Dimidiation
In heraldry, Dimidiation is a method of joining two coats of arms. For a time, Dimidiation preceded the method known as Impalement. Whereas Impalement involves placing the whole of both coats of arms side by side in the same shield, Dimidiation involves placing the dexter half of one coat of arms alongside the sinister half of the other. In the case of marriage, the dexter half of the husband's arms would be placed alongside the sinister half of the wife's arms. The practice fell out of use because, in some cases, it would result in a shield that looked like one coat of arms rather than a combination of two. For instance, a bend combined with a bend sinister might result in a combination that simply looked like a chevron, thus hiding the fact that two coats of arms had been combined. In order to avoid this confusion, it became customary to use more than half of each coat of arms when combining them through Dimidiation. Once this practice had begun, the logical progression was to include the whole of both coats of arms in the new shield, so that in effect, Impalement replaced Dimidiation as a method of combining coats of arms.
References
- Fox-Davies, Arthur Charles: A Complete Guide to Heraldry
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; from the article "Dimidiation". Image Credit.
