their vessels with flags. The poet Benoît de Sante-More tells us that it was in this fashion, covered with seven hundred banners, that Rollo brought his fleet back up the Seine to Meulan. The Middle Ages made use of all kinds of fanciful decorations for their vessels. During

A galley, says the learned M.

Jal," was in those

days a species of jewel, and was handed over for embellishment to

the hands of gen

ius, as a piece of metal was given to Benvenuto Cellini."

Sculptors, painters, and poets combined their talents to adorn a ship's stern. A striking example of this artistic refinement in naval ornamentation was the Spanish galley constructed in 1568 by order of Philip II., for his brother, Don John of Austria, to whom he confided the command of the fleet intended to fight the barbarous Moorish States of Africa. The vessel's cut-water was painted white, and emblazoned with the royal arms of Spain and with the personal arms of Don John. The prince being a Knight of the Golden Fleece, the history of Jason and of the good ship Argo was represented in colored sculpture on the stern, above the rudder. This pictured poem was accompanied with four symbolical statues, - Prudence, Temperance, Power, and Justice, - above which floated angels carrying the symbols of the theological virtues. On one side of the poop might be seen Mars the avenger, Mercury the eloquent, and Ulysses stopping his ears against the seductions of the Sirens; on the other, Pallas, Alexander the Great, Argus, and Diana. Between these were inserted pictures, which conveyed either a moral lesson for the benefit

of the young admiral, or a delicate eulogium on Charles V., his father, or on Philip II., his brother. All these emblems were chefs-d'œuvre of drawing and sculpture, which the brilliancy of their gold, azure, and vermilion settings tended to enhance.1

The illuminated copies of Froissart's Chronicles,' in the British Museum, present many curious illustrations of the manner of carrying flags at sea. Some of the vessels have a man at arms in the top holding on a staff the banner of the nation to which it belongs. One of the illu-oig Am

Ship of Henry VI.'s Time, 1430-61.

minations of the time of Henry VI. (1430-61) represents a ship with shields slung along her topsides, a very ancient practice, which was continued by painting the arms and devices on the bulwarks, and from whence come the figure-heads and stern carvings of modern ships. Two trumpeters at the stern have standards blazoned with fleurs-de-lis, attached to their trumpets, and a similar standard is displayed from her masthead. In some instances, the banners of ships were consecrated. Baldwin, Earl of Flanders (1204), had one, and William the Conqueror, when he invaded England (1066), hoisted at the masthead of the Mora, the ship that conveyed him to its shores, 1 Le Croix's Military and Religious Life in the Middle Ages.

a square white banner. This banner was charged with a gold cross within a blue border, surmounted by another cross of gold, conse

Her sail is painted in three stripes; viz., red or brown, yellow, and red. All the ships of William's fleet were painted in horizontal stripes, differently colored. The Mora was painted alternately brown and blue. A variety of colors were borne by English ships in the fourteenth century. Besides the national banner of St. George, and the banner of the king's army (which, after the year 1340, consisted of three lions of England quartered with the arms of France, - azure semée of gold fleur-de-lis), every ship had pennoncels with the arms of St. George and two streamers charged with the image of the saint after whom she was called, if she had not a Christian name, the streamers contained other charges. About 1346, one hundred and sixty pennoncels with the arms of St. George were made for ships. The standards of St. George had sometimes a leopard, i.e. the lion of England, in chief.

In 1337, the St. Botolph and the St. Nicholas carried streamers with the images of those saints. These streamers were from fourteen to thirty-two ells long, and from three to five in breadth. Before the battle of Espagnols sur Mer, in 1350, two standards and two streamers were issued to all the king's ships, those called after saints having their effigies. Some of the other streamers were peculiar. That of the Jerusalem was white and red, and contained white dragons, green lozenges, and leopards' heads. That of the Edward had the king's arms with an E, and the streamer and banner of the ship appointed for the king's wardrobe was charged with his arms and a black key. Two gonfanons are stated to have once been supplied to ships, probably to distinguish the vessels that bore them, carrying ecclesiastics, from other vessels; also a streamer charged with a dragon.

