In blazoning
Most heraldic authors do not capitalise the names of the various tinctures, although a few do (sometimes inconsistently), and some who do not capitalise the other tinctures recommend capitalising or in order to avoid confusion with the conjunction.
However, there are relatively few occasions in which the conjunction "or" would appear in the blazon of a coat of arms, and if properly worded, which meaning is intended should be readily apparent from the context. Another convention has been to capitalise only the first word or the first tincture appearing in the blazon, but no other words. In the elaborate calligraphy appearing on most grants of arms, all of the tinctures are capitalised, as indeed are the names of the charges, but this is purely a matter of decorative style, and in no way does the manner of capitalization used in the original grant affect how the arms may be described on other occasions.
A long-standing heraldic tradition has been to avoid repeating the names of tinctures multiple times in any given blazon. If it is possible to mention multiple charges of the same tincture at once, followed by the name of the tincture, then this problem is avoided, but when it is impossible to combine elements of the same tincture in this manner, more creative descriptions may be used. For example, instead of "gules, on a fess or between three chess-rooks argent, a lion passant gules, armed and langued argent", one might say, "gules, on a fess or between three chess-rooks argent, a lion passant of the field, armed and langued of the third." Similar phrases include "of the last" and "of the like". Alternately, descriptions such as "gold" and "silver" might be substituted for "or" and "argent" on a subsequent occurrence. Another rule of blazon relating to tinctures suggests the placing of a comma after each occurrence of a tincture.
In recent years, the College of Arms has regularly dispensed with many of these practices, believing them to cause confusion, and in new grants of arms, the names of tinctures are repeated on each instance that they occur. The names of all tinctures and charges are capitalised, although the word "proper", indicating the colour of nature, is not, and internal commas are entirely omitted.
The first so-called "rule" of heraldry is the rule of tincture: metal should not be placed upon metal, nor colour upon colour, for the sake of contrast.
The main duty of a heraldic device is to be recognised, and the dark colours or light metals are supposed to be too difficult to distinguish if they are placed on top of other dark or light colours, particularly in poor light. Though this is the practical genesis of the rule, the rule is technical and appearance is not used in determining whether arms conform to the rule. Another reason sometimes given to justify this rule is that it was difficult to paint enamel colours over other enamel colours, or with metal over metal.
This "rule" has at times been followed so pedantically that arms that violate it were called armes fausses "false arms" or armes à enquérir "arms of enquiry"; any violation was presumed to be intentional, to the point that one was supposed to enquire how it came to pass. One of the most famous armes à enquérir was the shield of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which had gold crosses on silver. This use of white and gold together is also seen on the arms of the King of Jerusalem, the flag and arms of the Vatican, and the bishop's mitre in the arms of Andorra. These uses of gold on silver indicate the exceptional holy and special status of these coats of arms. An example of "colour on colour" is the arms of Albania, with its sable two-headed eagle on a gules field.
The "rule of tincture" has had an influence reaching far beyond heraldry. It has been applied to the design of flags, so that the flag of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach was modified to conform to the rule.
When a charge or group of charges is placed across a division line, variation, or ordinary, it may be counterchanged (Fr. contre-changé, but modern de l'un en l'autre, Ger. verwechselte Farben or verschränkte Farben), meaning that the charges are divided the same way as the field upon which they rest, with the colours reversed.
In the municipal arms of Behnsdorf, Saxony-Anhalt, seen here, the field is divided with the left half white (argent) and the right half green (vert), and the counterchanged tree is green where it lies on the white part of the field, and white where it lies on the green part.
The flag of Maryland is another example of counterchanging. The only U.S. state flag to be directly based on English heraldry, it is the arms of George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, who founded the colony of Maryland in 1632. In the 1st and 4th quarters, the field is divided into six vertical bands of gold (or) and black (sable) with a diagonal band (a bend) in which the colours are reversed (i.e., the bend is counterchanged). The 2nd and 3rd quarters are themselves quartered between white (argent) and red (gules) with a counterchanged cross bottony that is red where it lies on the white part of the field and white where it lies on the red part of the field.
Counterchanging is rare in early heraldry; early examples from German heraldry are found in the late fifteenth-century Wernigerode Armorial; it becomes more frequently applied from the seventeenth century onward, especially with the substantial number of newly created coats of arms, of which some notable examples include Baron Baltimore (1624), Nightingale baronets (1628), Barrett-Lennard baronets (1801), Verney baronets (1818), and Baron Alvingham (1929).
In Scottish heraldry, charges are sometimes blazoned as counterchanged of different colours from the field – for instance, per fess gules and azure, a sun in splendour counterchanged or and of the first. A more typical blazon for this would be per fess gules and azure, a sun in splendour per fess or and of the first.
The term countercoloured is sometimes used in place of counterchanged. The arms of the Fenwick baronets were originally blazoned as silver, a chief gules with six martlets countercoloured. In this case, three martlets argent rest on a chief gules, while three martlets gules rest on the argent field. Some heraldic authorities regard the use of this term as erroneous.
