The International Association of Amateur Heralds

I am curious as to how one would blazon this specific cross?
Has anyone seen a cross exactly like this one? (similar yes, but none with the arm-ends pointing outward that I could find)

I did a search in google images and also using tineye.com to see if I could find one like it and my results were basically negative.



Thanks in advance!
Rick

Would this be a Cross clichée, or a Cross urdée, or described in some other manner?

According to Webster the Cross clichée is "voided and having each extremity shaped like the handle of a medieval key — compare urdée"
so also according to Webster, the Cross urdée is defined as "having each arm expanding at the end into a form like a lozenge with slightly concave edges" and evidently it is Humetty where it does not extend to the edges of the escutcheon.
They say the term urdée may be a corruption of the term vidée in "Croix aiguissée et videe"

Basically, this specific cross is a cross patée with the arms extending into lozenges - or sort of similar to an Occitan cross without the circles at the ends of the arms. At a loss as to how to blazon this so any help is appreciated.

To test a tentative blazon I usually give it to two or three people to do a rough drawing of what they think the written blazon might be interpreted as and see if they come up with what I had in mind. Clearly the cross you present doesn't have an actual name like the Tau Cross so we must consider a blazon. To my eye I am looking at a cross pattee lozenged. What you would get if you presented such a blazon to the two or three stooges to be drawn I have no idea!

You could always describe the charge as a cross pattee lozenged and revert to the practice of the College of Arms by adding "As more properly depicted in the margin!

Thank you Martin!

I suppose one could voin a new term - Cross of St Dismas or whatever - and hope it sticks!

Or maybe a cross patee fitchy at the four ends? Not sure what Martin's three stooges would do with that either..

A cross pattee urdy, perhaps?

I was going to suggest the same thing as Arthur. Parker's Glossary says that a cross urdy has straight edges with points at each end. He says some people apply the term to the same design with inward-curving arms (which is the object under consideration here), but that that is properly a cross cleche'e (read an acute accent on the next to last "e"). I don't think that last part is correct, although I suppose a French heraldist might be able to tell us. Urdy is a standard term in English blazon and so is paty, so I can't imagine what a "cross paty urdy" would be if not the charge in the initial post.

A good argument for a "cross paty urdy". We may be there.

Sorry as I am to disappoint the venerable St. Dismas, I must agree that patee urdy is the better choice.

Any other ideas? Perhaps Martin's idea of describing it and then 'as more properly depicted in the margin' may be a subtle but definitive answer. So "cross pattee urdy" versus "cross pattee lozenged"?