Crown Discussion
Crowns are a complicated subject in heraldically, especially if we consider traditions g different countries. I would like to bring some order to the rather messy situation with crowns and propose to start with British heraldic crowns.
I'll just get this one of the way first, the set of crowns created for Wikimedia commons by 'Sodacan' are without a doubt beautiful and it would be great if DrawShield could use these... sadly the needs of DrawShield; in particular the requirement to give charges different colours; means that we can't easily use Sodacan's crowns. At first glance, it appears that the crown is "yellow", however on closer inspection you will see that there are usually at least 4 and often 6 or more different "shades" of yellow involved, as well as gradient fills. Neither of these things maps well onto the simple re-colouring model that DrawShield uses. So, sorry, we can't easily use Sodacan's crowns without quite a bit of additional work that I am unlikely to do.
The heraldry literature seems to consider “crown” and "coronet" to mean the same thing (e.g. Parker), and this is also the current Drawshield implementation, but we do have the option to change this if we want to.
The red fabric part that appears in some crowns seems to be known as the "cap", so we can, if we want to, use that term to indicate either the presence or colour (or both) of the fabric part.
It also appears (but I have no proof) that many crowns are never capped, such as the Naval Crown.
The jewels around some crowns probably map best onto the existing charge feature "gemmmed".
I don't know if there is an accepted word for the ermine band around the bottom of the crown.
In theory, the mural crown could have the "mortar" of a different colour, this was supported when we used a crude version of the crown but the current, better looking, mural crowns do not support this.
There is a nice set of crown images on wikimedia, which I propose to consider definitive.
However, in his discussion of crowns, Parker shows crowns sometimes with the cap, sometimes with out them, and provides a rather confusing discussion about when and if to show the cap. I also note that he tends to use "coronet" to refer to a crown without a cap, but even this is a bit inconsistent. The relevant extract is shown here:
Animals (and possibly other charges) may also be "crowned", this is supported by DrawShield provided the appropriate location is marked by an invisible rectangle in the source SVG with the id attribute "crowned". Parker helpfully tells us that the default should be a ducal coronet (specifically without the cap) and this is what DrawShield implements, although you can use most of the other crown types as well. Some crowns need to be slightly modified when worn by animals, as sometimes the underside is visible, which should NOT be the case when the crown is worn.
So, given all of the above, I have the following questions regarding British Crowns:
- How should we indicate that a crown should include a cap? Options include:
- Using the word "Crown" to mean with a cap, and "coronet" to mean without a cap
- Not showing a cap unless it is specifically mentioned as a feature, e.g. a ducal crown capped
1a) Caps always appear to be red, should we allow caps to take a different colour? e.g. a ducal crown capped azure
1b) And what is the definitive list of crowns that can be capped (see appendix)
-
The Wikimedia page has lots of crowns with subtle variations for different princes and such like. Should these be supported by DrawShield?
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The Wikimedia page also shows a "Gentleman's crown", which currently is supported but only on a helmet when it is part of the achievement. Should we be able to use it anywhere a crown can be used?
| Name | Image | Cap? | As Worn? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Antique | Good | Never | Different |
| Astral | Good | Never | Same |
| Baron | Wrong(1) | Optional | Different |
| Grass | Good | Never | Same |
| Mullets | Good | Never | Same |
| Myrtle | Good | Never | Same |
| Oak Leaf | Good | Never | Same |
| Ducal | Good | Optional | Different |
| Duke | Awful | Always? | Different |
| Earl | Awful | optional? | Different |
| Eastern | Good | Never | Same |
| King of Arms | Bit naff | Always? | Different |
| Marquis | Wrong? (2) | Optional? | Different |
| Mural | Okay | Never | Different |
| Mural City (3) | Good | Never | Not supported |
| Mural Fancy | Good | Never | Not supported |
| Mural Provincial (3) | Good | Never | Not supported |
| Mural Town (3) | Good | Never | Not supported |
| Mural Village (3) | Good | Never | Not supported |
| Naval | Good | Never | Same |
| Open | Good | Never | Different |
| Palisado | Good | Never | Different |
| Royal | Good | Always | Different |
| Saxon | Good | Never | Same |
| Vallary | Good | Never | Different |
| Viscount | Good | Optional | Different |
(1) Too many knobs
(2) Doesn't match wikimedia design
(3) Spanish, but included here for completeness