Historical and Antiquarian Magazine.

ON THE BANNERS USED IN THE ENGLISH ARMY FROM THE CONQUEST TO THE REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.

"With all their banners bravely spread,
And all their armour flashing high;
Saint George might waken from the dead
To see fair England's standards fly."

WALTER SCOTT.

IT would be difficult to name a subject more intimately connected with all that is chivalrous in English history than an account of the Banners which were borne in the field under our early monarchs; and the mind must indeed be callous to national glory that is not interested in all that relates to those ensigns under which the victories of Poictiers, of Cressy, and of Agincourt were gained. Whilst innumerable essays and dissertations have been written upon pieces of brass or stone, this point of antiquarian research has never received the attention that it deserves. The following remarks, which have been deduced from undoubted sources, are therefore submitted with the hope that they will throw some light upon a curious, if not important, part of historical investigations; and if they have no other merit, they will perhaps serve as the outlines of a picture which ought long since to have been completed.

That a standard, or ensign, was borne in the armies of all nations from the most distant era, is a fact which is too well established both by sacred and profane history to admit of the slightest doubt; but these observations will be confined to the Banners used in the English army from the Conquest to the death of Henry the Eighth. Until the latter part of the reign of Edward the First, materials for the inquiry are extremely scanty; and

almost all which will be here said on it before that time has been taken from Dr. Meyrick's admirable work on ancient armour.

Banners, in the present acceptation of the term, are coeval with the introduction of heraldry, or armorial bearings; and which may perhaps be safely stated to have been adopted in this country about the twelfth century: a question which will be partially

elucidated.

William the Conqueror is represented on his great seal with a lance in his right hand, to which a small pennon is attached'; and which Dr. Meyrick considers was then called a "gonfanon.” "It differs," that learned writer observes," from a banner in this respect, that instead of being square, and fastened to a tronsure bar, the gonfanon, though of the same figure, was fixed in a frame made to turn like a modern ship's vane, with two or three streamers or tails. The object of the gonfanon was principally to render great people more conspicuous to their fol lowers, and to terrify the horses of their adversaries: hence the gonfanon became a mark of dignity." From the Bayeux Tapestry it would appear that a kind of standard was borne near the person of the commander in chief; and which is described by the writers of the period as a gonfanon. Wace says,

"Li Barons ourent gonfanons, The Barons had gonfanons,

Li Chevaliers ourent penons." The Knights had pennons. The pennon was a sort of streamer; but the Conqueror's gonfanon, as depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry, has three tails, and is charged with a cross. Though the other gonfanons are variously coloured, they resemble each other in shape, of which a copy is given in the plate. William's is always painted Argent a cross Or, within a bordure Azure; and the same charge also occurs on the mast of his ship, though in a square form, of which a representation is also given. According to William of Malmsbury, the standard of the Conqueror, at the battle of Hastings, was in the form of a fighting man, wrought with gold and precious stones in a costly manner; and which he afterwards sent to the Pope. The gonfanon attached to the lance of

See Plate No. 5. 3 See Plate No. 3.

2 See Plate No. 4.
4 See Plate No. 2.

5« Vexillum illud post victoriam Papæ misit Willielmus, quod erat in hominis pugnantis figura, auro, et lapidibus arte sumptuosa contexum."-Lib. iii. p. 101. At the Battle of the Standard in 1138, the standard used by the English, we are told, consisted of the mast of a ship fixed upon a wheeled carriage, at the top of which was placed a silver pix, containing a consecrated wafer; and under were hung three banners, one dedicated to St. Peter, another to St. John of Beverley, and the third to St. Wilfred of Rippon.

William Rufus on his great seal is simply swallow-tailed1: that of King Stephen differed slightly in the form from both, and was charged with a cross. Henry Duke of Normandy's pennon is shown on the plate3, which also contains drawings of two other pennons used about the same period. As, after that time, the kings of England and other great personages are always represented with a sword instead of a lance in their right hands, no farther information is to be gleaned from their seals. Upon the adoption of armorial ensigns, there is ample evidence to show that the pennon or gonfanon was charged with the arms of the bearer: hence the precise period when Heraldry was introduced is so intimately connected with the subject, that some remarks on the point are indispensable. Montfaucon presents an example of arms on a shield on a monument in 1109; but the tomb of Geoffrey Mandeville, Earl of Essex, in the Temple Church, who died in 1148, is perhaps the earliest instance which exists of the use of armorial bearings in this country. No arms appear on the seals of our monarchs until the reign of Richard the First; and it was only on his second seal that the present ensigns of England were introduced. The great barons were not long before they imitated the seals of their sovereign. Saier de Quincy, Earl of Winchester, who died in 1219, and Richard de Montfichet, the last person of which name flourished in the reign of John and in the commencement of that of his successor, are represented on horseback, holding in their right hands a shield with their arms, and in their left a lance with a pennon similarly charged. The pennon of the earl is shown in the plates, and which contained the coat he used, Or a fess Gules and a label of eleven points Azure; whilst that of Montfichet appears charged with three chevronels, his arms being Gules three chevronels Or..

A still earlier instance remains, however, to be mentioned. In a collection of drawings of ancient seals is one of Waleran de Bellomont, who was created Earl of Worcester in 1144, and died in 1166. Upon one side he is represented on horseback, holding in his right hand a shield Checky, and in his left a lance with a pennon of four tails, the upper being Checky, and the legend Sigillum Gualerani Comitis Wigornie." On the reverse he also appears mounted, and has a shield in his left hand similarly charged, but his right supports a sword: the legend

66

2 See Plate No. 9.

1 See Plate No. 6. $ See No. 10. * See Nos. 8 and 11. Nearly all three pennons have been copied from the seals engraved either in Sandford's "Genealogical History," or in the first volume of the authorized edition of the "Statutes of the Realm."

5 See Plate No. 13.

7 In the Lansdown MS. 203.

6 See Plate No. 12.

See Plate No. 7.