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Extra: Notes on the Moor's Head Flag
Come to think of it, now might be a good time to give you a little detail on the whole flag business.
The common story you will read online about the Corsican flag goes something like this: The Moor's Head was a medieval symbol of Corsica which was adopted by Pasquale Paoli to be the flag of the nation. Traditionally, the Moor was blindfolded, but Paoli decided to "lift the blindfold" and make it a headband instead, symbolizing the liberation of the Corsicans and the opening of their eyes to the light of freedom.
This is a very nice story, but it's mostly wrong. Theodore was flying a flag with the Moor's Head when Paoli was still a pre-teen, so while it's possible that Paoli popularized the image he definitely didn't bring it out of medieval obscurity on his own. It was an established symbol of the rebellion, or at least of Theodore's kingdom, since at least 1736.
Now, about that blindfold. It's true that the Moor's Head is a medieval symbol of Corsica; it first appears in the 14th century Gelre Armorial, which coincidentally also has the first known image of the Dannebrog, the flag of Denmark. The flag of Corsica in the Gelre Armorial looks like this:
Note that the Moor's eyes are showing! Even in the earliest known image of the Moor's Head, it's not blindfolded. In fact every historical image of Corsica's arms between the Gelre Armorial and the Revolutionary era which I've managed to find does not have a blindfold, but a headband, or in some cases a "tortil" (a headband of twisted cloth).
In 1731, the Imperial Geographer Matthäus Seutter published a map of Corsica. In the bottom left corner, he placed the arms of Genoa and Corsica, which look like this:
That seems fairly obviously to be a headband to me, not a blindfold, and this was published after the start of the rebellion.
Theodore certainly used the Moor's Head, and seems to have figured it out prior to his arrival, which would not have been difficult seeing as it was already an established symbol in European atlases (perhaps he even got it from Seutter's recent work). While I don't have real proof that Theodore was the first to use the Moor's Head in the Corsican rebellion, I have yet to come across a reference to it being associated with the rebels before 1736. If he did get it from a source in Europe, then it's hard to see how it would have been blindfolded, since the most recent European atlases definitely showed a headband, not a blindfold. At least one source I've read disagrees, claiming that Theodore's Moor was blindfolded, but I haven't seen good evidence for that, and there's plenty against it. See, for instance, this Neuhoff coat of arms on a republication of Vogt's 1735 map shortly after Theodore's reign, which is the image I based the CoA in the first post of this thread on:
So where does all this blindfold business come from, anyway? Well, there's one possibility I've considered, and that's Sardinia. The Sardinian flag, of course, also has the Moor's Head (in fact it has four of them). The flag also appears in the Gelre Armorial, but without blindfolds or headbands. By the 17th century, however, the usage seems to have been inconsistent, and there are examples of both blindfolded and non-blindfolded Moors. The issue was only formally settled around 1720 when the Savoyard kings acquired Sardinia. By royal decree, they made the Moors blindfolded.
Corsica had no single, functioning government during this time to tell the people what their flag was and was not. Perhaps the Corsicans, aware of Theodore's symbol but unclear on the details (Theodore's flag was not often flown), copied the blindfolded Moors on the Sardinian arms. In that case perhaps Paoli really was "opening the eyes" of the Moor if usage had changed to a blindfold by that time, although I have no evidence of that. Alternately, perhaps Paoli was simply mistaken - or the people who "reported" the story were mistaken, and simply invented a nice story that buttressed the notion of Paoli as the liberator of the nation.
Another interesting bit of flag business is the sex of the Moor. If you look at a "modern" Corsican flag, it looks rather like a man. In the 17th and 18th centuries, however, the Moor's Head is often depicted with jewelry - specifically, an earring, a necklace of pearls, or both. Seutter's image has an earring, the republished Vogt map with Theodore's arms has a necklace and what appears to be an earring, and you can very clearly see both on the only extant flag of Paoli's Republic:
What do you think - man or woman?
How the Moor came to be female, or indeed whether it actually is female (as opposed to a man with jewelry) is unclear; I've heard some theorizing that it is related to Genoa's brisk trade in Moorish slaves in the Renaissance/Early Modern period, which certainly included women, but I haven't found any hard evidence either way. In the modern era, the Moor was "masculinized," and today is usually shown without any jewelry (although I have occasionally seen a modern Corsican flag which gives the Moor an earring).
