On a fillet or twisted torse of the chief metal and chief colour of the coat-of-arms with which it is used.
Helm with crest and torse and simple form of mantling, from the Harsick brass at Southacre, 1384.
Should a torse be drawn with a curved or a straight line?
The modern practice is that the twists of a torse shall be only six in number; but in old heraldry there was no such rule, and any number from four may be found, whatever would look best.
An osculating plane of the curve (see S 38 below) is a tangent plane of the torse all along a generating line.
The late Lyon Clerk once pointed out to me, in Lyon Register, an instance of a coat there matriculated with a torse of three colours, but I unfortunately made no note of it at the time.
The crest (a talbot's head silver) issues from a coronet or, which is placed upon a torse argent and sable.
The crest really issues from a coronet upon a torse in a previous case, this crest issues from a torse only.
Crest: a soldan's head sable, the brow encircled by a torse or.
The necessity for providing a resting-place for the crest other than unoccupied space has also led to the ridiculous practice of depicting the wreath or torse in the form of a straight bar balanced upon the apex of the helmet.
At first, as is evident from the Garter plates, the colours of the torse seem to have had little or no compulsory relation to the "livery colours" of the arms.
The plain fillet still continued to be used long after the torse had come into recognised use.
The torse is now supposed to be and represented as a skein of coloured silk intertwined with a gold or silver cord.
As has been already explained, the torse should fit closely to the crest, its object and purpose being merely to hide the joining of crest and helmet.
The accidental result of twining a favour in the fillet, in conjunction with the pattern obviously suggested by the turban of the East, produced the conventionaltorse or wreath.
But these coronets were merely in the nature of a species of decoration for the helmet, many of them far more closely resembling a jewelled torse than a coronet.
The peculiarity in this case consisted of a torse of three tinctures.
