Feudal Flags and Banners
The banners of the feudal sovereigns were, many of them, very splendid affairs, often bearing all their arms and quarterings. They were borne wherever their owners went,—in war, to the capital, and at their country houses. At all ceremonious functions the banners were ever near the persons of their sovereigns as a sign of suzerainty. The owner of a banner would often have it cut out of metal and placed on the gables of his house as a weather-vane, a custom which, in its adapted form, has endured through the ages to this day. In tournaments, the nobles had their banners attached to their lances, and made therewith always the sign of the cross before commencing their passes. Also their banners or banderoles were hung from the trumpets of the heralds of their house.
Another variety of feudal standard, differing from either the bannière or the pennon, was the gonfanon. This was borne only by bacheliers, vassals of an overlord.
“N’i a riche hom ni baron
Qui n’ait lès lui son gonfanon.”
The feudal banner, the house flag of the feudal seigneurs, and borne by them in battle, was less splendid than the bannière royale, which was hung from a window balcony to mark a kingly lodging-place. It was in fact only a small square of stuff hanging from a transversal baton. This distinguished, in France, a certain grade of knights known as chevaliers-bannerets. These chevaliers had the privilege of exercising certain rights that other knights did not possess.
To be created chevalier-banneret one had to be twenty-one years of age. If a chevalier was already a bachelier, a grade inferior to that of a banneret, to become a full blown chevalier he had only to cut the points from his standard—a pennon—when it and he became a banneret; that is to say, he had the right to carry a banner, or to possess a fief de bannière.
There were three classes of fiefs in feudal France. First; the fief de bannière, which could furnish twenty-five combatants under a banner or flag of their own. Second; the fief de haubert, which could furnish a well-mounted horseman fully armed, accompanied by two or three varlets or valets. Third; the fief de simple écuyer, whose sole offering was a single vassal, lightly armed.
There was, too, a class of nobles without estates. They were known as seigneurs of a fief en l’air, or a fief volant, much like many courtesy titles so freely handed around to-day in some monarchies.