FLAG (or "FLAGGE," a common Teutonic word in this sense, but apparently first recorded in English), a piece of bunting or similar material, admitting of various shapes and colours, and waved in the wind from a staff or cord for use in display as a standard, ensign or signal.
In both Egyptian and Assyrian examples, the staff bearing the emblem is frequently ornamented immediately below with flag-like streamers. Rabbinical writers have assigned devices to the Jewish tribes, but their testimony may be doubted. Banners, standards and ensigns are frequently mentioned in the Bible. "Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his standard, with the ensign of their father's house" (Num. ii. 2). "Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, terrible as an army with banners?" (Cant. vi. 1o. See also Num. ii. 10, x. 14; Ps. xx. 5, lx. 4; Cant. ii. 4; Is. v. 26, x. 18, lix. 19; Jer. iv. 21.) The Persians bore an eagle fixed to the end of a lance, and the sun, as their divinity, was also upon their standards, which appear to have been formed of some textile, and were guarded by the bravest men of the army. The Carlon soldier who slew Cyrus, the brother of Artaxerxes, was allowed the honour of carrying a golden cock at the head of the army, it being the custom of the Carians to wear that bird as a crest on their helmets. The North American Indians carried poles fledged with feathers from the wings of eagles, and similar customs seem to have prevailed among other semi-savage peoples.
The Greeks bore a piece of armour upon a spear in early times; afterwards the several cities bore sacred emblems or letters chosen for their particular associations—the Athenians the olive and the owl, the Corinthians a pegasus, the Thebans a sphinx, in memory of Oedipus, the Messenians their initial M, and the Lacedaemo nians A. A purple dress was placed on the end of a spear as the signal to advance. The Dacians carried a standard representing a contorted serpent, while the dragon was the military sign of many peoples—of the Chinese, Dacians and Parthians among others—and was probably first used by the Romans as the ensign of barbarian auxiliaries.
The question of the sign militaria of the Romans is a wide and very important one, having direct bearing on the history of heraldry, and on the origin of national, family and personal devices. With them the custom was reduced to system. "Each century, or at least each maniple," says Meyrick, "had its proper standard and standard-bearer." In the early days of the republic a handful of hay was borne on a pole, whence probably came the name manipulus (Lat. manus, a hand). The forms of standards became very various ; sometimes a cross piece of wood was placed at the end of a spear and surmounted by the figure of a hand in silver, below round or oval disks, with figures of Mars or Minerva, or in later times portraits of emperors or eminent generals. Figures of animals, such as the wolf, horse, bear and others, were borne ; it was not till a still later period that the eagle became the special standard of the legion. According to Pliny, it was Marius who, in his second consulship, ordained that the Roman legions should only have the eagle for their standard; "for before that time the eagle marched foremost with four others—wolves, minotaurs, horses and bears—each one in its proper order. Not many years passed before the eagle alone began to be advanced in battle, and the rest were left behind in the camp. But Marius rejected them altogether, and since this it is observed that scarcely is there a camp of a legion wintered at any time without having a pair of eagles." The vexillum, the cavalry flag, is described by Livy as a square piece of cloth fastened to a piece of wood fixed crosswise to the end of a spear, somewhat resembling the mediaeval gon f anon. These vexilla are to be seen on various Roman coins and medals, on the sculptured columns of Trajan and Antoninus, and on the arch of Titus. The labarum, the imperial standard of later emperors, resembled in shape and fixing the vexillum. It was of purple silk richly embroidered with gold, and sometimes was not suspended like the vexillum from a horizontal crossbar, but displayed like our modern flags, i.e., by the attachment of one of its sides to a staff. After Constantine, the labarum bore the monogram of Christ. It is generally supposed that the small scarf, which in mediaeval days was often attached to the pastoral staff or crook of a bishop, was derived from the labarum of the first Christian emperor, Constantine the Great. The Roman standards were guarded with religious veneration in the temples at Rome. It was not unusual for a general to order a standard to be cast into the ranks of the enemy, to add zeal to the onset of his soldiers by exciting them to recover what to them was perhaps the most sacred thing the earth possessed.
Early flags were almost purely of a religious character. In Bede's description of the interview between the heathen king Aethelbert and the Roman missionary Augustine, the followers of the latter are said to have borne banners on which silver crosses were displayed. The national banner of England for centuries—the red cross of St. George—was a religious one ; in fact the aid of religion seems ever to have been sought to give sanctity to national flags, and the origin of many can be traced to a sacred banner, as is notably the case with the oriflamme of France and the Dannebrog of Denmark. Of the latter the legend runs that King Waldemar of Denmark, leading his troops to battle against the enemy in 1219, saw at a critical moment a cross in the sky. This was at once taken as an answer to his prayers, and an assurance of celestial aid. It was forthwith adopted as the Danish flag and called the "Dannebrog," i.e., the strength of Denmark. Apart from all legend, this flag un doubtedly dates from the 13th century.
