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F. Edward Hulme
Their History, Blazonry, and Associations
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The names bestowed upon the different kinds of flags have varied from time to time, the various authorities of mediæval and modern days not being quite of one mind sometimes, so that while the more salient forms are easily identifiable, some little element of doubt creeps in when we would endeavour to bestow with absolute precision a name to a certain less common form before us, or a definite form to a name that we encounter in some old writer. Whatever looseness of nomenclature, however, may be encountered on the fringe of our subject, the bestowal of the leading terms is sufficiently definite, and it is to these we now turn our attention, reflecting for our comfort that it is of far greater value to us to know all about a form that is of frequent recurrence, and to which abundant reference is made, than to be able to quite satisfactorily decide what special name some abnormal form should carry, or what special form is meant by a name that perhaps only occurs once or twice in the whole range of literature, and even that perhaps by some poet or romance writer who has thought more of the general effect of his description than of the technical accuracy of the terms in which he has clothed it.
The Banner first engages our attention. This was ordinarily, in the earlier days of chivalry, a square flag, though in later examples it may be found somewhat greater in length than in depth, and in some early examples it is considerably greater in depth than in its degree of projection outwards from the lance. In the technical language of the subject, the part of a flag nearest the pole is called the hoist, and the outer part the fly. Fig. 37 is a good illustration of this elongated form. It has been suggested that the shortness of the fly in such cases was in order that the greater fluttering in the wind that such a form as Fig. 30 would produce might be prevented, as this constant tugging at the lance-head would be disagreeable to the holder, while it might, in the rush of the charge, prevent that accuracy of aim that one would desire to give one's adversary the full benefit of at such a crisis in his career. Pretty as this may be as a theory, there is probably not much in it, or the form in those warlike days of chivalry would have been more generally adopted. According to an ancient authority the banner of an emperor should be six feet square; of a king, five; of a prince or duke, four; and of an earl, marquis, viscount, or baron three feet square. When we consider that the great function of the banner was to bear upon its surface the coat-of-arms of its owner, and that this coat was emblazoned upon it and filled up its entire surface in just the same way that we find these charges represented upon his shield, it is evident that no form that departed far either in length or breadth from the square would be suitable for their display. Though heraldically it is allowable to compress or extend any form from its normal proportions when the exigencies of space demand it,[4] it is clearly better to escape this when possible.[5] The arms depicted in Fig. 37 are certainly not the better for the elongation to which they have been subjected, while per contra the bearings on any of the banners in Figs. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, or 11, have had no despite done them, the square form being clearly well-adapted for their due display.
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