Tincture (heraldry) as the field upon which they rest, with the colours reversed. In the municipal arms of Behnsdorf, Saxony-Anhalt, seen at right, the field is divided with the left half white (argent) and the right half green (vert), and the counterchanged tree is green where it lies on the white part of the field, and white where it lies on the green part. The flag of Maryland is another example of counterchanging. The only U.S. state flag to be directly based on English heraldry, it is the arms of George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, who founded the colony of Maryland in
Ecclesiastical heraldry not least because their descendants may seek reassignment of the arms, and few of them are likely to be clerics. The first rule of heraldry is the rule of tincture: "Colour must not appear upon colour, nor metal upon metal." The heraldic metals are gold and silver, usually represented as yellow and white, while red, green, blue, purple and black normally comprise the colors. Heraldic bearings are intended for recognition at a distance (in battle), and a contrast of light metal against dark color is desirable. The same principle can be seen in the choice of colors for most license