The ancient kings of France bore the blue hood of St. Martin upon their standards. The Chape de St. Martin was originally in the keeping of the monks of the abbey of Marmoutier, and the right to take this blue flag into battle with them was claimed by the counts of Anjou. Clovis bore this banner against Alaric in 507, for victory was promised him by a verse of the Psalms which the choir were chanting when his envoy entered the church of St. Martin at Tours; Charlemagne fought under it at the battle of Narbonne. At what precise period the oriflamme, which was originally simply the banner of the abbey of St. Denis, supplanted the Chape de St. Martin as the sacred banner of all France is not known. Probably, however, it gradually became the national flag after the kings of France had transferred the seat of govern ment to Paris, where St. Denis was held in high honour, and the banner hung over the tomb of the saint in the abbey church. The king of France himself was one of the vassals of the abbey of St. Denis for the fief of the Vexin, and it was in his quality of count of Vexin that Louis VI., le Gros, bore this banner from the abbey to battle, in 1124. He is credited with having been the first French king to have taken the banner to war, and it appeared for the last time on the field of fight at Agincourt in 1415. The accounts of its appearance vary considerably. Guil laume Guiart, in his Chronicle says:— It, therefore, would seem to have been a plain scarlet flag; whilst an English authority states "the celestial auriflamb, so by the French admired, was but of one colour, a square redde banner." The Chronique de Flandres describes it as having three points with tassels of green silk attached. The banner of William the Conqueror was sent to him by the pope, and the early English kings fought under the banners of Edward the Confessor and St. Edmund ; while the blended crosses of St. George, St. Andrew and St. Patrick still form the national ensign of the united kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland.
The Bayeux tapestry, commemorating the Norman conquest of England, contains abundant representations of flags borne upon the lances of the knights of William's army. They appear small in size, and pointed, frequently indented into three points and bearing pales, crosses and roundels. One, a Saxon pennon, is triangular, and roundly indented into four points; one banner is of segmental shape and rayed, and bears the figure of a bird, which has been supposed to represent the raven of the war-flag of the Scandinavian Vikings. The figures are to some extent ornamental and symbolic rather than heraldic ; the same insignia do not appear on the shields of the several bearers. The dragon standard which he is known to have borne is placed near Harold; but similar figures appear on the shields of Norman warriors. Standards in form much resembling these dragons appear on the Arch of Titus and the Trajan column as the standards of barbarians.
At the battle of the Standard in 1138 the English standard was formed of the mast of a ship, having a silver pyx at the top and bearing three sacred banners, dedicated severally to St. Peter, St. John of Beverley and St. Wilfrid of Ripon, the whole being fastened to a wheeled vehicle. Representations of three-pointed, cross-bearing pennons are found on seals of as early date as the Norman era, and the warriors in the first crusade bore three-pointed pennons. In 1244 Henry III. gave order for a "dragon to be made in fashion of a standard of red silk sparkling all over with fine gold, the tongue of which should be made to resemble burning fire and appear to be continually moving, and the eyes of sapphires or other suitable stones." The Siege of Carlaverock, a poem of the 14th century, describes the heraldic bearings on the banners of the knights at the siege of that fortress. Of the king himself the writer says:— and he goes on to describe the kingly characteristics these may be supposed to symbolize.
The principal varieties of flags borne during the middle ages were the pennon, the banner and the standard. The "guyd hommes" or "guidons," "banderolls," "pennoncells," "streamers" or pendants, may be considered as minor varieties. The pennon variety was a purely personal ensign, sometimes pointed, but more generally forked or swallow-tailed at the end. A pennoncell (or penselle) was a small pennon. Flags of this character were largely used on any special occasion of ceremony, and more particularly at State funerals. Amongst the items that ran the total cost of the funeral of Oliver Cromwell up to an enormous sum of money, we find mention of 3o dozen of pennoncells a foot long and costing 20 shillings a dozen, and 20 dozen of the same kind of flags at 12 shillings a dozen.
