2013 April 16, Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, A Complete Guide to Heraldry - Illustrated by Nine Plates and Nearly 800 other Designs, Read Books Ltd, →ISBN:
The bearing of PAPELONNÉ is more frequently found; in it the field is covered with what appear to be scales, the heraldic term papelonné being derived from a supposed resemblance of these scales to the wings of butterflies;[…]
1804, Alexander Nisbet, A system of heraldry, speculative and practical: with the true art of Blazon ... Illustrated with suitable examples of armorial figures, and achievements of the most considerable surnames and families in Scotland ..., page 224:
[…] the arms of ARQUINVILLIERS, d'ermine papelonné de gueules, i.e. ermine, papelonné gules. The same arms are given by Mr Kent in his[…]
Figured silks like the Auxerre shroud of c. 1050 with repetitive single eagles in gold on a purple background show the eagles’ breast feathers woven as round-topped scales and those of the wings as spearhead shapes. Rohaise de Clare’s seal is based on the latter, but the round-headed type when turned upside down formed the design blazoned in French armory as ‘papelonné’, which was always a gules background with the pattern in one of the metals. The compiler of Bigot Roll, quoted by Stanford London (Aspilogia II, Appendix II), described No. 286, the Comte de Sancerre (a cadet of Champagne) as ‘l’escu d’azur palelonné d’or a une bende d’argent a iij listiau d’or a une molette de geules en la bende’. Apart from obvious points like the error of three cotices for two, and that the compiler had not mastered a concise method for blazoning ‘azure a bend argent coticed or charged with a mullet gules’, he was apparently ignorant of papelonné being confined to a gules background. The field was evidently azure diapered or.
1640, Marc Gilbert : de Varennes, Le roy d'armes ou L'art de bien former, charger, briser, timbrer, parer, expliquer, et blasoner les armoires. ... Par le R.P. Marc Gilbert de Varennes, de la Compagnie de Iesus, page 253:
Fouleuse Flauacour porte d’argent , papelonné , & à treffes renuerfés , deguules : ce blason nous enseigne de plus que ... Darquinulle en Picardic porte d’hermines papelonné de gueules ( c’est à dire , que dans chaque papelon ilyavne[…]
