Royal Bend of Castile
heraldic element
The Royal Bend of Castile (Banda Real de Castilla) was the heraldic flag of the monarchs of the Crown of Castile, a personal banner of military use, indicating the presence of the monarch. This emblem was created in 1332 by Alfonso XI of Castile, although its origin probably would go back to one of the primitive symbols of the Counts of Castile, which had consisted of a gold bend on red. The dragantes appeared on the handpiece or baton when Scipio brought the Roman legions to Hispania.
Alfonso XI founded the Order of the Royal Band of Castile to reward the best services to the sovereign.
The Bend of Castile was used by all the monarchs of Castile until Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, succeeded as king of Spain in 1516. From the reign of Henry IV of Castile (1454–1474) it consisted of a reddish flag, probably purple scarlet, with a golden bend of throaty dragantes heads of the same color.
The dragantes are the heraldic representation of dragons.
Prior to the reign of Henry IV, the colors varied; existing examples from the reign of Peter of Castile (1350–1369) have a black bend with white dragantes.
During the reign of Henry I (1214–1217) the device was described as Gules, a bend or engouled of dragantes (dragon or wolf's heads). Before, the bend and the dragon's heads were different colours.
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This entry incorporates text from “Royal Bend of Castile” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.