Ermined

Separador heráldico
Escudo de Castilla y León
[ Ermine ], [ Erminois ] and [ Argent ermined Azure ].

[ Ermine ], [ Erminois ] and [ Argent ermined Azure ].

[ Escudo de armiños ], [ Escudo armiñado ] y [ Escudo de plata armiñado de azur ].

Three coats of arms with a semicircular base and a freehand finish.

ermined: A fur that represents a variant of the fur ermine, resulting from changing one or two of its tinctures. For example, if the field remains Argent and the spots are painted Azure, it is blazoned «Argent ermined Azure». The default ermined is «Or ermined Sable», which I usually refer to simply as erminois. Another example, changing both tinctures, would be «gules ermined argent» which is closer to being a ermines.

The term «ermined» is used when they are ermine, but are neither Argent charged with Sable, that is, ermine properly so called, nor Sable charged with Argent, that is, ermines, nor any other variant with its own name, such as, «Sable ermined Or», which in English is called pean. The most common ermined fur is metal Or charged with color Sable, formerly blazoned as «ermined Or and Sable», corresponding to the English term «erminois», which I would now blazon as «Or ermined Sable», since I think it is clearer, but which I now, considering it the default combination, it has a known previous name «erminois». Likewise, when I see a blazon that says only «erminois», I therefore assume it means «Or ermined Sable». Note that the ermined fur is not just the set of Sable spots; the ermined fur is the whole thing: both the or field and the sable spots that charge it, just as the fur called ermine is the whole, both the Argent field and the Sable spots that charge it, in the same way that the coat of the animal called the ermine is pure white, Argent, with the tip of its tail black, Sable, and when several are joined together they form a white mantle, Argent, with the black spots, Sable, which are the tips of the tails of the ermines.

Categories: Ermined and Glossary.

 

Dr. Antonio Salmerón y Cabañas,
,
Paseo de la Castellana 135, 7th floor,
28046 Madrid, Spain.