''Baucent'' (''bauceant, baussant'', etc.) was the name of the

war flag A war ensign, also known as a military flag, battle flag, or standard, is a variant of a national flag for use by a country's military forces when on land. The nautical equivalent is a naval ensign. Under the strictest sense of the term, few co ...

(''vexillum belli'') used by the

Knights Templar The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a Military order (religious society), military order of the Catholic Church, Catholic faith, and one of the most important military ord ...

in the 12th and 13th centuries.

Description

13th-century sources show it as a white gonfanon with a black chief (''argent a chief sable'').

Jacques de Vitry Jacques de Vitry (''Jacobus de Vitriaco'', 1160/70 – 1 May 1240) was a medieval France, French canon regular who was a noted theology, theologian and chronicler of his era. He was elected Latin Catholic Diocese of Acre, bishop of Acre in 1 ...

, writing in the 1220s, mentions the ''gonfanon baucent'' and explains that the

black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

colours symbolise the Templar's ferocity towards their enemies and their kindness towards their friends. It appears that later in the 13th century, the red cross of the Templar could be added to the banner. In a damaged fresco of the late 13th century in the Templar church of San Bevignate,

Perugia Perugia ( , ; ; ) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber. The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area. It has 162,467 ...

, a Templar banner is depicted with the upper half in white and the lower half in black, with the red cross patty attached to the white field. The same fresco also shows a

shield A shield is a piece of personal armour held in the hand, which may or may not be strapped to the wrist or forearm. Shields are used to intercept specific attacks, whether from close-ranged weaponry like spears or long ranged projectiles suc ...

and horse-covers in the same design.

Naming

The name ''baucent'' (also spelled ''bausent, bauceant, baussant, beausseant, beauséant'' etc.D. H. Wolf, ''Internationales Templerlexikon'' (2015)
130f.
/ref>) in origin is the

Old French Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th -4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ...

term for a piebald horse. The name was later approximated to the French ''bien-séant'', meaning "decorous, becoming". The name was also used as a battle cry by the Templars, ''À moi, beau sire !'' ''Beauséant à la rescousse !'' (French for "To me, good sire ! Beauséant to the rescue").

Regulations of use

According to the statutes of the order as edited by Münter (1794), each squadron (''eschielle'') of the order had its own banner. In battle, the banner-bearer was obliged to avoid direct contact with the enemy, and between five and ten brothers were specifically charged with guarding the banner. If any brother were to find himself separated from his banner, he was obliged to try to reach the nearest Christian banner in the field. No brother was permitted, on pain of expulsion from the order, to leave the field of battle as long as at least one banner of the order was still flying. If all of the Templars' banners had been lost, the men were expected to flock to the nearest banner of the Hospitallers, or any other Christian banner still flying. Only after the last Christian banner had fallen were they permitted to think about saving their own lives.

Use by others

After the dissolution of the order, the

Freemasons Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...

adopted the banner. It has also been noted that, according to a medieval legend,

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

was said to have had a similar banner with miraculous powers. Gustav Weil, ''Biblische legenden der muselmänner'', English translation 1863
p. 70
"Alexander was the lord of light and darkness, when he went out with his army the light was before him, and behind him was the darkness, so that he was secure against all ambuscades; and by means of a miraculous white and black standard he had also the power to transform the clearest day into midnight and darkness, or black night into noonday, just as he unfurled the one or the other. Thus he was unconquerable, since he rendered his troops invisible at his pleasure, and came down suddenly upon his foes. Might there not have been some connection between the mythical white and black standard of Alexander and the Beauseant of the Templars? We know that the latter were familiar with Oriental symbolism."

References

{{reflist Military flags Religious flags Knights Templar Masonic symbolism

Description

Naming

Regulations of use

Use by others

See also

References