design and use...banners, guidons, pennons, and streamers. There were also many flags of a personal, family, or local significance that were of a different, and usually more complex, pattern. Of the main types, the standard was the largest and was intended, from its size, to be stationary. It marked the position of an important individual before a battle, during a siege, throughout a ceremony, or at a...
heraldic devicesIn addition to national flags, there are banners, rectangular pieces of cloth showing the armorial bearings of the owner, and standards, strips of cloth that taper gradually to the end and usually bear heraldic badges. In the hoist (the part of the flag nearest to the staff) a standard will bear either the national cross (e.g., that of St. George, St. Andrew, St. Patrick, or St. Denis) or the...Arms in the Middle Ages were often displayed on fork-tailed pennons attached to lances. If the forked ends were cut away, the resulting flag was similar in shape to a small banner. Especially valorous conduct could be recognized in that way, and the knight thus distinguished was known as a knight banneret. The banner bears its owner’s arms as if it were a square shield, and today most......the leaves are proper (lifelike). Coronets of rank are not usually mentioned in English or Scottish heraldry, but caps of maintenance and crest coronets must be blazoned with the crest. Banners and standards are not as a rule mentioned in blazons, though they may be when they occur in a modern grant.
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