Pale (heraldry)

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The shield above depicts a black pale placed on a gold shield, and its blazon is Or, a pale sable.

A pale is a term used in heraldic blazon and vexillology to describe a charge on a coat of arms (or flag), that takes the form of a band running vertically down the center of the shield. Writers broadly agree that the width of the pale ranges from about one-fifth to about one-third of the width of the shield. But this width is not fixed. A narrow pale is more likely if it is uncharged, that is, if it does not have other objects placed on it. If charged, the pale is typically wider to allow room for the objects drawn there.

A pale may be couped ("cut off" at either end, and so not reaching the top or bottom of the shield); however, while other charges if couped at the top would just be blazoned as "couped in chief," the special term for this in the case of the pale is "a pale retrait" (this also applies to pallets; see below). If couped at the bottom it is blazoned as "a pale retrait in base".

In British heraldry when two or more pales appear on a field, they are conventionally termed pallets. While a pallet is generally classified as a diminutive of the pale, the pallets on a shield of two pallets may be no narrower than the pale on another where it has been narrowed to accommodate other charges on either side.

A shield with numerous pales may be termed paly, especially in early heraldry, though this term is now properly reserved to describe a variation of the field.

The pale is one of the ordinaries in heraldry, along with the bend, chevron, fess, and chief. There are several other ordinaries and sub-ordinaries.

The Canadian pale, invented by Sir Conrad Swan^{[citation needed]} for the flag of Canada, occupies fully half the field.