Heraldic_courtesy

Heraldic courtesy

Heraldic courtesy

Type of mirroring in heraldry

For the grape Courtoisie, see Roussanne.

Heraldic courtesy or courtoisie (French) is a practice typical of the heraldry of Germany (or more generally the former Holy Roman Empire), in which coats of arms are mirrored if necessary so that animate charges, such as lions, face the center of a composition. This may be done in arms of alliance (displaying the two shields of a married couple),[1][2] as in the first illustration here; or within a single shield, such as that of the dukes of Guelders and Jülich in which the gold lion of Guelders turns to face the black lion of Jülich.

Arms of alliance; the husband's lion, which would normally face dexter, instead faces sinister toward the wife's shield
Arms of the dukes of Guelders and Jülich

See also

References

  1. [1]
    Adolf Matthias Hildebrandt (Begr.): Handbuch der Heraldik, 19. Auflage, Neustadt an der Aisch, 1998, S. 153.
  2. [2]
    Peter, Bernhard. "Courtoisie und Wenden: Wann und wie?". Archived from the original on 2012-07-23. Retrieved 6 February 2013.
Stub icon

This heraldry-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Heraldic_courtesy, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.