a. Originally, a knight able and entitled to bring a company of vassals into the field under his own banner, and who ranked next to a baron and above other knights: in this sense commonly used substantively, as a title of rank or dignity, and contrasted with knight, though sometimes with bachelor.

b. Subsequently, the title and rank were conferred for valiant deeds done in the king's presence on the field of battle (perhaps, also, on other occasions or for other grounds), and, with the decay of the feudal system, came to constitute merely a rank or order of knighthood: in this use occur both banneret and knight-banneret, the latter opposed to knight-bachelor. On the institution of the order of baronets in 1611, precedence was given to these over all bannerets ‘except such as were made in the field, under the banner, the king being present,’ and after this the order of knights-bannerets was allowed to die out.Note. The original sense was mainly French; ‘in England there were few tenants bringing any considerable number of men who were not of the rank of the barons’ ( Penny Cycl.); the first recorded instance of use b is in the 15th year of Edward III, when John de Copeland was made a banneret for his capture of King David Bruce at Neville's Cross. In the claim of Baronets to precedency (in 1612) it is said ‘there are not Bannerets now in being and peradventure never shall be’; and although the title has been claimed for certain persons knighted since that day, heraldic authorities do not admit the validity of the claim. See the matter discussed in Nicolas' Hist. Knighthood (1842) I. pp. xxxii-xliii. In later times an explanation of the name was sought either in its being conferred on the field ‘under the banner,’ or in the alleged fact that at its bestowal the knight's pennon was symbolically cut square to banner shape.

c. knight banneret n.