Christ Knights’ Order Naval Flags (Portugal)

Last modified: 2015-09-01 by klaus-michael schneider
Keywords: christ knights’ order | ordem dos cavaleiros de cristo | bandé | fascé | cross: offset (black) | cross (white) | canton: cross | stripes: diagonal |
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• Order cross on gyronny flag…
  • …white and green
  • …blue and gold
• white bordured flag (early 16th century)
• Black cross flag
  • Bandé variant
  • Fascé variant

• Portugal - Historical flags
• Portugal

Order cross on gyronny flag…

(…white and green)

Christ Order cross on green over silver gironny, from the map of Jorge Reinel, 1540 [jre40]. The original depiction shows the cross whole with black instead of silver, but this must be either an error or a tint alteration (according to [p9t94]).
António Martins-Tuválkin, 22 May 1997

(…blue and gold)

Christ Order cross on silver over blue gironny, from the map of Fernão Vaz Dourado, 1570 [fvd70] (shown, i.a., in [p9t94]).
António Martins-Tuválkin, 22 May 1997

white bordured flag (early 16th century)

The flag with the Christ Order cross within a red tressure on white field is shown on a painting depicting the ships from early 16th century, which is kept in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK. The aspect ratio is very close to 4:3 - the height is greater than the width. The flag is shown on the enlarged detail of the painting as flying from the ship's cordage among other different flags. Unlike the other flags, only one copy of this one is shown in the image detail, so there must be very few of its copies in the whole painting. The tressure is not visible very well, but still recognizable. Unfortunately, the source does not give any information about the painting, so it is yet to discover if the painter did see such a flag. For the part of its unusual aspect ratio, all other flags on this painting also employ it, so it must have been used for some flags contemporary with the painting.
Source: "Istorija otkrića i istraživanja, vol. I: Početak istraživanja"; Mladinska knjiga, Ljubljana, 1979; original title: "A History of Discovery and Exploration, vol. I: The Search Begins"; Aldus Books Limited, London; 1973
Tomislav Todorović, 21 May 2009

Black cross flag

This flag was one of the flags used by the Knights of the Order of Christ on their ships. It began to be used in the middle of the 17th century until circa 1789. The 1669/70 manuscript [xxx69] shows the flag with three horizontal stripes red - white - blue, with a black cross surmounted by a “shortened” (alesee) white one: this design comes from the 1647 work ofCleirac [cle47] which describes the flag:

Les Portugais portent facé de gueulles, d’argent et d’azur, chargé de la croix de sable ou noir, et derechef brisé sur icelle une autre croix pleniere d’argent, les quelles croix sont la devise des Chavaliers del ’Ordre du Christ qui ont grandement travaillé et travaillent incessamment aux navigations de Portugal vers l’Indie Orientale

L’Ordre des Chevaliers de Jesus Christ… les chevaliers ont travaillé et travaillent encore aux navigations orientales et portent pour banniere le pavillon fascé de gueules, d’argent et d’azur, chargé d’une croix de sable et brisé sur icelle une autre croix d’argent.

[bel56], as shown in the cover of [sie63], calls it «Autre Pav. de Portugal.» (1st of the flags partly visible on the 6th row from the bottom): A flag with a black cross over hoist bends of white blue and red, with in the canton maybe a white cross.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 5 Jan 2001

I never saw this flag in any Portuguese source (neither this one nor the other with a black cross over all) and I wouldn’t be too surprised if the whole thing about a black cross with blue and red stripes turns out to be one big mystification after all. Two quite different concurring designs casts serious doubts on the subject, that’s for sure. And one can certainly wonder why the Christ Knights’ Order would use a quite different flag for its ships, when its distinctive and widely known cross used on land (incl. overseas, see the portolanoes with the usual order flag sticked all across Asia, Africa and South America) and also painted on the ships’ sails…
António Martins-Tuválkin, 25 Dec 2001

Worth noting is that [sig12] describes the flag as follows (my translation):

Portugal from 1580-1640 was in a personal union with Spain and its ships flew the Spanish flag. Where in graphical representations from this period Portuguese ships with flags are pictured the latter have the Burgundy cross. After Portugal aquired independence several flags came into use, which may have been already in use before and during the Spanisch rule. Fournier [fnr43] indicates that the Portuguese of the Indies flew a white flag with an astrolabium. Cleirac [cle61] confirms this and further mentions, as a common flag, a black cross on a multiple blue-white-red diagonally striped field, where the upper quarter has a white cross.

