SALTIER, one of the honourable ordinaries—See HERALDRY.
This, says G. Leigh, in his Accedence of Arms, p. 70, was anciently made of the height of a man, and driven full of pins, the use of which was to scale walls, &c. Upton says it was an instrument to catch wild beasts, whence he derives this word from saltus, i. e. "a forest." The French call this ordinary sautoir, from sauter, "to leap;" because it may have been used by soldiers to leap over walls of towns, which in former times were but low; but some modern authors think it is borne in imitation of St Andrew's cross.