Editing Heraldry (section)

====Marshalling====
[[File:Stowe Armorial.jpg|thumb|upright|An extravagant example of marshalling: the 719 quarterings of the [[George Nugent-Temple-Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham|Grenville]] [[Roll of arms|Armorial]] at [[Stowe House]]]]

To ''marshal'' two or more coats of arms is to combine them in one shield, to express inheritance, claims to property, or the occupation of an office. This can be done in a number of ways, of which the simplest is [[Impalement (heraldry)|impalement]]: [[division of the field|dividing the field]] ''per pale'' and putting one whole coat in each half. Impalement replaced the earlier [[dimidiation]] &ndash; combining the dexter half of one coat with the sinister half of another &ndash; because dimidiation can create ambiguity between, for example, a [[bend (heraldry)|bend]] and a [[Chevron (insignia)|chevron]]. "Dexter" (from Latin ''dextra'', "right") means to the right from the viewpoint of the bearer of the arms and "sinister" (from Latin ''sinistra'', "left") means to the bearer's left. The dexter side is considered the side of greatest [[honour]] (see also [[dexter and sinister]]).

A more versatile method is [[Quartering (heraldry)|quartering]], division of the field by both vertical and horizontal lines. This practice originated in Spain ([[Coat of arms of Castile and León|Castile and León]]) after the 13th century.<ref>{{harvp|Woodcock|Robinson|1988|p=14}}</ref> As the name implies, the usual number of divisions is four, but the principle has been extended to very large numbers of "quarters".

Quarters are numbered from the dexter chief (the corner nearest to the right shoulder of a man standing behind the shield), proceeding across the top row, and then across the next row and so on. When three coats are quartered, the first is repeated as the fourth; when only two coats are quartered, the second is also repeated as the third. The quarters of a personal coat of arms correspond to the ancestors from whom the bearer has inherited arms, normally in the same sequence as if the pedigree were laid out with the father's father's ... father (to as many generations as necessary) on the extreme left and the mother's mother's...mother on the extreme right.  A few lineages have accumulated hundreds of quarters, though such a number is usually displayed only in documentary contexts.<ref>Edmundas Rimša. ''Heraldry Past to Present''. (Versus Aureus, Vilnius: 2005), 38.</ref> The Scottish and Spanish traditions resist allowing more than four quarters, preferring to subdivide one or more "grand quarters" into sub-quarters as needed.

The third common mode of marshalling is with an [[inescutcheon]], a small shield placed in front of the main shield. In Britain this is most often an "escutcheon of pretence" indicating, in the arms of a married couple, that the wife is an heraldic heiress (i.e., she inherits a coat of arms because she has no brothers). In continental Europe an inescutcheon (sometimes called a "heart shield") usually carries the ancestral arms of a monarch or noble whose domains are represented by the quarters of the main shield.

In [[German heraldry]], animate [[charge (heraldry)|charge]]s in combined coats usually turn to face the centre of the composition.
<gallery>
Dimidiation demo.svg|Dimidiation 
Dimidiation, worse case demo.svg|Dimidiation (worst case)
Impalement demo.svg|Impalement
Impalement demo 2.svg|Impalement (worst case)
Escutcheon of pretence demo.svg|Escutcheon of pretence
Quartering demo.svg|Quartering 
</gallery>