Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 January 9

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January 9

is this image of the Coat of Arms of Occitania right?

Is File:Coat of arms of Occitania.svg in Cleché, with a gold cross placed on a gold field, accurate? It breaks the Rule of tincture, and the blazon "Gules, a cross cléchée [...] Or" says the field should be red, and Occitania/Toulouse/etc indeed show a red field with a (voided, flaring) gold cross, not a gold field. -sche (talk) 21:56, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

The article Croix occitane on the French wikipedia includes reproductions of a large number of coats of arms of towns etc using the symbol, and almost all have only the outside of the cross being gold, with its center being hollow (and therefore taking the color of the background). This page [1] also shows a hollow cross with a red background. More data points confirming your initial hypothesis that the image is incorrect. Xuxl (talk) 15:33, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

An image search finds this version (a gold-rimmed charge on a gold field) only on Wikimedia sites and mirrors. Occitania not being an official entity, one may wonder what it means that some design represents its coat of arms. The coat of arms of Occitania (administrative region) is a variant of that of the Count of Toulouse, but likewise using largely a red field.^[2]

Thanks. I have updated Cleché (also per the section below this one), and other pages which used that file. I have added a caution to the file description that the emblazon is incorrect. -sche (talk) 21:16, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

is a cross cléché(e) in heraldry defined by flaring shape, or by being voided?

Our article on Cleché cites just two references from a century ago when taking a strong stance on whether cléché(e) / cleché(e) / clechy means "appearing voided" or "having ends that flare, then taper to a point". Other last-century refs also disagree on what it means. (Since many clechy crosses are flared and voided, it's easy to see how, whichever it originally meant, it could be misinterpreted as the other.) Do any reliable modern sources say which one it is, especially any which explicitly address the disagreement? Can we find any blazons of a cross cléché, with corresponding illustrations, where it is flaring and not voided, or vice versa? -sche (talk) 21:56, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

In the illustrated A Glossary of Terms Used in Heraldry (James Parker & Co., 1894, reprinted David & Charles, 1970, xxxii + 659 pages) by James Parker, under the entry on Cross (pp 149–180) on p 161– 62 is the following entry, which I will quote in full:

"§16. Cross clechée: this signifies a cross with the ends as shown in the margin.

[The accompanying b/w figure, captioned "Banaster" (see below), shows a plain solid cross with the ends shaped as in the link above.]

Some heralds contend that the true cross clechée should have the ends voided, but there seems to be no good authority for this, at least not in English arms, and in French arms it will be seen that it is often blazoned vidée. It appears also, when voided and pommettée, to bear the title with French heralds of Cross of Toulouse, from it appearing in the insignia of that city, although, as will be seen, an old blazon describes these arms as a cross paté voided.

Argent, a cross clechée sable——Sir Thomas Banaster, K.G., ob. 2° Ric. II. [as depicted on his stall-plate at Windsor, elsewhere blazoned, Argent, a cross patty pointed sable].

Or, on a mount between two lesser ones vert a lamb sable, holding with the dexter foot a banner ermine charged with a cross clechée gules——GROSE, Surrey (1756).

Or, on a chevron between three crosses clechy sable a fleur-de-lis between two stag's heads cabossed of the first——CARVER

D'azur, a la cross vidée, clichée, et pommetée d'or——Comtat VENAISSIN.

De gueules, à la croix de Toulouse d'or——ORADOUR, Auvergne.

De gueules, à la croix vidée, clechée, pommettée et alaisée d'or, dite Cross de Toulouse——P. LANGUEDOC.

Le Conte de Tolosa, de goules a un croyz d'or patée en perse a une bordure d'or——Roll, temp Hen. III.; Harleian MS. 6589, circa 1256–66."

According to this reference, then, cleché(e) refers only to the outer shape of the cross, and any voiding is blazoned separately.

I would interpret the current illustration (which, as you argue in your previous query, is probably incorrect anyway) as it appears in the article to be Or, a cross clechée fimbriated (perhaps decoratively rather than for a heraldic purpose); it might be better to replace it with a plain (unfimbriated) cross. Hope this helps. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.194.245.235 (talk) 00:02, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

I find both definitions, also in older texts, but an article in the magazine The Coat of Arms defines the term as indicative of the shape, distinguishing "whether the ends were lobed (patonce), straight (formy) or pointed (clechy)".^[3] An interesting data point is found in a book of heraldic terminology in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: “fause crois pomelee, Toulouse cross (cross clechy, voided and botonny)”,^[4] presenting the three distinctive characteristics of the Toulousian cross as being (i) cléchée, (ii) voided, and (iii) boutonnée, implying IMO that being clechy does not imply being voided. There are a gazillion coat-of-arms images on Commons having croix cléchée in their descriptions, such as that of the province of Midi-Pyrénées (and formerly Languedoc), but all appear to derive ultimately from the coat of arms of the Counts of Toulouse. Although these ought to count together as one incarnation, the preponderance of (voided) Toulousian crosses among the clechy ones may indeed have created a second meaning; ultimately a word means what a sufficient number of users intend it to mean, not what it used to mean .  --Lambiam 00:11, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

In general contexts, I agree with your last sentence. However, the terminology of heraldry is used by official authorities called Colleges and Courts, many-times-etc., who give (sometimes) legally authoritative rulings and assign (sometimes) legally protected and officially recorded rights (grants of arms). In this quasi-legal framework (actually legal and enforceable in some jurisdictions like Scotland, though no longer in others, such as England), the use of its technical terms should be unambiguous and accord with those authorities' preferred meanings. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.194.245.235 (talk) 03:24, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

It depends on the context. As stated in A Glossary of Terms Used in Heraldry cited above, some heralds use the term as implying voidedness. This means that, when interpreting a blazon using the term, we need to know whether its author is among those heralds, however misguided they may be. One of the primary NPOV tenets of Wiktionary is that it is descriptive. While Wikipedia works differently, NPOV implies that if a view, even though considered "wrong" by authoritative sources, is nevertheless significant, we should report it.  --Lambiam 17:42, 10 January 2023 (UTC)