forms of flags now obsolete. The term flag is a generic one, and covers all the specific kinds. It is suggested that the word is derived from the Anglo-Saxon verb fleogan, to fly or float in the wind, or from the old German flackern, to flutter. Ensign is an alternative word formed on the idea of the display of insignia, badges, or devices, and was formerly much used where we should now employ the word colours. The company officers in a regiment who were until late years termed ensigns were at a still earlier period more correctly termed ensign-bearers. Milton, it will be recalled, describes a "Bannered host under spread ensigns marching." Sir Walter Scott greatly enlarges our vocabulary when he writes in "Marmion" of where

while Milton again writes of

We have seen that the pomp of funeral display led to the use of pictorial flags of religious type, and with these were associated others that dealt with the mundane rank and position of the

deceased. Thus we find Edmonson, in his book on Heraldry, writing as follows:—"The armorial ensigns, as fixed by the officers of arms, and through long and continued usage established as proper to be carried in funeral processions, are pennons, guidons, cornets, standards, banners, and banner-rolls, having thereon depicted the arms, quarterings, badges, crests, supporters, and devices of the defunct: together with all such other trophies of honour as in his lifetime he was entitled to display, carry, or wear in the field; banners charged with the armorial ensigns of such dignities, titles, offices, civil and military, as were possessed or enjoyed by the defunct at the time of his decease, and banner-rolls of his own matches and lineal descent both on the paternal and maternal side. In case the defunct was an Archbishop, banner-rolls of the arms and insignia of the sees to which he had been elected and translated, and if he was a merchant or eminent trader pennons of the particular city, corporation, guild, fraternity, craft, or company whereof he had been a member." However true the beautiful stanza of Gray—

the survivors of the deceased most naturally and most justly bore to their rest those to whom honour was due with the full respect to which their career on earth entitled them.

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, public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@40113@[email protected]#fig6"