Frater Benedict
In many hand painted decks of the 15th century, The Chariot is an open one, and therefore do not carry any heraldic shield at all. In the inadequately named 'Gringonneur tarot' the chariot is decked with a patterned cloth with shields depicting a dot surrounded by six other dots. Early printed decks may show either a wheel (Rosenwald sheet) or a fleur-de-lis (Rotschild sheet). Almost all decks from the 17th and 18th century use the shield on the chariot to show the letters of the cardmaking company. When Gebelin wanted to render av version of The Chariot, the shield was left dark, at least in my reproduction. It is not until Levi, in 1856, the shield is depicted with the winged sun as a crest over a phallic symbol. This pattern is then followed by Wirth and Waite (and probably implied by Crowley). I have somewhere seen the letter Zajin depicted on the shield. Are there any other versions of the shield a deck creator have to consider, before choosing which version to follow?