"French Flags, Banners & Standards 1480 - 1530" Topic

Were personal swallow tailed standards with heraldic devices peculiar to the English or could they be found in French armies also?

The standards I am aware of for French armies of the above period fall into the following groups;

Cross of St. Denis against a plain or striped background.

Device of the King i.e; porcupine or salamander

Fleur de lys banners

Other than these 'national' banners i've not seen that much in the way of personal banners carried by captains or nobility apart from the odd square heraldic banner.

Many thanks

Stuart

Have a set of REVO flags from the HYW period that include pennants for the dukes of Bourbon, Berry, and Orleans. Maybe they still used them in that later period.
Ron

Freezywater Flags make two sets of personal banners each for 15mm and 28mm French Italian Wars.

I've used 15mm flags for Lautrec and La Palice;

Hi Stuart
Planning your 1513 French forces already, or just an abandoned banner on the ground!! ? :)
Simon.

French personal standards are going to be swallow tailed, but rarely showing the arms of the owner. So Francis 1 would have had salamanders and golden 'F's all over, but not 'France Modern' which is a blue field and 3 fleur de lys, which were his arms as king.
There is very little info on this subjsct. You are best advised to seek out contemporary paintings and miniatures – of which there are lots – and work your way through as best you can.

The Duke of Bourbon had a Golden winged stag on a green and white field with the St Denis cross on blue where the English flags have the St Georges Cross. There is a picture of it in the dated Osprey book on European Medieval Armies.

Louis De Tremoille had a golden wheel on a red, white and green flag but I don't think this was heraldic, more like a livery banner.

I think they would have carried swallow tailed standards and heraldic ones but as Wyeayeman says they are difficult to find. The Ordonnance companies had swallow tailed flags in the 15th century which I imagine would have still been carried in the early Italian wars:

As a side note the book on the Battle of Linlithgow bridge between the Douglas and Lennox in 1526 has some colour plates that show the Scots carrying the swallow tailed flags with the St Andrews cross and their devices in the same style as the English

link

PM; the idea is in there but I'm finding it hard to come by decent resource material, though at the speed I go there may well be some books on the subject by the time I need them!

WAM; good idea, I assume there could be something in French out there too maybe?

I think that the previous system of heraldic pennons and banners (14th century) was slowly replaced by personal forked (often with rounded points) standards, with livery coulours and a personal device or symbol, in the 15th century.

Probably the great nobles were bored with their family coats of arms which had been in the family for generations and they wanted something more personal to go to war :)

Stuart
Seen these? I have the Swiss ones and can attest to the great quality and they're based on original reference materials.
auction

Cheers, Simon.

I have found this antique book which contains listings,illustrations and descriptions of the heraldic badges, devices and motto's used by a variety of European aristocracy;

link

The link above allows you to view it in its entirety, the illustrations aren't great but a start for painters and a possible starting point for a few banners.

Italian, French, Spanish and English are listed

My search continues!

Stuart

Hi Stuart, the Hamlyn History of the World in Colour, Volume Nine, Renaissance and Reformation ed JR Hale and text by Robert Knecht has several plates depicting Louis xii, his troops and various flags. As a general rule his flags are yellow over red and either a golden porcupine or a depiction of st. Michael and a golden sunburst. There are also pictures of gendarmes with what look like depictions of heraldic flags on pages 26, 34 and 35. There is also a picture captioned the French capture of Pisa in 1494 however I think this is wrongly attributed as the flags on the parapets of Pisa look very much like Breton flags however I hope I'm wrong as Pisan flags are hard to track down.

cheers Pete
link

Pete17- thanks for the book reference. I found a copy online and ordered it.

Nice one Pete, very much appreciated!