Standards
(Size of) varied according to the rank of the person who bore them. The standard of an emperor was eleven yards in length; of a king, nine yards; of a prince, seven yards; of a marquis, six and a half yards; of an earl, six yards; of a viscount or baron, five yards; of a knight-banneret, four and a half yards; of a baronet, four yards. They generally contained the arms of the bearer, his cognisance and crest, his motto or war-cry, and were fringed with his livery.
The Battle of the Standard, between the English and the Scotch, at Cuton Moor, near Northallerton, in 1138. Here David I., fighting on behalf of Matilda, was defeated by King Stephen’s general Robert de Moubray. It received its name from a ship’s mast erected on a waggon, and placed in the centre of the English army; the mast displayed the standards of St. Peter of York, St. John of Beverley, and St. Wilfred of Ripon. On the top of the mast was a little casket containing a consecrated host. (Hailes: Annals of Scotland, i. p. 85.)
