FLAG, a general name for colours, standards, ancients, banners, ensigns, &c.
The fashion of pointed or triangular flags, as now used, Rod. Toletan assures, came from the Mahometan Arabs, or Saracens, upon their seizure of Spain, before which time all the ensigns of war were stretched or extended on cross pieces of wood, like the banners of a church. The pirates of Algiers, and throughout the coasts of Barbary, bear an hexonal flag.