The banner was, in the earlier days of chivalry, a square flag, though at a later date it is often found greater in length than in depth, as is the case with the national flags of to-day. In many early examples it is found considerably longer in the depth on the staff than in its outward projection from the staff. The banner was charged in a manner exactly similar to the shield of the owner, and it was borne by knights banneret and all above them in rank. In fact flags were originally heraldic emblems, though in modern devices the strict laws of heraldry often have been abandoned.
To create a knight banneret, the king or commander-in-chief in person might tear off the fly of the pennon on the lance of the knight, thus turning it roughly into the square flag or banner, and so making the knight a banneret. The date at which this dignity originated is uncertain, but it was probably about the period of Edward I. John Chandos is said to have been made a banneret by the Black Prince and the king of Castile at Najara on April 3, 1367. In more modern times Capt. John Smith, who saved the royal banner from the parliamentary troops at Edgehill, is said to have been made a knight banneret by Charles I. From this time the custom of creating knights banneret ceased.
The "gonfalon" or "gonfanon" was a battle flag differing from the ordinary banner in that it was not attached to the pole but hung from it crosswise, and was not always square in shape but serrated, so that the lower edge formed streamers. The gonfalon was in action borne close to the person of the commander in-chief and denoted his position. In certain of the Italian cities chief magistrates had the privilege of bearing a gonfalon, and for this reason were known as "gonfaloniere." The standard used was a flag of noble size, long and tapering towards the fly (the "fly" is that portion of the flag farther from the pole, the "hoist" the portion of the flag attached to the pole), the edges of the flag fringed or bordered, and with the ends split and rounded off. The shape was not, however, by any means uniform during the middle ages nor were there any definite rules as to its charges. It varied in size according to the rank of the owner. The standard was, from its size, and as its very name implies, not meant to be carried into action, as was the banner, but to denote the actual position of its pos sessor on occasions of State ceremonial, or on the tilting ground, and to denote the actual place occupied by him and his following when the hosts were assembled in camp preparatory for battle. It was essentially a flag denoting position, whereas the banner was the rallying point of its followers in the actual field. Its uses are now fulfilled, as far as royalties are concerned, by the "banner" which has now become the "royal standard," and which floats over the palace where the king is in residence, is hoisted at the saluting point when he reviews his troops, and is broken from the mainmast of any ship in his navy the moment that his foot treads its deck. The essential condition of the standard was that it should always have the cross of St. George conspicuous in the innermost part of the hoist immediately con tiguous to the staff ; the remainder of the flag was then divided fesse-wise by two or more stripes of colours exactly as the heraldic "ordinary" termed "fesse" crosses the shield horizon tally. The colours used as stripes, as also those used in the fringe or bordering of the standard, were those which prevailed in the arms of the bearer or were those of his livery. In the time of Henry V. the English royal standard had : colours white and blue, a white antelope standing between two red roses, and in the interspaces more red roses. The motto usually figured on most standards, though occasionally it was missing. An excellent type of the old standard is that of the earls of Percy, which bore the blue lion, the crescent and the fetterlock—all badges of the family—whilst, as tokens of matrimonial alliances with the families of Poynings, Bryan and Fitzpayne, a silver key, a bugle-horn and a falchion were displayed. There was also the historic Percy motto, Esperance en Dieu. At Nelson's funeral his banner and standard were borne in the procession, and around his coffin were the banderolls—square, bannerlike flags bearing the various arms of his family lineage. Nelson's standard bore his motto, Palmam qui meruit ferat, but, in lieu of the cross of St. George, it bore the union of the crosses of St. George, St. Andrew and St. Patrick, the mediaeval England having expanded into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Again, at the funeral of the duke of Wellington we find amongst the flags his personal banner and standard, and ten banderolls of the duke's pedigree and descent.
The guidon, a name derived from the Fr. Guyd-homme, was somewhat similar to the standard, but without the cross of St. George, rounded at the end, less elongated and altogether less ornate. It was borne by a leader of horse, and according to one writer "must be two and a half yards or three yards long, and therein shall no armes be put, but only the man's crest, cognisance, and devyce." The streamer, so called in Tudor days but now better known as the pennant or pendant, was a long, tapering flag; which it was directed "shall stand in the top of a ship or in the forecastle, and therein be put no armes, but the man's cognisance or devyce, and may be of length zo, 3o, 4o or 6o yards, and is slitt as well as a guidon or standard." Amongst the fittings of the ship that took Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, to France in the reign of Henry VII. was a "grete stremour for the shippe xl yardes in length viij yardes in brede." In the hoist was "a grete bere holding a raggid staffe," and the rest of the fly "powdrid full of raggid staves."