an ancient order of knights, or feudal lords; who, possessing several large fees, led their vassals to battle under their own flag or banner, when summoned thereto by the king. The word seems formed from banner, "a square flag," or from band, which anciently denoted a flag.—Bannerets are also called in ancient writers milites vexilliferi, and vexillarii bannerarii, bannarii, banderift, &c.

Anciently there were two kinds of knights, great and little; the first whereof were called bannerets, the second bachelors; the first composed the upper, the second the middle, nobility.

The banneret was a dignity allowed to march under his own flag, whereas the bachelorius eques followed that of another. To be qualified for a banneret, one must be a gentleman of family, and must have a power to raise a certain number of armed men, with estate enough to sustain at least 28 or 30 men. This must have been very considerable in those days; because each man, besides his servant, had two horsemen to wait on him armed, the one with a cross-bow, the other with a bow and hatchet. As he was not allowed to be a baron who had not above 13 knights fees, so he was not admitted to be a banneret if he had less than 10.

Banneret, according to Spelman, was a middle order between a baron and a simple knight; called sometimes also vexillarius minor, to distinguish him from the greater, that is, from the baron, to whom alone properly belonged jus vexilli, or privilege of the square flag. Hence the banneret was also called bannerettus, quasi baro minor; a word frequently used by English writers in the same sense as banneret was by the French, though neither of them occur before the time of Edward II.

Some will have bannerets to have originally been persons who had some portion of a barony assigned them; and enjoyed it under the title of baro proximus, and that with the same prerogatives as the baron himself. Some, again, find the origin of bannerets in France, others in Brittany, others in England. These last attribute the institution of bannerets to Conan, lieutenant of Maximus, who commanded the Roman legions in England under the empire of Gratian in 383. This general, say they, revolting, divided England into 40 cantons, and in these cantons distributed 40 knights; to whom he gave a power of assembling, on occasion, under their several banners, as many of the effective men as were found in their respective districts; whence they are called bannerets. However this be, it appears from Froissart, &c. that anciently such of the military men as were rich enough to raise and subsist a company of armed men, and had a right to do so, were called bannerets. Not, however, that these qualifications rendered them knights, but only bannerets; the appellation of knight being only added thereto, because they were simple knights before.

Bannerets were second to none but knights of the Garter. They were reputed the next degree below the nobility; and were allowed to bear arms with supporters, which none else may under the degree of a baron. In France, it is said, the dignity was hereditary; but in England it died with the person that gained gained it. The order dwindled on the institution of baronets by King James I. and at length became extinct. The last person created banneret was Sir John Smith, made so after Edgehill fight, for rescuing the standard of King Charles I.

The form of the banneret's creation was this. On a day of battle, the candidate presented his flag to the king or general; who, cutting off the train or skirt thereof, and making it a square, returned it again, the proper banner of bannerets; who are hence sometimes called knights of the square flag. There seem to have been bannerets created either in a different manner, or by others than the sovereign; since King James, in the patents of baronets, gives them precedence to all knights bannerets, except such as are created by the king himself in the field; which implies, either that there are some of this order created out of the field, or by inferior persons.

BANNERET is also the name of an officer or magistrate of Rome towards the close of the 14th century.—The people of that city, and throughout the territory of the church, during the disputes of the antipopes, had formed a kind of republican government; where the whole power was lodged in the hands of a magistrate called senator, and twelve heads of quarters called bannerets, by reason of the banners which each raised in his district.