A banner in a medieval army was never just decoration. It marked where the line stood and where to rally, and while it flew the fight went on; when it fell, men broke. The holiest standard a crusader host could raise was not cloth at all but a relic — a shard of the True Cross, carried at the head of the army by a bishop. At the Battle of Hattin on 4 July 1187 the bishop of Acre bore it into the field against Saladin; the army was annihilated and the relic taken, a loss the Latin world mourned as bitterly as the defeat itself.

This priest carries a bishop's banner on a spear shaft — a red field with a gold two-barred cross, the patriarchal cross of an archbishop, flanked by two gold fish — over full mail and a red-and-gold zigzag surcoat. A standard bearer was a marked man, both hands committed to holding the colours high while the fighting swirled around him. Pair him with Saladin's own standard bearer to set the two faiths' banners against each other, and put the Fighting Priest in the line beside him; the wider story of armed clergy is in this piece on whether medieval priests fought. In a diorama he is the fixed point a Crusader charge forms around — the banner that tells the whole field where the faithful stand.

Model: MK254 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 1 piece set