Baton sinister
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Baton sinister is a charge used in heraldry.
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[edit] Heraldic charge
It is a diminutive of the bend sinister and constitutes a narrow strip that runs from the upper right to the lower left of a coat of arms. It has been traditionally used as an indicator of an illegitimate birth in the family line. Sinister, in this case, does not have a negative connotation, it is merely a directional indicator.
The baton sinister can be seen in the arms of the Duke of Grafton who is a descendant of an illegitimate son of King Charles II of England. Today, the College of Arms in England uses a bordure wavy to mark an armiger as illegitimate. The Court of the Lord Lyon in Scotland uses a bordure gobony to denote the same.
[edit] Bar sinister
In French blazon a bend sinister is called a barre. Sir Walter Scott is credited with giving literature the macaronic phrase bar sinister, which has become a metonymic term for bastardy. In English blazon a bar is a horizontal stripe, symmetric with respect to sinister and dexter. (Bar and barre are pronounced alike.)
The term bar sinister may also refer to a symbol of prohibition commonly seen in signs, consisting of a red diagonal within a red circle, though its orientation is not usually significant. These include the common "No Smoking" signs.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Baton sinister in the arms of the Duke of Grafton
- Society for Creative Anachronism
- Pembley's Dictionary of Heraldry
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia.
- Stephen Friar, Ed. A Dictionary of Heraldry. (Harmony Books, New York: 1987).
