A roundel is a simple circular charge whose power lies in its variety. In heraldic language roundels are named by tincture: a gold disc is a bezant, silver a plate, red a torteau, blue a hurt, black a pellet, green a pomme and purple a golpe. Traditionally they can signify wealth, purity, sacrifice, fidelity, mourning, fertility or sovereignty according to their colour, and their plain geometric form makes them an ideal emblem for concise symbolic statements. Because roundels are so elemental they are easy to reproduce on seals, banners and metalwork, which helped their early popularity and enduring use.

Roundels carry many common associations. Bezants recall coinage and commerce and therefore often appear in arms connected with trade or with benefaction; plates and pommes suggest honesty and fruitfulness and may mark agricultural or horticultural ties. Torteaux and pellets can be read as martial or funerary signs, used by military families and in memorial contexts. Hurts lean toward loyalty and truth, while golpes and other rarer tinctures have regional or dynastic connotations. As a motif roundels serve family, civic and occupational purposes alike: semy of roundels can identify a house or guild, a single prominent roundel can be a canting or punning device, and modern emblems even reuse the form as roundels for air services and civic logos, linking medieval heraldry to present-day insignia.

Design choices alter the roundel’s message. Numbers, arrangement and combination with other charges change emphasis: a field strewn with bezants reads as mercantile or wealthy, a solitary pellet beneath a chief can signal mourning or stern resolve. For illustrations and further reading consult the Wikimedia Commons category for roundels in heraldry (Roundels in heraldry), the civic and municipal galleries at Heraldry of the World (Heraldry of the World), and general reference sites such as The Heraldry Society (The Heraldry Society) and Mistholme’s pictorial dictionary (Mistholme heraldic dictionary).