More Tinctures
Stains, rarities, and additions

Some late mediæval writers added further tinctures – murrey and sanguine (which are often given as two names for the same tincture) and tenné – that supposedly should be set apart from the colours as stains, from their purported use in abatements, “badges of dishonor”, which “stain” the nobility of arms or the gentility and honour of the armigers.

Barron suggests that sanguine and tenné were introduced by later writers merely to make the tinctures to the mystical number of nine… although seven is a mystical number too! (See Symbolism.)

Fox-Davies (p. 58) notes that murrey/sanguine and tenné are “both largely made use of for the purpose of liveries”. But in his annotations to Fox-Davies, Brook-Little notes that these three tinctures have been used in arms themselves on several occasions since World War II (note 24).

Murrey & Sanguine

Murrey Sanguine

The name murrey, a mulberry colour, comes from Old French moré, ultimately from Latin mōrum, mulberry, from Greek moron.

Sanguine is a dark blood red, the name coming from Latin sanguinenes, bloody, from sanguis, blood.

In the past murrey and sanguine are taken to be synonymous: in Gerald Leigh’s The Accedence of Armory (1592), cited by Woodcock & Robinson (pp 51-52), the colour murrey is blazoned as sanguine; Fox-Davies calls this tincture “murrey or sanguine” (p. 57); Barron mentions only sanguine.

According to Brault, this tincture is unattested in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Significantly, Leigh rejects it as a mistake for purpure… To understand where it came from, and how one tincture became two, we need to dip into the history of purpure – where we’ll see that they are just variations of “the colours purple”!

Sir George Williams University

Murrey a dove wings addorsed or about the neck a wreath of olive proper and charged on the wing with a maple leaf murrey. On a chief or between two roses murrey barked and seeded proper an inverted triangle murrey surmounted by an open book proper edged or bound azure. Crest: On a wreath of the colours a dove as in the arms. Mantling:Murrey and or.

Concordia University, Montreal

Pean a sun in splendour or thereon an inverted triangle murrey surmounted by an open book argent edged or bound azure. Crest: On a wreath argent, or and murrey a sun in splendour or thereon an inverted triangle murrey surmounted by an open book argent edged or bound azure. Mantling: Murrey doubled argent and or.

Sanguine a lotus flower & a bordure or — Sir Oliver Goonetilleke GCMG, KCVO, KCB

Emblazoning

Both these colours were once blood red, only recently being distinguished. Sanguine, as its name suggests, is typically still so; Murrey is more variable, sometimes having a more bluish tint, sometimes being hardly distinguishable from gules (as in the Concordia arms, above).

My preference is to treat them as a single tincture, a dark red-purple midway in hue between gules (pure red) and purpure (pure magenta).

Tenné

Tenné

Tenné, a tawny orange, is “an additional colour borne only in the Empire and France” (untitled document, c. 1394). In The Accedence of Armory (1592), cited by Woodcock & Robinson (pp 51-52), Gerald Leigh says that tenné or tawny is non-existent. Fox-Davies calls this tincture “orange or tenné” and says “[it] is an orange-tawny colour” (p. 57).

Azure a bend tenné bewteen two spurs the rowels upwards or — Sir Ronald Prain

Emblazoning

Bleu céleste

Bleu céleste, or sky blue, was introduced to British heraldry just before the Second World War, in response to the requirements of the Royal Air Force (e.g., in squadron crests such as that on the left), and is now widely used in the arms of aviators and aerospace organisations.

Bleu céleste Cinti

There are early examples in French and Italian heraldry, such as the arms of Cinti (modern Cini) in Florence: Per pale azure & bleu céleste an estoile counterchanged. (This is sometimes given as “… a molet…”; some blazons have or rather than bleu céleste.)

However, bleu céleste had no place in mediæval English armory.

Note that bleu céleste is an “amphibious” tincture, behaving sometimes like a metal (as in the arms of Cinti), sometimes like a colour.

Emblazoning

Other exotic tinctures

There are further tinctures, rare in British heraldry and likely unknown in early armory.

Fox-Davies cites four from Dr. Woodward’s treatise: amaranth; bleu céleste, which I discussed above; brunâtre; and cendré.

Amaranth

Amaranth, or Columbine, the colour of the field in a coat granted to a Bohemian knight in 1701. But what colour is this? Amaranths and colmbines have flowers of various colours; the CED defines amaranthine as a dark reddish-purple, hence the dark shade of murrey I’ve used here. Perhaps it was just a fanciful, allusive synonym for purpure.

Brunâtre Cendré

Brunâtre, brown, found in a Silesian coat.

Cendré, a cinder grey or ash grey; for example, in the canting arms of the barons Aschau in Austria, over all an inescutcheon cendré with a mound of three hillocks or.

Fox-Davies then mentions carnation, “the colour of naked flesh”; that is, a northern European skin tone.

Carnation

In Brook-Little’s annotation (note 25), he corrects Fox-Davies assertion that carnation is not used in English blazon, saying, “in Tudor times was frequently employed”. He cites the arms granted to Thomas Knight of Hoo (8 April 1546), in which the tincture is blazoned charnois.

With few if any exceptions, carnation is always used to describe human skin. In far more cases people and body parts are blazoned proper.

In the heyday of armory this would inevitably be interpreted as a northern European skin tone…

However, that might seem at least racially insensitive today. The use of “carnation” as far back as the Tudors perhaps shows unusual tact. But the term removes possible ambiguity in “proper” – for instance, a body part might belong to a blackamoor!

In his footnote, Brook-Little cites a modern grant of arms to the Royal Over-Seas League (7 January 1960) that blazons the crest ―

Two hands that to the dexter sable, that to the sinister carnation, supporting a terrestrial globe the sea or, the land gules

― where proper clearly wouldn’t do.

Nevertheless, in a modern rendering (right) both the “sable” hand and the “carnation” hand are clearly shown with naturalistic colouration.

A couple of other exotic tinctures deserve a mention. Many sources cite eisengrau, iron grey, seemingly unique to German heraldry.

Eisengrau Sad blew

And, last, Woodcock & Robinson cite sad blew which, they say, is listed in Gerald Leigh’s The Accedence of Armory (1592), but apparently nowhere else… However, Brault (p. 114) cites two literary examples of azur bis, which Ruelle, the editor of Huon de Bordeaux (1216-29), glosses as “sombre, foncé”. I haven’t seen an example of this colour, but this dark blue seems suitably “sad” or somber to me!

Modern Canadian additions

Appleton cites these two new tinctures used in recent Canadian grants of arms ―

Copper Rose

Copper, a new metal, “the color of bright, new copper”.

Rose, a pink, “similar to – but not quite the same as – the tincture sometimes used for flesh proper, carnation”.