Oriflamme
The oriflamme was the sacred war banner of the kings of France, kept at the abbey of Saint-Denis north of Paris: a red silk banner on a gilded lance, its end split into trailing tails. Louis VI first carried it to war in 1124; it was raised for the last time in the fifteenth century.
Meaning
François Velde’s history of the banner on Heraldica sets it apart from the French kings’ heraldic banner, fleurs-de-lis strewn on blue. Its history runs fairly continuously from 1124, when it is first mentioned, and it is first described in 1225. Velde gives it two parts: a gilded lance, and a silk banner, red with green fringes, its floating end split into two or more trailing strips. The name, aurea flamma, joins the banner (flamma) to the gold of the lance. Before a war the king came to Saint-Denis to “raise the banner”. It was destroyed during the French Revolution, Velde notes, and no one carries it now.
Origin and history
Louis VI took it up as a vassal of the abbey. Until the twelfth century, the Catholic Encyclopedia says, the abbey’s standard-bearer was the count of the Vexin, its temporal defender; Louis VI acquired the Vexin and became standard-bearer himself. In his quality of count of Vexin, the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica says, he bore the banner from the abbey to battle in 1124. The Catholic Encyclopedia adds that when war began he received Communion at Saint-Denis and took the standard from the saint’s tomb. Before it, the kings’ sacred banner was the plain blue banner of St Martin of Tours, the Chape de St Martin, which the oriflamme replaced as the ensign of war.
The sources disagree on when it last went into battle. The 1911 Britannica says it appeared on a battlefield for the last time at Agincourt in 1415. The Catholic Encyclopedia says it fell into English hands at Poitiers in 1356 and at Agincourt, and seems not to have been carried in battle after the Hundred Years’ War. Velde has the last raising in the late fifteenth century.
Charlemagne’s banner
The legends are older than the record. In the Song of Roland, of the eleventh century, Geoffrey of Anjou carries Charlemagne’s oriflamme; the poem says it had been Saint Peter’s and bore the name Roman, but on that day took the name Monjoie. The Catholic Encyclopedia gives the legend that the pope gave it to Charlemagne and says no historical text supports it; the banner of Saint-Denis was also said to have been given to the abbey by King Dagobert. Velde notes one author who traced it back through Charlemagne’s lance to Constantine’s Labarum.
How it looked
The descriptions differ, and the Catholic Encyclopedia gives the reason: over the centuries the first oriflamme was succeeded by newer ones that little resembled one another. The chronicler Guillaume Guiart called it a banner “de cendal voujoiant et simple”, of plain red silk with no picture, which the 1911 Britannica reads as a plain scarlet flag; an English writer called it “but of one colour, a square redde banner”. The Chronicle of Flanders gave it three points with tassels of green silk. The Catholic Encyclopedia reports, without certainty, that it was fiery red silk strewn with gold flames and stars. Velde notes that pictures show the banner either fixed along the lance or hung from a horizontal bar suspended from it, the second especially in the nineteenth century.
The war cry
“Montjoie Saint Denis” was the war cry that went with it. The Catholic Encyclopedia explains montjoie as the cairns along a road that served as milestones and meeting places, applied to the banner that was to guide soldiers into the fight.
The red of the tricolour
One explanation of the French tricolour gives it a share. The 1911 Britannica reports that some held the flag combines the blue of St Martin’s cape, the red of the oriflamme and the white of the Bourbons, while others said its colours were those of the city of Paris; it calls the origin of the colours a disputed question. Today’s flag is on the flag of France page.
Where you’ll see it today
whatdoesthissymbolmean.comFlag of FranceOne account of the tricolour takes its red from the oriflamme.Read next
- Next in Historical flagsCross of BurgundyThe Cross of Burgundy is a red saltire of two roughly cut branches on a white field, the badge of the dukes of Burgundy that became Spain’s military flag in the sixteenth century. It flew over Spain’s ships and forts in the Americas and the Philippines until the red and gold flag replaced it from 1785.
- The French kings’ heraldic banner, gold fleurs-de-lis on blue, distinct from the oriflamme.Fleur-de-lisA stylised flower of three petals bound by a band: the emblem of the kings of France, and from them a charge in heraldry. Today it is also the badge of the Scout movement and the emblem of New Orleans.
See also
Jolly Roger, Blackbeard’s flag, Calico Jack’s flag, Bartholomew Roberts’s flag, Emanuel Wynne’s flag, Vexillum.
Sources
- The Oriflamme, Standard of the French kings, François R. Velde, Heraldica (François R. Velde)
- Oriflamme (Catholic Encyclopedia), Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 11 (1911), Catholic Encyclopedia, via New Advent
- Flag (1911 Encyclopædia Britannica), Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition (1911), vol. 10, Encyclopædia Britannica, via Wikisource, Early flags; French
- The Song of Roland, translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff, 1919 (Project Gutenberg ebook 391), Project Gutenberg, laisse CCXXV
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from lines or triangles.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 14, 2026. How we research
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