Gules in the context of Proper (heraldry)

Tinctures are the colours, metals, and furs used in heraldry. There are nine tinctures in common use: two metals, five colours, and two furs. The metals are or (gold or yellow) and argent (silver or white); the colours gules (red), azure (blue), vert (green), sable (black), and purpure (purple); and the furs ermine, which is derived from the winter fur of a stoat, and vair, which is derived from the fur of a red squirrel. The use of other tinctures varies depending on the time period and heraldic tradition in question.

Where the tinctures are not depicted in full colour, they may be represented using one of several systems of hatching, in which each tincture is assigned a distinct pattern, or tricking, in which each tincture is designated by a letter or abbreviation.

Saint Patrick's Saltire or Saint Patrick's Cross is a red saltire (X-shaped cross) on a white field. In heraldic language, it may be blazoned argent, a saltire gules. Saint Patrick's Flag (Irish: Bratach Naomh Pádraig) is a flag composed of Saint Patrick's Saltire. The origin of the saltire is disputed. Its association with Saint Patrick dates from the 1780s, when the Anglo-Irish Order of Saint Patrick adopted it as an emblem. This was a British chivalric order established in 1783 by George III. It has been suggested that it derives from the arms of the powerful Geraldine or FitzGerald dynasty. Some Irish nationalists opposed the usage of the flag to represent Ireland, as they considered it to be a British invention.

After its adoption by the Order of Saint Patrick, it began to be used by other institutions. When the Acts of Union 1800 joined the Kingdom of Ireland with the Kingdom of Great Britain, the saltire was added to the British flag to form the Union Flag still used by the United Kingdom. The saltire has occasionally served unofficially to represent Northern Ireland and also appears in some royal events.

The coat of arms of Norway is the arms of dominion of King Harald V of Norway, and as such represents both the monarch and the kingdom (nation and the state). It depicts a standing golden lion on a red background, bearing a golden crown and axe with silver blade (blazoned Gules, a lion rampant Or, crowned Or, holding an axe Or with a blade argent).

The coat of arms is used by the King (including the King's Council), the Parliament, and the Supreme Court, which are the three powers according to the Constitution. It is also used by several national, regional, and local authorities that are subordinate to the aforementioned, for example the County Governors and both the district courts and the courts of appeal. Since 1905, two parallel versions exist: the more elaborate version used by the King and the simpler one used by the State. The arms in banner form serve as basis for the monarch's flag, known as the Royal Standard.

The flag of the Holy Roman Empire was not a national flag, but rather an imperial banner used by the Holy Roman Emperor; black and gold were used as the colours of the imperial banner, a black eagle on a golden background. After the late 13th or early 14th century, the claws and beak of the eagle were coloured red. From the early 15th century, a double-headed eagle was used.

In 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte declared the First French Empire. In response to this, Emperor Francis II of the Habsburg dynasty declared his personal domain to be the Austrian Empire and became Francis I of Austria. Taking the colours of the banner of the Holy Roman Emperor, the flag of the Austrian Empire was black and gold. Francis II was the last Holy Roman Emperor, with Napoleon forcing the empire's dissolution in 1806. After this point, these colours continued to be used as the flag of Austria until 1918.

The flag of the U.S. state of New Mexico, also referred to as the New Mexican flag and Zia Banner, is a state flag, consisting of a sacred red sun symbol of the Zia tribe on a field of gold (yellow). It was officially adopted on March 19, 1925 to highlight the state's Indigenous and Hispanic heritage: it combines a symbol of the Puebloan people, who have ancient roots in the state, with the colors of the flag of Spain, whose empire had established and ruled over “Nuevo México” for over two and a half centuries.

The New Mexico flag is among the more distinctive and iconic in the U.S., and has been noted for its simple and aesthetically pleasing design. It is one of four U.S. state flags without the color blue (along with Alabama, California, and Maryland) and the only one among the four without the color white. New Mexico is one of only two U.S states (along with Oklahoma) that depicts indigenous iconography in its flag.

The national flag of Germany (German: Flagge Deutschlands) is a tricolour consisting of three equal horizontal bands displaying the national colours of Germany: black, red, and gold (German: Schwarz-Rot-Gold). The flag was first sighted in 1848 in the German Confederation. The flag was also used by the German Empire from 1848 to 1849. It was officially adopted as the national flag of the German Reich (during the period of the Weimar Republic) from 1919 to 1933, and has been in use since its reintroduction in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949.

Since the mid-19th century, Germany has had two competing traditions of national colours, black-red-gold and black-white-red. Black-red-gold were the colours of the 1848–1849 Revolutions, the Weimar Republic of 1919–1933 and the Federal Republic (since 1949). They were also adopted by the German Democratic Republic (1949–1990).

In heraldry, a cross (or other ordinary) cleché (clechée, clechy) flares out at the ends before tapering back to a point, in a shape resembling the bow of an old-fashioned key (French clé). An example is the Occitan cross or Cross of Toulouse in the coat of arms of the counts of Toulouse: Gules, a cross cléchée, pommetty and voided Or. Because this Occitan cross is also voided (hollow), some writers have mistakenly taken the term cléché to be a synonym of voided or to include voiding as a defining feature.