In heraldry, an escutcheon ( /ɨˈskʌtʃən/) is a shield which forms the main or focal element in an achievement of arms. The word is used in two related senses.
Firstly, as the shield on which a coat of arms is displayed. Escutcheon shapes are derived from actual shields used by knights in combat, and thus have varied and developed by region and by era. As this shape has been regarded as a war-like device appropriate to men only, British ladies customarily bear their arms upon a lozenge, or diamond-shape, while clergymen and ladies in continental Europe bear theirs on a cartouche, or oval. Other shapes are in use, such as the roundel commonly used for arms granted to Aboriginal Canadians by the Canadian Heraldic Authority.
Secondly, a shield can itself be a charge within a coat of arms. More often, a smaller shield is placed over the middle of the main shield (in pretence or en surtout) as a form of marshalling. In either case, the smaller shield is usually given the same shape as the main shield. When there is only one such shield, it is sometimes called an inescutcheon.
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The word escutcheon is derived from Middle English escochon, from Anglo-Norman escuchon, from Vulgar Latin scūtiōn-, from Latin scūtum, "shield".[2] From its use in heraldry, escutcheon can be a metaphor for a family's honour. The idiom "a blot on the escutcheon" is used to mean a stain on somebody's reputation.[3]
The almost full body-length shield used by the Normans at the Battle of Hastings and seen depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry (c.1066), occasionally with proto-heraldic cognizances painted thereon, pre-dates the era of heraldry proper, which commenced during the first quarter of the 13th century. By about 1250 the shields used in warfare were almost triangular in shape, referred to as heater shields. Such a shape can be seen on the effigy of William II Longespee (d.1250) at Salisbury Cathedral, whilst the shield shown on the effigy of his father William Longespee, 3rd Earl of Salisbury (d.1226) is of a more elongated form. That on the enamel monument to the latter's grandfather Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou (d.1151) is of almost full-body length. This heater-shaped form was used in warfare during the apogee of the Age of Chivalry, at about the time of the Battle of Crecy (1346) and the founding of the Order of the Garter (1348), when the art of Heraldry reached its greatest perfection. The almost triangular shape is therefore used as a setting for armorials from this "classical age" of heraldry, in the sense that it produced the best examples of the art. In the Tudor era the heraldic escutcheon took the shape of an inverted Tudor arch. Continental European designs frequently use the various forms used in jousting, which incorporate "mouths" used as lance rests into the shields. Such escutcheons are known as a bouche. The mouth is correctly shown on the dexter side only, as jousting pitches were designed for right-handed knights. Heraldic examples of English a bouche shields can be seen in the spandrels of the trussed timber roof of Lincoln's Inn Hall, London.
The points of the shield refer to specific positions thereon and are used in blazons to describe where a charge should be placed.
An inescutcheon is a smaller escutcheon that is placed within or superimposed over the main shield of a coat of arms. This may be used for style, in pretence, for territorial claims, or as a simple charge as borne for example by the Mortimers.
Inescutcheons may be placed within the field of a shield as a choice of heraldic style, such as in the arms of the Swedish Collegium of Arms (pictured at far left below) which bears the three crowns of Sweden, each upon its own escutcheon within the field of the main shield.
Inescutcheons may also be used to bear another's arms in "pretense".[note 1] In English Heraldry the husband of an heraldic heiress – a lady without any brothers – may place her father's arms in an escutcheon of pretence in the centre of his own shield as a claim ("pretence") to be the head of his wife's family. In the next generation the arms would then be quartered. In similar fashion, a monarch's personal arms may be borne on an inescutcheon en surtout over the territorial arms of his/her domains,[note 2] as in the arms of the Danish Royal Family, the greater coat of arms of Sweden, or the arms of the Commonwealth of England 1649–1660.
Inescutcheons also appear in personal and civic armory as simple common charges (for example, see the arms of the noble French family of Abbeville, pictured at far right below).
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