STREAMERS were considered warlike ensigns. One of the requisitions made to the Mayor of Lyons by the French ambassadors

appointed to carry the treaty of Montreuil into effect, was, that the masters of ships belonging to Lyons, who were going to those ambassadors in Hainault, should be forbidden to bear unusual streamers, or other signs of mortal war, until commanded to do so by the king, to avoid incurring the dangers mentioned in the eighth article of a convention agreed to before Pope Boniface the Eighth, for settling some disputes between the French and the inhabitants of Lyons, and of other maritime towns of England and of Gascony.

The banner of the admiral of a fleet was hoisted on board his ship; and when any eminent person was a passenger, his banner was also displayed. In 1337, Sir John Roos, admiral of the northern fleet, was sent to convey the Bishop of Lincoln and the Earls of Salisbury and Huntingdon on their return to England from a foreign mission; and the Christopher was furnished with banners of the arms of Sir John Roos, of the Bishop of Lincoln, and of the Earl of Salisbury. These banners were one ell and three-quarters long, and two cloths wide. The Christopher also received a banner of the king's arms, and two worsted standards, which were nine ells long and three cloths wide.

Besides streamers bearing a representation of the saint for whom a ship was named, his image was sent on board. When Edward III. embarked in his Cog, the Thomas, in 1350, before the battle with the Spaniards, an image of St. Thomas was made for that vessel; and an image of Our Lady, captured in a ship at sea by John de Ryngeborne, was carefully conveyed from Westminster to Eltham, and there delivered to the king, February, 1376. Targets and pavises or large shields, great numbers of which were placed on every ship, were sometimes painted with the arms of St. George, or with an escutcheon

of the king's arms within the garter.1

On a manuscript relating the principal events in the life of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, written by John Rous, a chanting priest of Guy's Cliff, there is a representation of a ship having a main and mizzen mast with the sail braced up for sailing on a wind, contrary to the earlier practice of sailing always before the wind. The streamer does not fly in accordance with the angle of the sail; but this anomaly by the priestly artist may be supposed to have arisen from his desire to

1 Sir N. Harris Nicolas's History of the Royal Navy, vol. ii.

make the best display of the armorial bearings on the streamer. From the following bill, the original of which is preserved in Dugdale's Warwickshire,' it seems this streamer was made in 1437, viz. :—

"These be the parcells that Will Seburg, citizen and peyntour of London, hath delivered in the month of Juyn [July], the xv yeer of the reign of King Harry Sext [1437], to John Ray, taillour of the same city, for the use and stuff of my Lord Warwick.

"Item, for a grete Stremour for the ship of xl yerds lenght, and vij. yerdes in brede, with a grete Bear and Gryfon holding a ragged staff, poudrid full of ragged staves, and for a grete crosse of St. George, for the lymming and portraying

"Item, for a guiton for the shippe, of viij. yerdes long, poudrid full of ragged staves, for the lymming and workmanship

"Item, iij. Pennons of satyn entreteyned with ragged staves, for the lymming full of ragged staves, price the piece, ijs,

1. 6. 8.

0. 2. 0.

3. 6. 0."

The gryfon mentioned in this account does not appear on the streamer; probably it was painted on the side not seen; with this exception, the streamer of the ship is identified with that described in the bill, and shows that the ship was equipped July, 1437. The use of streamers was confined to ships, and is continued in the narrow or coach-whip pennants of modern ships of war.

When Eustace, the monk, in 1217, put to sea from Calais with a fleet of eighty ships, besides galleys and smaller craft, intending to proceed up the Thames to London, and was descried off the coast of England, some one exclaimed, "Is there any one among you who is this day ready to die for England?" and was answered by another, "Here am I;" when the first speaker observed, "Take with thee an axe, and when thou seest us engaging the tyrant's ship, climb up the mast and cut down the banner, that the other vessels may be dispersed for the want of a leader." We may infer from this that the French commander of a fleet carried a distinguishing banner. Yet nothing has been found showing that the English admiral in the reign of Edward II. bore any distinguishing ensign by day. As the admiral and his vice-admiral certainly carried distinguishing lights by night, it is extremely probable that his ship was indicated by his banner at the masthead, which agrees with the fact that vessels were supplied with the banner of the admiral who sailed in them. In 1346, on an expedition against Normandy, Froissart says, Edward III. took the ensign from the Earl of Warwick, the admiral, and declared that he himself would be admiral on the voyage, and, running ahead, led the fleet.

On a rose noble of Edward III., the king is represented as standing