Bandé variant

This flag is shown in the Encyclopédie de Diderot et D’Alembert (1768-1771).
Aitor Yuste, 28 Sep 2003

This flag described as Portuguese in the first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1768-71). The whole flag is covered in diagonal stripes running from upper hoist to lower fly at 45 degrees. Six white stripes separated by six stripes divided lengthways into red and blue. Thus the sequence from lower hoist to upper fly is double width white, red, blue, double width white, red, blue, etc..
On top of this background is a St. George’s cross of uncertain colour (probably not red or blue or green or yellow; perhaps black?) In the canton is another St. George’s cross probably white outlined in some way. (The reproduction is in black and white with no key, so I’ve guessed the colours by comparison with the shading used on known flags.)
David Prothero, 22 May 1997

A similar flag is illustrated in a flag chart reproduced in Whitney Smith’s [smi75b] — see page 204. The diagonal stripes appear to all be the same width, and the St George’s Cross is indeed shown to be black. The flag is labled «Pav. de Portugal particulier.» The chart appears to date from the early to mid 18th century.
Nick Artimovitch, 22 May 1997

The same colours and the same crosses, however, appear like this on many 18th century flag charts, suggesting that Cleirac[cle47] and those who copied him, misinterpreted the true flag design.
Mario Fabretto, 25 May 1997

All sources I saw mentioning this flag show the non-orthogonal stripes less wide and less vertical, resulting in differences in details. I think this is true for Siegel [sig12], Norie and Hobbs [noh71], a book by the late D. W. Visser [vis95], and [bel56] as reproduced in part on the cover of [sie63], where this is true as well.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 23 Dec 2001

The image above (with strict 45° slants and constant stripe width) comes from an article by Adolf Durán [drn90f]. I suppose it is an “idealized” design, based on several sketchy (secondary) sources.
António Martins, 25 Dec 2001

• [vis95] pictures an Old German Flagchart (dated c. 1814-1823) which includes a flag captioned «Portugal (Kaufm.)» (=«Portugal (Merchant)»). This is the same flag as in [bel56], as shown in the cover of [sie63] (see below), with the same black cross, the same error in colour alternation at the foot of the cross, and indeed a narrow white cross throughout the upper hoist quarter. The white cross is drawn with dark lines, probably to distinguish it from the bends, though I guess in a real flag this would have been relief. For a 27 unit hoist, the white cross is 1 unit wide, the bends are 2 units wide (if measured diagonal to the flag) and the black cross is 3 units wide. From the hoist top the colours progress blue-red-white down along the hoist. (In this picture the flywise arms of the white cross are something like a unit too low for a centered cross (for that quarter), which is all the more noticeable for the black cross being one unit to high.)
  Bottom to top along the hoist:
  • red-blue-white-red-blue-white (white just reaching around the foot of the black cross, where the next red should be)
  • red (hidden by the foot of the cross)
  • blue (hidden by the dexter arm of the cross)
  • white-red-blue (at this division rests the foot of the white cross, as well as its dexter arm)
  • white-red-blue
  • …
  (8 white stripes in all)


• [bel56], as shown in the cover of [sie63], has «Autre Pav. de Portugal.»:
  • red-blue-white-red-blue (hidden by the dexter arm of the cross)
  • white (as above)
  • red-blue (supporting the foot of the white cross)
  • …
  (might be 6 white stripes, it’s on the edge of the cover)
• [sig12] has it in the section 1695-1700 as «Portugal : Gewöhnl. fl.» (=«Portugal common flag», as opposed to the Royal flag next to it.):
  • red-blue-white-red-blue (mostly hidden by the dexter arm of the cross and hidden by its foot)
  • white (being the next colour directly sinister of the foot)
  • red (on which rests the dexter arm of the white cross) (on this division rests the foot of the white cross)
  • blue
  • white (in the top hoist corner)
  • (5 white stripes).

Well, they all seem to agree on red in the corner and the second white being immediately sinister of the foot of the cross (even if they have to cheat to make that happen). I’d say they are from a common origin, though I don’t know whether that leads back to an actual flag. It’s interesting to note that a description like «a cross with a white cross fitting within its arms», while intended to describe the Cross of Christ could easily be interpreted (by a Northerner?) as a cross throughout with a white cross in the canton, even if the white cross on the white stripes of the background has its drawback. (Which is part of why all sources I mentioned use small black lines to draw the white cross.)
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 27 Jan 2001 and 18 Apr 2002

Both images (in [bel56], as shown in the cover of [sie63], and in [vis95]) have the black cross foot obscuring part of a white bend and most of the red bend immediately flyward. However, they show the tiny corner of bend directly flywise from the cross foot as white. A bit curious since the images aren’t copies at all.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 27 Jan 2001

Fascé variant

(with blue bottom stripe)

The 1669/70 manuscript [xxx69] shows the flag with three horizontal stripes red - white - blue, with a black cross surmounted by a “shortened” (alesee) white one: this design comes from the 1647 work of Cleirac [cle47] who describes the flag:

Les Portugais portent facé de gueulles, d’argent et d’azur, chargé de la croix de sable ou noir, et derechef brisé sur icelle une autre croix pleniere d’argent, les quelles croix sont la devise des Chavaliers del’Ordre du Christ qui ont grandement travaillé et travaillent incessamment aux navigations de Portugal vers l’Indie Orientale

(with red bottom stripe)

The Sketchbook (No. 21) gives a somewhat different (incorrect) drawing specified as «Dell’ ordine di Christo in Portogallo». There it is a red flag with a black cross, the horizontal arms of which have a white border, and superimposed on that the white couped cross. This may well indicate that the artist drew from nature, because the dark blue stripe at the bottom of a flying flag may, when lighted in a particular way, have made the impression of a dark red. Cleirac [cle47] (page 64/66) also mentions this flag. The other sources do not include it.
Dave Martucci, 31 Jul 1997, quoting [sie66]

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