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The Oriflamme was mentioned in the 11th-century ballad the Chanson de Roland (vv. 3093–5) as a royal banner, first called Romaine and then Montjoie. [3] According to legend, Charlemagne carried it to the Holy Land in response to a prophecy regarding a knight possessing a golden lance from which flames would burn and drive out the Saracens. [4]
The French Society of Vexillology is the authority on the flying of flags in France and maintains the only official register of flags for the country. [1] It was established in 1985 and as part of the Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques operates under the authority of the Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation .
The national flag of France (drapeau national de la France) is a tricolour featuring three vertical bands coloured blue (), white, and red.The design was adopted after the French Revolution, whose revolutionaries were influenced by the horizontally striped red-white-blue flag of the Netherlands.
The flags with the French flag in the canton, which on many occasions were already existing flags without the tricolour, resembled the British colonial flags, which originated as defacements of the British ensigns, which have the British Union Jack in the canton, and a red, white or blue fly.
The origin of flags is unknown. Some of the earliest known banners come from ancient China to identify different parts of the army. [3] For example, it is recorded that the armies of the Zhou dynasty in the 11th century BC carried a white banner before them, although no extant depictions exist of these banners.
France on the eve of the modern era (1477). The red line denotes the boundary of the French kingdom, while the light blue the royal domain. In the mid 15th century, France was significantly smaller than it is today, [a] and numerous border provinces (such as Roussillon, Cerdagne, Calais, Béarn, Navarre, County of Foix, Flanders, Artois, Lorraine, Alsace, Trois-Évêchés, Franche-Comté ...
A decade or so later, the rule for the merchant navy was modified to allow every kind of ensign, provided it wasn't all white. This caused two new types of French ensigns: regional or local flags flown as French ensign, and personal designs intended to show as much white as was possible without it being considered all white.
France moderne remained the French royal standard, and with a white background was the French national flag until the French Revolution, when it was replaced by the tricolor of modern-day France. The fleur-de-lis was restored to the French flag in 1814, but replaced once again after the revolution against Charles X in 1830.