Ordinaries

The ordinaries are heraldry’s simplest charges, broad bands across the shield: the chief across the top, the fess across the middle, the pale down the middle, the bend corner to corner, the chevron, the cross and the saltire. They are among the oldest bearings.

Heraldry. Also called bend sinister, chevron heraldry meaning, chief fess pale bend chevron, heraldic ordinaries, heraldry shapes, saltire heraldry.

Meaning

Boutell lists the ordinaries as the simple charges of early heraldry: the chief, fess, bar, pale, cross, bend, saltire, chevron and pile. The Court of the Lord Lyon calls them the simplest and commonest shapes on a shield, which is why they appear in the oldest coats of arms. Boutell thought they began in the ways shields were strengthened for battle.

Origin and history

Boutell defines each against the others. The chief holds the top third of the shield, or a little less; the fess crosses the centre; the pale runs down the centre; the cross is a fess and a pale combined. The bend runs diagonally from the dexter chief, the top corner on the bearer’s right, to the sinister base. One of the most famous lawsuits in heraldry was over a plain blue shield with a gold bend: Scrope and Grosvenor fought for it from 1385 to 1390, and Scrope won. The saltire is a bend and a bend sinister crossed, a diagonal cross, so that the crosses of St Andrew of Scotland and St Patrick of Ireland are saltires, and the chevron is rather more than the lower half of a saltire. The de Clares bore three chevronels (narrow chevrons), and many other families, Boutell writes, took their chevrons from them. The Union Jack, Britannica notes, is a cross for England and two saltires for Scotland and Ireland.

Who decided what counts as an ordinary?

The heraldry books disagree about the list itself. Fox-Davies called the division into ordinaries and sub-ordinaries arbitrary, made at each writer’s pleasure, with few writers agreeing. He doubted that any ordinary had ever been drawn exactly a third of the shield wide, as the old rule demanded. Oswald Barron mocked the books that divided the “Honourable Ordinaries” from the “Sub-Ordinaries” without explaining why the saltire deserved the honour.

Does a bend sinister mean illegitimacy?

Rarely. Fox-Davies granted that the bend sinister is very often said to be the mark of illegitimacy, but found it so used only on very few occasions; the usual mark was the narrower bendlet or the baton cut short at both ends. He knew at least two coats, those of Shiffner and Burne-Jones, with a bend sinister and no such meaning.

The cross

The cross was a common bearing on English shields from the start: Barron gives the silver shield with the red cross of St George, patron of knights and of England. Its many heraldic varieties are on the crosses in heraldry page.

Where you’ll see it today

whatdoesthissymbolmean.comFlag of the United KingdomThe Union Flag joins three crosses on a blue field: the red cross of St George for England, the white diagonal cross of St Andrew for Scotland and the red diagonal cross of St Patrick for Ireland, added to the first two in 1801. No law defines it; it is the national flag by long custom, the Flag Institute says. whatdoesthissymbolmean.comFlag of JamaicaJamaica’s flag is a gold diagonal cross with green triangles at the top and bottom and black triangles at the sides. The Jamaica Information Service gives its meaning as “The sun shineth, the land is green and the people are strong and creative”: black for the strength and creativity of the people, gold for the beauty of the sunlight and the wealth of the country, green for hope and farming. whatdoesthissymbolmean.comFlag of ScotlandScotland’s flag, the Saltire, is a white diagonal cross on a blue field: the cross of St Andrew, Scotland’s patron saint, who by Christian tradition was crucified on a cross of that shape. Scottish tradition also tells of a white saltire seen against a blue sky before a battle at Athelstaneford, which the Scottish Flag Trust calls a legend. whatdoesthissymbolmean.comFlag of EnglandEngland’s flag is St George’s cross: a red cross on a white field, running to all four edges. It is the cross of St George, England’s patron saint, and it is also the upright red cross in the Union Flag of the United Kingdom. whatdoesthissymbolmean.comFlag of AlabamaAlabama’s flag is a crimson diagonal cross, the cross of St Andrew, on a white field. The flag law gives the cross no meaning, and the director of the state’s Department of Archives and History said in 2020 that the record of why the legislature adopted the flag in 1895 is thin.

Sources

The Handbook to English Heraldry, Charles Boutell, 11th edition, revised by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, 1914 (Project Gutenberg ebook 23186), Reeves & Turner, via Project Gutenberg, Chapter VI, The Ordinaries, pp. 49–63
A Complete Guide to Heraldry, Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, 1909 (Project Gutenberg ebook 41617), T. C. & E. C. Jack, via Project Gutenberg, Chapter IX, The So-called Ordinaries and Sub-ordinaries, pp. 106–107; the bend sinister, p. 117
Heraldry (1911 Encyclopædia Britannica), Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition (1911), vol. 13, article by Oswald Barron, Encyclopædia Britannica, via Wikisource, The Ordinary Charges
Blazoning: the language of heraldry, Educational sheet, Court of the Lord Lyon, The ordinaries
Coat of arms, Britannica (Internet Archive copy, 25 August 2026), Encyclopaedia Britannica, caption: ordinaries; the field

The same shape elsewhere

Browse symbols formed from crosses, letters and numbers or lines.

Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 10, 2026. How we research

Added October 10, 2026.

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