King Arthur´s Banner

Description of the Product

This Arthurian banner features the arms of the legendary king Arthur, three crowns. If King Arthur actually existed, many historians would place him as a war leader in early 6th C. Britain, after the fall of Rome, seeking to halt the invasion of the Saxons, a warring Germanic tribe. There are many indications that England did, after a time of much strife, have a brief period of peace and prosperity in what is now called "The Dark Ages".  As heraldry only started in the late 1100’s, Arthur would have pre-dated his coat of arms by over half a millennia. But we mustn’t let facts spoil a perfectly good story, and that’s what they thought in early medieval Europe too. As it was expected of all notables of the time to have their own coat of arms, these were then retroactively attributed to many real, as well as fictional, people from the past, from king David and Jesus onwards. At first these arms were arbitrary, and changed from author to author, but eventually the arms of major figures in history, such as king Arthur, became fixed.

King Arthur himself was assigned many different arms, but from the 13th century onwards he was most commonly given the symbol of three gold crowns. The reason for the triple-crown is unknown, as there are many three things the crowns could symbolize, for example the three realms of Britain: Logres, Cambria and Alba, (or as they now are known, England, Wales and Scotland). Three crowns is a notable heraldic symbol outside Arthurian legends as well, it is for example the seal of the Swedish king Magnus Eriksson. His Three Crowns, Tre Kronor, have been the arms of Sweden from the 1330’s onwards.

This luxurious banner is made with thick yellowish velvet, and the golden crowns are embroidered. The banner has two fabric loops for either hanging it on your heralds trumpet, or simply on a curtain rod or a pole for adding a touch of medieval charm to your home decor.

• Made of luxurious velvet
• The loops are about 10cm long and 5,5cm wide
• Width c. 56cm
• Height c.104cm