| Fig. 1.—Egyptian Standards. |
The Persians bore an eagle fixed to the end of a lance, and the sun, as their divinity, was also represented upon their standards, which appear to have been formed of some kind of textile, and were guarded with the greatest jealousy by the bravest men of the army. The Carian 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.
| Fig. 2.—Assyrian Standards. |
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 Lacedaemonians 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 (see fig. 3).
| Fig. 3.—Roman Standards. |
The question of the signa 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 in later times were 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 discs, with figures of Mars or Minerva, or in later times portraits of emperors or eminent generals (Fig. 3). Figures of animals, as the wolf, horse, bear and others, were borne, and it was not till a later period that the eagle became the special standard of the legion. According to Pliny, it was Gaius 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, which was 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 medieval gonfalon. Examples of 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, which was 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 as the vexillum from a horizontal crossbar, but displayed as our modern flags, that is to say, by the attachment of one of its sides to a staff. After Constantine, the labarum bore the monogram of Christ (fig. 5, A). It is supposed that the small scarf, which in medieval 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; and the reverence of this people for their ensigns was in proportion to their superiority to other nations in all that tends to success in war. 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. The Roman soldier swore by his ensign.
Although in earlier times drapery was occasionally used for standards, and was often appended as ornament to those of other material, it was probably not until the middle ages that it became the special material of military and other ensigns; and perhaps not until the practice of heraldry had attained to definite nomenclature and laws does anything appear which is in the modern sense a flag.
Early flags were almost purely of a religious character. In Bede’s description of the interview between the heathen king Æthelberht 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 undoubtedly dates from the 13th century, and the Danish flag is therefore the oldest now in existence.
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, and it frequently led the French to victory. 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 government to Paris, where the great local saint, 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 also of its appearance vary considerably. Guillaume Guiart, in his Chronicle says:—