so blazoned, as to. appear correctly when the lance is thus held. Fig. 194.
Penoncels, or Pensils, were small pennons, usually borne to ensign the helmet, or to form part of the caparisons of the knight’s charger.
The Pendant, as carried by vessels of the Royal Navy, is a variety of the pennon, but narrower, and of much greater length, being sometimes 20 or 30 yards long. In the upper portion is blazoned the cross of St. George.
Was a small flag nearly square, or a pennon, with the points torn off. It was the custom for a sovereign to reward a knight on the field of battle, for any particular act of gallantry, by tearing the points off his pennon, thus converting it into a banner. Henceforth the knight was entitled to blazon his arms on a square shield, and was styled a knight-banneret. The banner (which contained all the quaterings of him who bore it) was carried either on a pole or lance, or more frequently depending from a trumpet, which custom is still retained by the trumpeters of the Household Brigade. We read in Shakespeare, ‘I will a banner from a trumpet take, and use it for my haste.’
‘The trustiest of the four
On high his forky pennon bore;
Like swallow’s tail in shape and hue.
Fluttered the streamer glossy blue,
Where, blazoned sable, as before,
The towering falcon seemed to soar.’—Marmion