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same thing, namely, a man who under certain conditions of descent was entitled to armorial bearings. Hence Du Cange divides the mediæval nobility of France and Spain into three classes: – first, barons or ricos hombres; secondly, chevaliers or caballeros; and thirdly, écuyers or infanzons; and to the first, who with their several special titles constituted the greater nobility of either country, he limits the designation of banneret and the right of leading their followers to war under a banner, otherwise a "drapeau quarré" or square flag.[1] Selden mentions as an instance of "the nearness and sometimes community of the title of banneret and baron" the "bannerherr" or "dominus vexillifer" of the empire. And he also shows especially from the parliament rolls that the term banneret has been occasionally employed in England as equivalent to baron, where, for example, in the reign of Richard II. among "divers other earls and barons there mentioned by name 'plusiers autres barons et bannerets esteants au dit parlament assemblez'" are referred to.[2] In Scotland even as late as the reign of James VI., lords of parliament were always created bannerets as well as barons at their investiture, "part of the ceremony consisting in the display of a banner, and such 'barones majores' were thereby entitled to the privilege of having one borne by a retainer before them to the field of a quadrilateral form."[3] In Scotland, too, lords of parliament and bannerets were also called bannerents, banrents, or baronets, and in England banneret was often corrupted to baronet. "Even in a patent passed to Sir Ralph Fane, knight under Edward VI., he is called 'baronettus' for 'bannerettus.'"[4] In this manner it is not improbable that the title of baronet may have been suggested to the advisers of James I. when the Order of Baronets was originally created by him, for it was a question whether the recipients of the new dignity should be designated by that or some other name.[5] But there is no doubt that as previously used it was merely a corrupt synonym for banneret, and not the name of any separate dignity. On the Continent, however, there are several recorded examples of bannerets who had an hereditary claim to that honour and its attendant privileges on the ground of the nature of their feudal tenure.[6] And generally, at any rate to commence with, it seems probable that bannerets were in every country merely the more important class of feudatories, the "ricos hombres" in contrast to the knights bachelors, who in France in the time of St Louis were known as "pauvres hommes." In England all the barons or greater nobility were entitled to bear banners, and therefore Du Cange's observations would apply to them as well as to the barons or greater nobility of France and Spain. But it is clear that from a comparatively early period bannerets whose claims were founded on personal distinction rather than on feudal tenure gradually came to the front, and much the same process of substitution appears to have gone on in their case as that which we have marked in the case of simple knights. According to the Sallade and the Division du Monde, as cited by Selden, bannerets were clearly in the beginning feudal tenants of a certain magnitude and importance and nothing more, and different forms for their creation are given in time of peace and in time of war.[7] But in the French Gesta Romanorum the warlike form alone is given, and it is quoted by both Selden and Du Cange. From the latter a more modern version of it is given by Daniel as the only one generally in force. "Quand un bachelier," says the ceremonial in question, "a grandement servi et suivi la guerre et que il a terre assez et qu'il puisse avoir gentilshommes ses hommes et pour accompagner sa bannière il peut licitement lever bannière et non autrement; car nul homme ne doit lever bannière en bataille s'il n'a du moins cinquante hommes d'armes, tous ses hommes, et les archiers et les arbelestriers qui y appartiennent, et s'il les a, il doit à la premiere bataille ou il se trouvera apporter un pennon de ses armes et doit venir au connetable ou aux maréchaux ou à celui qui sera lieutenant de l'ost pour le prince et requirir qu'il porte bannière, et s'il lui octroyent doit summer les herauts pour temoignage et doivent couper la queue du pennon."[8] The earliest contemporary mention of knights banneret is in France, Daniel says, in the reign of Philip Augustus, and in England, Selden says, in the reign of Edward I. But in neither case is reference made to them in such a manner as to suggest that the dignity was then regarded as new or even uncommon, and it seems pretty certain that its existence on one side could not have long preceded its existence on the other side of the Channel. Sir Alan Plokenet, Sir Ralph Daubeney, and Sir Philip Daubeney are entered as bannerets on the roll of the garrison of Caermarthen castle in 1282, and the roll of Carlaverock records the names and arms of eighty-five bannerets who accompanied Edward I. in his expedition into Scotland in 1300. Selden quotes some and refers to, many of the wardrobe accounts of Edward II. in which contracts with and payments to bannerets are mentioned, observing that "under these bannerets divers knights bachelors and esquires usually served, and according to the number of them the bannerets received wages."[9] What the exact contingent was which they were expected to supply to the royal host is doubtful. In the authorities collected by Selden, Du Cange, and Daniel it varies from ten and twenty-five to fifty men-at-arms with their attendants. Grose seems to prefer the medium estimate of a hundred mounted combatants in all, that number forming a square of ten in each face, and being the lowest equivalent of the more modern squadron.[10] But, however this may be, in the reign of Edward III. and afterwards bannerets appear as the commanders of a military force raised by themselves and marshalled under their banners – although paid through them by the sovereign – who were moreover always persons of property and soldiers of distinction. At the same time their status and their relations both to the crown and their followers were the consequences of voluntary contract not of feudal tenure. It is from the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. also that the two best descriptions we possess of the actual creation of a banneret have been transmitted to us. During Edward the Black Prince's expedition of 1367 into Spain, Sir John Chandos, one of the founder Knights of the Garter, was made a banneret on the morning of the day on which the battle of Navarrete was fought. When the troops were drawn up in order before the action commenced, "Sir John Chandos," says Froissart, "advanced in front of the battalions with his banner uncased in his hand. He presented it to the prince, saying, 'My lord, here is my banner; I present it to you that I may display it in whatever manner shall be most agreeable to you; for, thanks to God, I have
- ↑ On the banner see Grose, Military Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 257; and Nicolas, British Orders of Knighthood, vol. i. p. xxxvii.
- ↑ Titles of Honor, pp. 356 and 608. See also Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. iii. p. 126 sq., and Stubbs, Const. Hist., vol. iii. p. 440 sq.
- ↑ Riddell's Law and Practice in Scottish Peerages, p. 578. Also Nisbet's System of Heraldry, vol. ii. p. 49; and Selden's Titles of Honor, p. 702.
- ↑ Selden, Titles of Honor, pp. 608 and 657.
- ↑ See "Project concerninge the conferinge of the title of vidom," wherein it is said that "the title of vidom (vicedominus) was an ancient title used in this kingdom of England both before and since the Norman Conquest" (State Papers, James I. Domestic Series, vol. lxiii. p. 150 B, probable date April 1611).
- ↑ Selden, Titles of Honor, p. 452 sq.
- ↑ Selden, Titles of Honor, p. 449 sq.
- ↑ Du Cange, Dissertation IX.; Selden, Titles of Honor, p. 452; Daniel, Milice Françoise, vol. i. p. 86.
- ↑ Selden, Titles of Honor, p. 656.
- ↑ Military Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 206.
