The Cross of Burgundy

[Erpingham]

As we all I'm sure recall, the Hundred Year's War sees the origins of the English national flag, the Cross of St. George.  The use of this routinely through English armies is usually dated to the late 14th century.  At a similar time, the French adopted a white cross and the Bretons a black one.  When, however, did the Burgundians adopt the red saltire?  According to the internet, the first definite evidence is 1429.  However, there is speculation that it came into use during the civil war between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs in the early 15th century, perhaps around 1408.

Does anyone have a more concrete source which may settle the matter?

[Patrick Waterson]

The best I can find is that the Wikipedia article (Cross of Burgundy) has this:

"Its formal role in Burgundian iconography can be traced back to the foundation of the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1429, but Pedro de Ayala, writing in the 1490s, claims it was first adopted by a previous Duke of Burgundy to honour his Scottish soldiers: this must be a reference to the Scottish soldiers recruited by John the Fearless in the first years of the fifteenth century, led by the Earl of Mar and Earl of Douglas."

Ayala was a very successful Spanish ambassador to Scotland in the 1490s and came to know quite a few Scots in high places (including the King, the King's brother, the prothonotary and one Archbishop Blackadder).  Not sure if we can track down his writings online but reasonably sure he would know what he was talking about.

[Duncan Head]

http://www.cadole.eu/histoire/draipea/croix-de-bourgogne.htm says maybe 1408, definitely in 1411.

En 1411, lorsque la guerre civile faisait rage autour de Paris, les Parisiens, favorables à Jean sans Peur, arboraient à leur coiffure un petit sautoir de métal chargé d'une fleur de lys ; l'enthousiasme pour le duc était tel que « plusieurs prêtres en faisant leurs signacles à la messe ou en baptisant les enfants ne daignaient faire la croix droite, en la forme que Dieu fut crucifié , mais en la forme que Saint-André fut crucifié ».
...
En 1411, Jean sans Peur, maître de la personne du roi fou, entraîne l'armée royale contre ses adversaires. On note avec regret que ces troupes « laissèrent la croix droite blanche, qui est la vraie enseigne du roi, et prirent lai Croè do Sain Andrieu, devise du duc de Bourgogne ».

But no indication where these (and other) passages are quoted from.

Ah, https://www.academia.edu/20198051/Partisan_Identity_in_the_French_Civil_War_1405-1418_Reconsidering_the_Evidence_on_Livery_Badges has some interesting stuff - pewter badges with the Cross of St Andrew, but not yet the raguly version. And

When the Burgundians entered into Paris on 29 May, 1418, a vast majority of Parisians were already wearing the Burgundian crosses.

• n[eust] trouvé à Paris gens de tous estaz, comme moynes, ordres mendiens, femmes, hommes, portans la croix de Sainct-Andry ou de Troyes ou d'autre matière, plus de deux cens mille, sans les enffans. Lors fut Paris moult esmeu, et se arma le peuple moult plustost que les gens d'armes

- citing the Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris 1405-1449.

[Erpingham]

Thanks Duncan.  Further digging seems to point to a date around 1411 for the adoption of the saltire badge, paralleled by the Armagnac adoption of the white bend or sash. 

Plenty of detail in this 2006 thesis by  Emily Hutchison `Pour le bien du roy et de son royaume': Burgundian Propaganda under John the Fearless, Duke
of Burgundy, 1405-1419 http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/9893/1/431659.pdf (starting page 164).  Lots of stuff on the mass production of pennants with personal badges of the main protagonists too.

Thanks also to patrick for his Googling.  I had read this but it is very clear the information is there to date it more precisely and it has nothing to do with Scots, rather that St Andrew was the patron saint of the dukes of Burgundy. 

Incidentally, there doesn't seem to be any obvious evidence that the Burgundian saltire was originally of the "ragged staff" type.

[Patrick Waterson]

Incidentally, there doesn't seem to be any obvious evidence that the Burgundian saltire was originally of the "ragged staff" type.

If it started out as a 'smooth' saltire, the change to a ragged staff version might be explainable by the St Andrew connection; the crux decussata on which Andrew was crucified would have had to be roughly and rapidly improvised, and a 16th century painting shows it as being roughly planed on the surfaces which contact the saint, presumably reflecting the then-current idea and perhaps prompting a raguly association.  Intriguingly, as Emily Hutchinson points out, John the Fearless' opponent the Duke of Orleans devised a badge of a single knotted staff, and this at a time when John the Fearless was using a plane (wood shaving, not aviation) as his badge and would thus be into smooth saltires.  There may have been a temptation at the time the Armagnac sash came out to go one better than Orleans by using two ragged staves and if this tied in with the state of the saint's crucifixion apparatus, so much the better.

Not sure if that helps, but it may be one explanation.

[Erpingham]

Thinking about these early "mass use" badges, which were worn by common soldiers and civilians of a faction, something that could be made of a strip of cloth (a bend) or two strips (a cross or saltire) might have appeal.  Painting on banners or carving might have attracted a more artistic approach and a more nuanced image may have evolved.

[Patrick Waterson]

A worthy thought.  Between your good self and Duncan, we seem to have pinned the emergence of the Burgundy Cross down to AD 1411-ish and acquired some sort of rationale for its development.

[Swampster]

http://www.cadole.eu/histoire/draipea/croix-de-bourgogne.htm says maybe 1408, definitely in 1411.

En 1411, lorsque la guerre civile faisait rage autour de Paris, les Parisiens, favorables à Jean sans Peur, arboraient à leur coiffure un petit sautoir de métal chargé d'une fleur de lys ; l'enthousiasme pour le duc était tel que « plusieurs prêtres en faisant leurs signacles à la messe ou en baptisant les enfants ne daignaient faire la croix droite, en la forme que Dieu fut crucifié , mais en la forme que Saint-André fut crucifié ».
...
En 1411, Jean sans Peur, maître de la personne du roi fou, entraîne l'armée royale contre ses adversaires. On note avec regret que ces troupes « laissèrent la croix droite blanche, qui est la vraie enseigne du roi, et prirent lai Croè do Sain Andrieu, devise du duc de Bourgogne ».

But no indication where these (and other) passages are quoted from.

They are  from [attrib] Juvenal des Ursins' Histoire de Charles VI Roy de France https://archive.org/details/histoiredecharle00juv . This was written in the mid 15th century.

[Erpingham]

The wikipedia article now coincides with our conclusions, complete with sound citation thanks to Duncan.