British Flags: Their Early History, and Their Development at Sea: With an Account of the Origin of the Flag as a National DevicePerrin, William Gordon
History
British Flags: Their Early History, and Their Development at Sea: With an Account of the Origin of the Flag as a National Device
Perrin, William Gordon
Flags -- Great Britain
The remaining flag of the Norman army is an enigma. In form, the
segment of a circle fringed along the circumference, it contains a
representation of a bird with closed wings and outstretched claws,
placed with its back to the staff, so that when the spear is held
inclined forward, as in the Tapestry, it appears to be standing on the
ground. The suggestion of Meyrick that this represents an ancestral
flag of the men of the Cotentin, the descendants of the Danes of Harold
Blaatand, is more ingenious than satisfying, for the Danish raven was
never depicted in this tame position. Its attitude resembles that of
the hawks seen perched on Guy's hand in the two early scenes in which
he leads Harold to William, and indeed in the lower border, which
throughout the tapestry contains frequent allusions to the events
depicted above it, there appears immediately below this flag a hawk
chasing a rabbit. From its unusual--not to say unique--form it would
seem to belong to a people of different race from that of the bulk of
the army, and the only body of men present in William's army fulfilling
this condition were the Celts of Brittany, whose leader Alan had
command of the third division of the army, and whose flag therefore
must have been one of the most important of those in the field.
On the English side, the most important object is the Dragon Standard
(Plate I, fig. 2) which is symbolically shown in two positions: upright
in the hand of the standard-bearer, and fallen to the ground with
its bearer lying dead across its staff. Immediately behind it Harold
himself is likewise represented twice, first upright and drawing the
arrow from his eye, and then prone, receiving his final wound. A little
before this, in the scene which portrays the death of Harold's brothers
Gyrth and Leofwine, there lies on the ground a triangular flag, with
fringed tails hanging from the lower edge, a form similar to that
found on the tenth century Northumbrian coins[41]. This is the only
flag which, like the standard, is lying on the ground; its overthrow
must therefore have had a great symbolic importance in the mind of
the designer of the tapestry, and the only flag that we know of which
would fulfil this condition is that one against which the brothers took
their stand (see p. 32). This was the flag upon which the figure of a
fighting man was worked in gold, and although the tapestry does not
show this figure (probably because there is not room for it), there can
be little doubt that the representation of that flag is intended.
L'estendart unt à terre mis
E li Reis Heraut unt occis
E li meillor de ses amis;
Li gonfanon à or unt pris.
They have overthrown the standard
And slain King Harold
And the best of his friends;
They have taken the gold-worked
gonfanon.
_Roman de Rou_, V, 13956-9.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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