Tincture (heraldry) - Counterchanging and Countercolouring

Counterchanging and Countercolouring

When a charge is placed across a division line, variation, or ordinary, it may be blazoned counterchanged. However, some patterns, such as chequy, do not permit charges over them to be treated this way.

This means that the charge is divided the same way as the field it is placed upon, with the colours reversed.

A shield which is green on the upper half and silver on the lower, charged at the centre with a lion whose upper half is silver and lower half green, would be blazoned: Per fess vert and argent, a lion counterchanged.

In Scots heraldry, a charge may be blazoned as counterchanged of different colours from the field; e.g., Per fess gules and azure, a sun in splendour counterchanged Or and of the first. In English heraldry, this would be described as Per fess gules and azure, a sun in splendour per fess Or and of the first.

A situation similar to counterchanging can be seen in the arms of Brian North Lee: Sable three billets in bend Argent overlapping on a chief Vert three escallops Argent. Here, the parts of the billets that overlap are shown as being sable, the tincture of the field.

Similarly to counterchanging, if multiple charges appear in two opposing divisions of the field, they may be blazoned countercoloured, meaning that the charges in a division of the field bear the colour of the opposing division of the field. An example may be seen in the Fenwick arms, blazoned originally as silver a chief gules with six martlets countercoloured, in which the chief gules bears three martlets argent and the base argent correspondingly bears three martlets gules.