Alongside metals and colours, heraldry knows a third family of tinctures, often overlooked by those approaching coats of arms for the first time: the furs. They are not colours in the strict sense, but stylised patterns reproducing the precious pelts with which, in the Middle Ages, cloaks and shields were lined. Precisely because of this material origin, they carry a symbolism linked to rank, luxury and purity.
Ermine
Heraldic ermine appears as a silver field strewn with small black spots, stylised figures recalling the tip of the animal's tail. In winter the stoat, a small mustelid, takes on a snow-white coat while the tip of its tail stays black: furriers sewed many pelts together and attached the dark tails, producing the spotted pattern that heraldry later codified.
The main variants are:
- Ermine: silver with black spots;
- Ermines: black with silver spots;
- Erminois and similar: combinations with other tinctures, such as gold with black spots, according to national traditions.
A symbol of purity
In bestiaries and medieval moral literature there circulated the belief that the ermine would rather die than soil its coat. Hence its value as an emblem of purity and integrity, which made it dear to sovereigns and dignitaries. The motto «Malo mori quam foedari», «better to die than be stained», was linked to the ermine in several chivalric contexts.
Painting also took up the meaning. Leonardo da Vinci's portrait known as the «Lady with an Ermine» has been read by many scholars in the light of this symbolism, as well as an allusion to a figure of the Milanese court.
Ermine and sovereignty
Ermine linings appeared in royal mantles and ceremonial robes, to the point that the ermine-lined mantle became almost an attribute of kingship. The duchy of Brittany adopted as its arms a field entirely of ermine, one of the best-known cases of a shield made of a single fur.
Vair
Vair is the second great heraldic fur. It reproduces the pelts of a squirrel with a grey-blue back and a white belly: sewn together alternating the two parts, they formed a pattern of little bells or wavy pieces. In blazon, vair is normally shown with alternating pieces of silver and blue, arranged in rows.
The variants are numerous:
- Plain vair, with pieces in regular rows;
- Counter-vair, with pieces of the same tincture placed base to base;
- Vair in pale, with pieces of the same tincture aligned vertically;
- Vairy, when the pattern uses tinctures other than silver and blue.
In some traditions the number of rows distinguished «great vair» from «minute vair», but the terminology varies from country to country.
Vair and the fairy tale
It has long been debated whether Cinderella's slipper, in the French tradition, was originally of vair, that is fur, and not of verre, glass, given the similar pronunciation. It is an evocative and much-quoted hypothesis, but unproven: Perrault's version speaks of glass, and the choice of an impossible material suits the register of the fairy tale well.
How they behave with the rule of tincture
Furs occupy a special position. Since they already contain a metal and a colour, they can generally be placed with both metals and colours without breaking the rule that forbids putting metal on metal and colour on colour. This makes them versatile tinctures, often used for fields or for the linings of external elements such as heraldic mantles.
The symbolic meaning of furs
Read in a traditional key, furs tell something pure colours do not:
- Transformed matter: they are the memory of a real object, a garment, turned into an abstract sign.
- Protection: fur wraps and shelters, and it is natural that it should be associated with the mantle of the sovereign or the judge.
- The union of opposites: every fur combines light and dark, as if to show that dignity is born from balance between opposites.
- Purity preserved: in the case of ermine, white is the central value and black is only the sign that marks its borders.
For those who follow the symbolic path, ermine can become a meditative image: a whiteness that does not deny shadow, but keeps it at the margins, like small spots that make the light of the field visible.
In short
- Furs are the third family of heraldic tinctures, alongside metals and colours.
- Ermine is silver with black spots and symbolises purity and sovereignty.
- Vair reproduces squirrel pelts with alternating pieces of silver and blue.
- Furs, containing both metal and colour, combine freely with other tinctures.
- The hypothesis of Cinderella's fur slipper is evocative but unproven.
