Heraldry Colors and Their Meanings

Heraldry colors are called tinctures, and there are three main groups: two metals (gold and silver), five colours (red, blue, green, black and purple), and furs like ermine. Popular tradition gives each one a meaning, such as courage for red or loyalty for blue, but those meanings were added long after heraldry began.

Each tincture has a name, a popular meaning, and in old heraldry books a matching gem and planet. Each also has a hex code in the coat of arms maker, listed in the table.

Metals and colours

The two metals are Or and Argent. The five main colours are Gules, Azure, Vert, Sable and Purpure. Heralds spell “colour” the British way, and it means only these five, not the metals.

The split matters because of the rule of tincture: don’t put a metal on a metal or a colour on a colour. A gold lion on red works. A blue lion on red doesn’t.

Tincture	Color	Hex in the maker	Popular meaning	Gem	Planet
Or	Gold or yellow	#f2c12e	Generosity	Topaz	Sun
Argent	Silver or white	#ffffff	Peace, sincerity	Pearl	Moon
Gules	Red	#c8102e	Courage, military strength	Ruby	Mars
Azure	Blue	#1f4e9c	Loyalty, truth	Sapphire	Jupiter
Vert	Green	#1e7b3c	Hope, joy	Emerald	Venus
Sable	Black	#141414	Constancy, grief	Diamond	Saturn
Purpure	Purple	#6b2d8b	Royalty, justice	Amethyst	Mercury

Or is drawn as yellow or gold, and Argent as white or silver. Both are correct. Purpure was once much redder than the modern purple.

Where the gems and planets come from

The gem and planet pairings come from a late medieval herald. Jean Courtois, the Sicily Herald, set them out in Le Blason des Couleurs around 1414, according to the Wikipedia article on heraldic tinctures. For a while some writers even blazoned arms by planets for kings and princes and by gems for lords. It was an occasional fashion, and modern heralds don’t use it.

The same goes for the meanings. They were mostly written up in books from the 1400s onward. As the Tinctures article puts it, in contemporary heraldry the tinctures are “not assigned any particular meaning.” Most medieval families picked their colors because they liked them, because a lord or relative used them, or because they stood out well on a battlefield.

Stains: the rare colours

Stains are three extra colours that turned up later and are rarely seen on shields.

Stain	Color	Popular meaning	Gem
Tenné	Orange or tawny brown	Worthy ambition	Jacinth
Sanguine	Dark blood red	Patience in battle	Sardonyx
Murrey	Dark red, mulberry	Patience in battle	Sardonyx

Some old writers claimed stains marked dishonour. There’s no evidence that was ever done. The maker’s color picker includes all three stains, plus Bleu celeste (sky blue) and Cendrée (ash grey), which show up in some modern arms.

Furs: ermine and vair

Furs are patterns, not flat colors, and they can go next to metals or colours without breaking the rule of tincture.

Ermine is a white field covered in small black “ermine spots,” which stand for the black tail tips of the stoat in its white winter coat. It was linked to royalty and high rank, which is why it lines royal robes. Reverse versions exist too, like Ermines (white spots on black).

Vair is a pattern of small bell or cup shapes in alternating Argent and Azure, based on the pelts of squirrels with blue-grey backs and white bellies. Variants include potent, which uses T shapes.

The maker has no fur patterns. You can get close, though. For ermine, use an Argent field and place small Sable charges in rows (duplicate one, then move the copies). For vair, a Barry or Paly pattern in Argent and Azure gives a similar feel. You can also upload your own fur image in the Uploads tab.

What does “proper” mean?

A charge blazoned “proper” is shown in its natural colors: a tree proper is brown and green, a stag proper is brown. Proper is not strictly a tincture, and it counts as neither metal nor colour. Heralds use it sparingly, because natural colors are often less clear than bold heraldic ones.

In the maker, you can give any charge a custom color from the picker to show it proper.

Hatching: showing colors in black and white

Before color printing was cheap, heralds needed a way to show tinctures in engravings. The best known system was published in 1638 by Silvester Petra Sancta, an Italian Jesuit, and it’s still used today.

Tincture	Hatching pattern
Or	Dots
Argent	Plain, left blank
Gules	Vertical lines
Azure	Horizontal lines
Vert	Diagonal lines from top left to bottom right (as you look at it)
Purpure	Diagonal lines the other way
Sable	Vertical and horizontal lines crossed

That diagonal direction runs from dexter chief to sinister base, and dexter is the viewer’s left. Hatching is handy for engravings, wax seals, stamps and laser-cut signs, where color isn’t possible.

How to choose colors for your coat of arms

Start with one metal and one colour. That two-tincture look is the classic heraldic style and reads clearly at any size. Add a third tincture only if a charge needs it.

• Pick a metal: Or for warmth, Argent for a clean look.
• Pick a colour that contrasts well with it. Gules and Azure are the most common.
• Check the rule of tincture on every charge that sits on the field.
• Match your mantling to your main colour and metal.

The field color sets the mood, so choose it first. For the whole design process, see how to make a coat of arms, and for symbol ideas, see coat of arms symbols and their meanings.