Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/181

 12 S. V. JULY, 1919.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

175

Another suggested origin not improbable is that it represents the traditional " colours " of the B.V.M. or Panayia ; this idea seems consonant with the constantly -expressed " Mariolatry " of the Greek 'Church, and may be paralleled with the figure of the Panayia impressed on Byzantine coins.

It would be a matter of considerable interest to discover what were the standards, flags, or colours of the Byzantine Empire. The flag which Richard I. hung up in the church of Bury St. Edmunds as a trophy from Cyprus was a work of embroidery and probably resembled an ordinary feudal 'banner.

A legend has it that Miaolis, the popular hero of the Greek Revolution, asked to make a flag, tore up his shirt (white) and breeches (blue) and pieced them together for the tmrpos'e. N

The national flag of the Greek Republic (1821-33) was probably the blue flag with a white cross, now the naval flag of the modern Greek kingdom.

It is reasonable to suppose, in lieu of direct evidence, that the blue and white striped flory of the present Greek flag originates in the Republican period, imitating the " star- -spangled banner " of the greatest republic of modern times, itself adapted from an old English colonial flag (by Act of Congress, 1808).

Any ordinary history of the Byzantine Empire refers to pestilent factions with their party badges of " blue and white " and " red and green " opposed to each other ; how far these badges were retained in a subse- quent age after the introduction of feudalism and the consequent decay of the democratic
 * spirit in the Eastern Empire is difficult to

discover ; the famous factions continued to exist at the end of the seventh century, and until the coming of the Arabs and the general spread of Mohammedanism.

Turkish sultans reigning in Byzantium have carried on the institutions and tradi- tions of their Byzantine predecessors ; it is not therefore inconceivable that in the modern Greek and Turkish national emblems may linger souvenirs from the early cen- turies of Levantine history. The " blue and white" and "red and green" which still distinguish severally the Rumelian or Romaic Greeks and the Anatolian Turko- mans may be but one of those singular coincidences which admit of very little -explanation and may in fact be merely accidental. The ill-defined origin of the 'Turkoman or Moslem natives of Asia Minor

allows of a supposition that they may have been represented by the " reds and greens " in an earlier age. G. J.> F.S.A.

Cyprus.

[We have also received a translation of a recently published leaflet on 'The National Badge' (Flag), circulated among Boy Scouts in Greece, which we may subsequently find room for.]

LITERATURE AND ICONOGRAPHY OF LONDON PEACE CELEBRATIONS. It is of some topical interest to note the wealth of pamphlets and prints that the successive Peace celebrations in London have provided. The purpose of the earlier forms was to describe and represent the public displays of fireworks usually provided by the Board of Ordnance. Most familiar in this class is ' A Description of the Machine for the Fireworks, &c., in which they are to be exhibited in St. James's Park, Thursday, April 27, 1749.' This, and the many con- temporary engravings it occasioned, cele- brated the General Peace signed at Aix- la-Chapelle, Oct. 7, 1749.

These official firework displays were for at least another hundred years the principal feature of the celebrations. There was, for example, a display of fireworks in Hyde, Green and Victoria Parks on May 29, 1856. The programme (4 pp. fcap.) provides, in 24 divisions, detail of an immense number of rockets, &c. The late Mr. Eliot Hodg- kin in his collections on fireworks (vide ' Rariora ' ) made a special quest of these items and the frequently exchanged dupli - cates.

Trafalgar, the Peninsula and Waterloo came in the age of panoramas and showmen's exhibitions. The Waterloo Museum at 97 Pall Mall was established in 1815, but soon had rivals at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly ; the Oplotheca, 20 Lower Brook Street, Bond Street ; the Gothic Hall, Pall Mall, and finally the Royal Armoury, Haymarket. Except the display at 97 Pall Mall they cannot, however, be identified as " celebrating " exhibitions. Most remark- able of its kind, and worthy of special mention now as having hitherto escaped notice, was " Mr. Michel's Exhibition of Crocodiles " at 18 Dover Street, " intended to commemorate the victory of Lord Nelson near the mouth of the Nile, &c." The date of the catalogue before me is 1800, and in some 15 pages " this astounding creature " is described at some length. There were only ten exhibits, which it is necessary to add were mostly models of crocodiles, " the only specimen of this wonderful animal in England, to the knowledge of the artist,