Postby JMcMillan » 09 Apr 2014, 20:08
Glad Claus and Daniel weighed in before I did.
I think all the "stains" as presently understood should be avoided like the plague. It's not clear to me that they have any real pedigree, and they serve no purpose, with the possible exception of tenné used for orange. (I might, just might, allow orange to be used in heraldry, but if so it should be called "orange," because tenné doesn't correctly mean orange, it means tawny, like a lion. If orange had existed as a concept when the heraldic tinctures were set during the Middle Ages, it probably would have been included on the list.)
All the justifications I find for murrey and tenné in the 19th century heraldic writers who were so fascinated by the stains are references not to arms but to liveries, i.e., the clothing worn to identify the retainers of great feudal magnates. One wonders why "sad blue," crimson, claret, scarlet, russet, chocolate, buff, and puce weren't listed among the stains as well.
Sanguine actually did appear in a British coat of arms before it showed up in the textbooks, but only in one, a Scottish matriculation for Clayhills of Innergowrie. But there's no reason for it. As Daniel says, any heraldic color can be of any shade as long as it's unmistakably what it says it is. In other words, if the blazon says Gules, it's red, and if the picture shows red--any shade of red--it's Gules.
Joseph McMillan
Alexandra, Virginia, USA