close of the eighth century a.d. that we meet with evidence of its existence. About the year 800 Pope Leo III caused a mosaic to be placed on the apse of the Triclinium of the Lateran Palace, in which on the right Christ was represented as handing the keys of the Church to Pope Sylvester and a flag to Constantine, while on the left St Peter was handing a pallium to Leo and a similar flag to Charlemagne. Except for some fragments in the Vatican this mosaic has disappeared, but engravings showing it before and after restoration are to be found in a description of the Lateran published at Rome in 1625[33]. In these the flags are depicted as attached by one side to a staff, whilst the fly is cut into three pointed tails. The field in both flags is charged with six roses, but the reproduction made from early drawings by Benedict XIV in 1743, which is still in existence at Rome in the Tribune against the Santa Scala, shows the flag on the right, which is of a green colour, sprinkled with golden stars, not roses. In the year 800 Charlemagne was crowned emperor at Rome, and received from the Patriarch of Jerusalem the keys of that city together with a flag the form of which is not stated. Evidently these flags were symbols of authority, as we have seen the vexillum to have been centuries before.

There are several instances during the succeeding centuries of this ceremonial presentation of a flag by high ecclesiastical authorities to the leaders of expeditions whose aims received the approval of the Church, the most important, from our point of view, being the presentation made to William the Conqueror before his expedition to England. Beside these there appear to have been other flags in use which symbolised the patronage and protection of some especial saint, as for instance the vexillum of St Maurice borne in the Spanish campaigns of Charlemagne.

It seems probable that the laterally-attached form of flag had its origin in the East, for Ximenes de Rada, Archbishop of Toledo, who died in 1247, mentions this form as one of the special characteristics of the Arabs who overcame Roderic in 711 a.d. and conquered Spain[34].

It is true that, as will be seen in the next chapter, the Danes were using this form in the ninth century, but it is more probable that they had adopted it from the Franks than that they had invented it; certainly the only standards of the Germanic tribes known to the Romans were animal emblems, which were kept in the sacred groves until required in battle[35].

The form of flag that first comes into evidence in the Lateran mosaic, that in which the flag is attached laterally to the staff while the fly is cut into three pointed tails, appears again upon two Carlovingian book-covers of carved ivory, one of the ninth and one of the tenth century, now preserved in South Kensington Museum. Neither of these bears any device upon it, but in another book-cover of the twelfth century in the same collection a small cross saltire appears in the body of the flag, and the tails are proportionately of much greater length. This form, to which the term "gonfanon" became applied, was the principal form in use until the twelfth century, when it began to be replaced by the rectangular banner, which offered a more suitable field for the display of the personal devices that afterwards developed into heraldic charges.

The most important historical monument that has survived to illustrate the use of the gonfanon is the celebrated piece of embroidery known as the Bayeux Tapestry. We need not here enter into the controversy that has so long raged over the question of the exact date to be assigned to this unique work. The weight of evidence inclines strongly toward a date within the last two decades of the eleventh century, but if we admit a date as late as 1150 a.d. it will not materially affect the conclusions we shall draw. In addition to five rather rudimentary forms at the mastheads of the ships, twenty-five gonfanons in all are depicted, two with five tails, one with four, and the remainder with three. Only a small proportion of the hundreds of armed men who appear in the various scenes of military activity portrayed bear gonfanons on their spears. These are the greater leaders—the barons, as the Normans called them. The variation in the number of tails is probably merely an incidental caprice of the designer or embroiderers, but there is one gonfanon which greatly exceeds the rest in size and in the length of its tails, which in this case alone are shown of such length as to curl in the wind[36]. It appears in the representation of that crucial moment in the battle at which the Normans, taken with a sudden panic, and believing that their Duke had fallen, were about to quit the fight, when William, lifting his helmet from his face, turned towards them and called out that he was still alive and by God's help would yet conquer. At the same time, a companion figure, which from the mutilated superscription in the tapestry appears to be Eustace of Boulogne, lifts this gonfanon high in the air with his left hand while with the right he points to the Duke's face; a significant action, calling attention in a twofold manner to William's presence. This gonfanon is probably the one consecrated and sent by Pope Alexander; the principal flag of the Norman army on the day of battle[37]. It cannot be supposed that the most elaborate flag in the whole tapestry is merely the personal gonfanon of Eustace, and indeed the assertion of M. Marignan that the device shown in this gonfanon represents the arms of the Counts of Boulogne has been sufficiently refuted by Dr Round[38]. As a matter of fact this device (which may be described as a cross formy between four roundels) was not an uncommon one at that period. It will be found upon the reverse of many of the coins of the Holy Roman Emperors from Charlemagne onwards and upon those of some of the English monarchs before the Conquest. On the other hand, the gonfanons which appear in earlier scenes in the tapestry either in William's hand or in the hand of the gonfanoner in attendance on him, display only a plain Greek cross. It is therefore not unreasonable to assume that this particular device was associated with sovereign power and would consequently be suitable for a banner that was intended to be an outward sign of the Pope's claim to transfer the sovereignty of England from Harold to William. Moreover, according to Wace, William formally adopted the consecrated gonfanon as his own before the battle: