STANDARD. In its widest sense, a standard is a flag or ensign under which men are united for some common purpose. The use of the standard as a rallying-point iu battle takes us back to remote ages. The Jewish army was marshaled with the aid of standard: belonging to the four tribes of Judah. Reuben, Ephraim, and Dan, and the Egyptians had ensigns with representations of their favorite animals. The flag of Persia was white, and, according to Xenophon, bore in his time a golden eagle with expanded wings; it was fixed on a chariot, and conveyed to the field of battle. YEschylus, in enumerating the six chiefs who, headed by Polynices, set themselves in battle array against Thebes, describes the device on the standard of each. In the earliest bra of Roman history a brindle of hay or fern is said to have been used as a military standard, which was succeeded by bronze or silver figures of animals attached to a staff, of which Pliny chum-rates five—time eagle, the wolf, the minotaur, the horse, and the boar. In the second consulship of Marius, 104 n. c.. the other animals were laid aside, and only the eagle retained; and down to the time of the later emperors, the eria,i(m. often with a representation of the emperor's head beneath it, continued to be carried with the legion. On the top of the staff was often a figure of Victory or Mars. Each cohort had also 2111 ensign of its own, consisting of a serpent or dragon woven on a square piece of cloth, and elevated on a gilt staff with a cross-bar. Under the Christian emperors, the /abarocin (q.v.) was suhstituted for the imperial standard. Various standards of great celebrity occur in mediaeval history, among which may he enumerated the flag of the prophet (q.v.): the standard taken from the Danes by Al frod of England; and the oriti:ttnrne, originally belonging to the abbey of St. Denis, and borne by the counts of Vexin, which eventually because the the French kingdom.
In strict the term starulard is applied exclusively to a particular kind of flag, long in proportion to its depth. tapering toward the fly, and, except when belong
ing to princes of the blood royal, slit at the end. Each baron, knight, or other com mander in feudal times, had a recognized standard, which was distributed among his followers. The length of the standard varied according to the rank of the bearer. A king's standard was from 8 to 6 yards in length; a duke's, 7 yards; a marquis's. 61 yards; an earl's, 6 yards; a viscount's, 5f yards; a baron's, 5 yards; a bauneret's, yards; and a knight's, 4 yards. There was never a complete coat-of-arms on the stand ard; it generally exhibited the crest or supporter with a device or badge of the owner, and every English standard of the Tudor era had the cross of St. George at the head. Standards were registered by the heralds, and the charges on them selected and author ized by an officer of arms.
The so-called royal standard of Great Britain is more properly a banner (q.v.), being a square flag with the national arms covering the entire field without any external acces sories. The so-called cavalry standards in use in the British army are also in strictness banners. They are small in size; their color is determined by the color of the regi mental facings, and they are charged with the cipher. number, insignia, and honors of the regiment. The banners of the houshold troops are, however, all crimson and richly embroidered with the royal insignia of England. Corresponding to the standards of the cavalry are the colors of the infantry re,giments, of which each has "a pair," one, called the queen's color, being the union jack (q.v.), charged with some ornamental device; the other, the regimental color, with the cipher, number, device. motto, and honors of the corps, cantOned with a small union jack. When a regiment obtains new colors, they :ire usually given by the wife of the col. or some lady of distinction.