The shield generally referred to as the coat of arms can be divided into nine areas. Typically, things appearing in the top half of the shield are of more importance than things appearing in the bottom half. In turn, things on the left are more consequential than things on the right. Thus, in a shield divided into 9 fields, the elements in the upper left would be of most significance. Of course, a shield need not be divided into nine fields.
To be able to communicate exactly what should appear on a shield, one needs to follow customs precisely. To this end, a set of terms, referred to as “blazon”, have been developed to communicate precisely what is to go where on a shield. To give you an idea of how this works, I’ll work through the graphic accompanying this entry.
Let’s take the letters first, A refers to the “Dexter Side of the shield…that is the left side, B to the “Sinister” or right side, C to the “Chief” or top half, and D to “Base” or bottom half. Now we’ll proceed by the numbers. Number one on the shield is referred to as the “Dexter Chief” area, number two “Center Chief”, three “Sinister Chief”, four is the “Honor Point”, five “Fess” or center point, six is “Nombril” or navel point, seven is the “Dexter Base”, eight “Center Base”, and finally nine is the “Sinister Base”. Using this language anyone familiar with Blazon terminology will understand when you say you want a “Chevron” or whatever at the “Honor Point” (i.e., the Chevron is to be placed at the number four on the illustration).
