The Banner was the flag of a troop, and was borne by knights, called after it bannerets, an order which held a middle rank between knights-bachelors and the barons or great feudatories of the crown. The flag of a knight-banneret was square at the end, but not an exact square on all the sides. The perfectly square banner was the flag of a baron, and of those of higher rank. It was only on the field of battle, and in presence of the royal standard, that a knight-banneret could be created. It was the custom for the commander of the host thus to reward the distinguished services of a knight-bachelor bearing a pennon, and he did so by tearing off the "fly," or outer part of that flag, and by so doing giving it a square form, thus making it a banner, and its bearer a knight-banneret. The ceremony is thus described by Blome.[9] "The king (or his general), at the head of the army, drawn up into battalia after a victory, under the royal standard displayed, attended with all the field-officers and nobles of the court, receives the knight led between two renowned knights or valiant men-at-arms, having his pennon or guydon of arms in his hand; and before them the heralds, who proclaim his valiant achievements, for which he deserves to be made a knight-banneret, and to display his banner in the field. Then the king (or general) says unto him Advances toy, Bannaret, and causes the point of his pennon to be rent off; and the new knight, having the trumpets before him sounding, the nobles and officers accompanying him, is remitted to his tent, where they are nobly entertained." But knights were thus promoted before a battle as well as after it. Froissart relates the manner in which the celebrated Sir John Chandos was made banneret by the Black Prince before the battle of Navarete. The whole scene forms a striking picture of an army of the middle ages moving to battle. Upon the pennons of the knights, penoncels of the squires, and banners of the barons and bannerets, the army formed, or, in modern phrase, dressed its line. The usual word of the attack was, "Advance banners in the name of God and Saint George." "When the sun was risen," writes Froissart, "it was a beautiful sight to view these battalions, with their brilliant armour glittering with its beams. In this manner they nearly approached to each other. The prince, with a few attendants, mounted a small hill, and saw very clearly the enemy marching straight towards them. Upon descending this hill he extended his line of battle on the plain, and then halted. The Spaniards, seeing the English halted, did the same, in order of battle; then each man tightened his armour and made ready as for instant combat. Sir John Chandos then advanced in front of the battalions, with his banner [pennon] uncased in his hand. He presented it to the prince, saying 'My lord, here is my banner; I present it to you that I may display it in whatever manner shall be most agreeable to you, for, thanks to God, I have now sufficient lands that will enable me so to do, and maintain the rank which it ought to hold.' The prince, Don Pedro being present, took the banner in his hands, which was blazoned with a sharp stake gules, on a field argent; and after having cut off the tail to make it square, he displayed it, and, returning it to him by the handle, said, 'Sir John, I return you your banner: God give you strength and honour to preserve it.' Upon this Sir John left the prince, and went back to his men with the banner in his hand."[10] [10] Johnes' Froissart, vol. i. p. 731. A banneret was expected to bring into the field at least thirty men-at-arms—that is, knights or squires mounted—at his own expense; and each of these, again, besides his attendants on foot, ought to have had a mounted crossbow-man, and a horseman armed with a bow and axe—forming altogether a large troop. The same force might be arrayed by a knight under a pennon, but his accepting a banner bound him to bring out that number at least. After the reign of Charles IV. this obligation fell into disuse in France, and in England, soon after that time, it also ceased to be observed.[11] Judging, however, from the contemporary heraldic poem of the "Siege of Carlaverock" (June, 1300), it would appear that early in the fourteenth century there was a banner to every twenty-five or thirty men-at-arms. At that period the English forces comprised the tenants in capite of the crown, who were entitled to lead their contingent under a banner of their arms—either by themselves or under a deputy of equal rank. Thus at Carlaverock the Bishop of Durham sent 160 of his men-at-arms, with his banner intrusted to John de Hastings. But his banner on this occasion bore, not the cognisance of the see, but simply his paternal arms. Having mentioned this old poem—in which the arms of every banneret in the English army are accurately blazoned—it may be interesting to give one of the opening verses, as an example of the Norman French of the period— "La ont meinte riche garnement
Brode sur cendeaus et samis,
Meint beau penon en lance mis,
Meint baniere desploie." In English—There were many rich caparisons, embroidered on silks and satins, many a beautiful penon fixed to a lance, and many a banner displayed. In the Scottish wars, the banner of St. Cuthbert was, in the English army, carried by a monk. This continued to be done so late as the reign of Henry VIII. In the same way the banner of St. John of Beverley was carried by one of the vicars of Beverley College—who, by the way, received eight pence halfpenny per diem as his wages, to carry it after the king—a large sum in those days—and a penny a day to carry it back.[12] The bearer of a banner, or bannerer as he was called, was in these early times a very important personage. In the old paintings in MSS. the persons holding the national or royal banners are generally represented in the same kind of armour as the chief leaders. And they were liberally rewarded for their services. In 1361 Edward III. granted Sir Guy de Bryon 200 marks a year for life for having discreetly borne the king's banner at the siege of Calais in 1347.[13] We learn from the "Siege of Carlaverock" that a pennon hung out by the besieged was the signal for a parley. When the castle surrendered there were placed on its battlements, we are told, the banners of the king, of St. George, of St. Edmund, and St. Edward, together with those of the marshall and constable of the army. To these were added the banner of the individual to whose custody the castle was committed. But it is doubtful whether in the fifteenth century any others but those of the king and St. George were affixed to captured fortresses. In France the office of custodier of national banners—such as the Oriflamme—was hereditary. It was the same in Ireland, which claims a higher antiquity in the use of banners than any other European nation; and in Scotland the representative of the great house of Scrymgeour enjoys the honour of being banner-bearer to the sovereign.[14] It was the custom in early times to have banners suspended from trumpets. At the battle of Agincourt the Duke of Brabant, who arrived on the field towards the close of the conflict, is said, by St. Remy, to have taken one of the banners from his trumpeters, and, cutting a hole in the middle, made a surcoat of arms of it. To this circumstance Shakespeare thus alludes— "I will a banner from my trumpet take
And use it for my haste." Chaucer, too, notices banners being suspended from trumpets— "On every trump hanging a brod banere, Of fine tartarium full richly bete, Every trumpet his lorde's armes bere."[15] At coronations banners were also used; and in the fifteenth century heralds, when despatched on missions, appear to have carried a banner bearing their sovereign's arms. Banners were also for a long time used at funerals. It was not till about the period of the Revolution that the practice fell into comparative desuetude.
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