Banners

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This article's completion rating is 2 out of 5. Article structure and content is subject to change as data is still being collected.
Completion Rating
This article's completion rating is 2 out of 5. Article structure and content is subject to change as data is still being collected.

Banners, standards, flags, gonfanon (guntfano) and pennons (pennants) were commonly adopted by the warriors of the 9th – 12th centuries. This article attempts to briefly outline what the authors currently know about the subject.
The style of banner stays surprisingly consistent from the 9th to the 12th centuries and across Western Europe. For this reason we’ve decided to look at all the evidence together rather than, as we usually do, break the evidence into English, Carolingian, etc.

From Art

Pennons

These are triangular flags or streamers.


Banners

These are rectangular flags ending in ‘swallowtails’.

Before 1066AD

The Bayeux Tapestry

Bayeux Tapestry Banners.jpg


After 1066AD

From Literature

  • Capitulary of Charles the Bald

“Let our envoys (missi nostril) see that the troops of every bishop, abbot, and abbess, march forth properly equipped, and with their Gonfalonier (cum Guntfannonario).”

[Hewitt 1885: p.166]


  • Wace (Line 11,450)

“L’Apostoile. Un gonfanon li enveia.”

[Hewitt 1885: p.166]

  • Beowulf

"High o'er his head they hoist the standard,
a gold-wove banner; let billows take him,
gave him to ocean."

[Fordham.edu]


"To Beowulf gave the bairn of Healfdene
a gold-wove banner, guerdon of triumph,
broidered battle-flag"

[Fordham.edu]


"His glance too fell on a gold-wove banner
high o'er the hoard, of handiwork noblest,
brilliantly broidered; so bright its gleam,"

[Fordham.edu]


  • Bede – Ecclesiastical History of England

"His [King Edwin] dignity was so great throughout his dominions, that not only were his banners borne before him in battle, but even in time of peace, when he rode about his cities, townships, or provinces, with his thegns, the standard-bearer was always wont to go before him. Also, when he walked anywhere along the streets, that sort of banner which the Romans call Tufa, and the English, Thuuf, was in like manner borne before him.

[Project Gutenberg 2011]


"….that there might be a perpetual memorial of the royal character of this holy man [King Oswald], they hung up over the monument his banner of gold and purple."

Osthryth, queen of the Mercians [Project Gutenberg 2011]