Banner for Iselda de Narbonne

I made this silk banner as a gift to celebrate Ieslda de Narbonne's induction into the Order of the Laurel, the highest award of recognition in the arts within the SCA. Iselda does not have registered heraldry, so in designing a silk banner for her, I worked off what I knew about her persona. Her primary area of focus is early medieval music (circa 11th-13th century). Her persona is ~11th century and from Narbonne, France. Finally, she is an accomplished harpist and vocal performer.

I started by looking for 11th century imagery of banners and found a few examples. A common design seemed to be a square-ish hoist with a single heraldic element and two or five tails (with 3 being fairly common).

Working from that design, I decided on a harp as the primary charge. From a general survey of harps in heraldry, I found that they're almost always gold. To provide contrast, I pulled the colors from Narbonne’s modern flag (blue and red) for the field of the banner. I chose the design for the harp from an image that Iselda had shared several times. It comes from a 12th century manuscript on music.

Finally, as a personal touch, I added a Mill Cross to the body of the harp, making it look like a carved design. The Mill Cross is the populus badge of the Shire of Roxbury Mill, where both Iselda and I call home.

With the design finalized, this banner went together fairly easily. I followed the same steps I go into detail on my Personal Heraldry page. This was my first time working with long tails and I love them. 10/10 will do it again.

I turned over the first few inches of the banner and hand sewed it into a sleeve to fit over a 1" PVC pipe or dowl rod for display. I also attached silk ties to the top and bottom in case the banner needs to be tied on to a poll.

This banner was gifted to Iselda in October 2020.