent.	Sable, a bendlet argent.
The diminutive of a bend sinister is a scarpe.		The diminutive of an orle is a tressure.
Sable, a bend sinister argent.	Sable, a scarpe argent.	Sable, an orle argent.	Sable, a tressure argent.

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