Vessels in the Middle Ages, as in ancient times, had frequently gold-coloured and purple sails. The sails of seigniorial ships were generally brilliantly emblazoned with the coat-of-arms of the seignior (Fig. 94); the sails of merchant vessels and of fishing boats with the image of a saint, the patron figure of the Virgin, a pious legend, a sacramental word, or a sacred sign, intended to exorcise evil spirits, who played no inconsiderable part in the superstitions of the toilers of the deep. Different kinds of sails were originally employed to make signals at sea, but flags soon began to be used for this purpose. A single flag, having a different meaning according to its position, ordinarily sufficed to transmit all necessary orders in the daytime. At night its place was taken by lighted beacons. These flags, banners, standards, and pennants, most of them embroidered with the arms of a town, a sovereign, or an admiral, were made of some light stuff, taffeta or satin. Sometimes square, sometimes triangular, sometimes forked, each had its own use and signification, either for the embellishment of the vessel’s appearance or to assist in its manœuvring. The galleys were provided with a smaller kind of pennant, which was put up at the prow or fastened to the handle of each oar: these were purely for ornamental purposes, and were often trimmed with golden or silken fringes. Amongst the most celebrated flags and standards of the French navy we must not omit to mention the _baucents_, a name that recalls the _Bauséant_, the banner of the Knights Templars. These flags, made of red taffeta, and sometimes “sprinkled with gold,” were only employed in the most merciless wars, for, says a document of 1292, “they signified certain death and mortal strife to all sailors everywhere.” In 1570, Marco-Antonio Colonna hoisted on his flag galley a pennant of crimson damask, which bore on both sides a Christ on the Cross between St. Peter and St. Paul, with the Emperor Constantine’s motto, _In hoc signo vinces_. The banner which Don Juan of Austria received at Naples, on the 14th of April, 1571, with the staff of supreme command over the Christian league, was made of crimson damask fringed with gold, on which were embroidered, besides the arms of the prince, a crucifix with the arms of the Pope, of the Catholic king, and of the republic of Venice, united by a chain, symbolical of the union of the three powers “against the Turk.”