The other 18th century change is the white background. From the Gelre Armorial through the 17th century, the Moor is more often displayed on a gold/yellow background than a white one, but from the 18th century on it's pretty much always on white. I'm not sure how exactly that change occurred.
The canon of TTL is that Theodore's flag is white, and bears a Moor with a headband/tortil, not a blindfold, whose sex is perhaps a bit ambiguous but definitely has the earring and pearl necklace. When I made the CoA on the first post of this thread, I was a little lazy and used the "modern" Moor's head and added a necklace; in fact I ought to add the earring too, something I forgot to do at the time, and if I find a decent alternative image I might make the head into something a little less masculine.
The common story you will read online about the Corsican flag goes something like this: The Moor's Head was a medieval symbol of Corsica which was adopted by Pasquale Paoli to be the flag of the nation. Traditionally, the Moor was blindfolded, but Paoli decided to "lift the blindfold" and make it a headband instead, symbolizing the liberation of the Corsicans and the opening of their eyes to the light of freedom.
This is a very nice story, but it's mostly wrong. Theodore was flying a flag with the Moor's Head when Paoli was still a pre-teen, so while it's possible that Paoli popularized the image he definitely didn't bring it out of medieval obscurity on his own. It was an established symbol of the rebellion, or at least of Theodore's kingdom, since at least 1736.
Now, about that blindfold. It's true that the Moor's Head is a medieval symbol of Corsica; it first appears in the 14th century Gelre Armorial, which coincidentally also has the first known image of the Dannebrog, the flag of Denmark. The flag of Corsica in the Gelre Armorial looks like this:
Note that the Moor's eyes are showing! Even in the earliest known image of the Moor's Head, it's not blindfolded. In fact every historical image of Corsica's arms between the Gelre Armorial and the Revolutionary era which I've managed to find does not have a blindfold, but a headband, or in some cases a "tortil" (a headband of twisted cloth).
In 1731, the Imperial Geographer Matthäus Seutter published a map of Corsica. In the bottom left corner, he placed the arms of Genoa and Corsica, which look like this:
That seems fairly obviously to be a headband to me, not a blindfold, and this was published after the start of the rebellion.
Theodore certainly used the Moor's Head, and seems to have figured it out prior to his arrival, which would not have been difficult seeing as it was already an established symbol in European atlases (perhaps he even got it from Seutter's recent work). While I don't have real proof that Theodore was the first to use the Moor's Head in the Corsican rebellion, I have yet to come across a reference to it being associated with the rebels before 1736. If he did get it from a source in Europe, then it's hard to see how it would have been blindfolded, since the most recent European atlases definitely showed a headband, not a blindfold. At least one source I've read disagrees, claiming that Theodore's Moor was blindfolded, but I haven't seen good evidence for that, and there's plenty against it. See, for instance, this Neuhoff coat of arms on a republication of Vogt's 1735 map shortly after Theodore's reign, which is the image I based the CoA in the first post of this thread on:
So where does all this blindfold business come from, anyway? Well, there's one possibility I've considered, and that's Sardinia. The Sardinian flag, of course, also has the Moor's Head (in fact it has four of them). The flag also appears in the Gelre Armorial, but without blindfolds or headbands. By the 17th century, however, the usage seems to have been inconsistent, and there are examples of both blindfolded and non-blindfolded Moors. The issue was only formally settled around 1720 when the Savoyard kings acquired Sardinia. By royal decree, they made the Moors blindfolded.
Corsica had no single, functioning government during this time to tell the people what their flag was and was not. Perhaps the Corsicans, aware of Theodore's symbol but unclear on the details (Theodore's flag was not often flown), copied the blindfolded Moors on the Sardinian arms. In that case perhaps Paoli really was "opening the eyes" of the Moor if usage had changed to a blindfold by that time, although I have no evidence of that. Alternately, perhaps Paoli was simply mistaken - or the people who "reported" the story were mistaken, and simply invented a nice story that buttressed the notion of Paoli as the liberator of the nation.
Another interesting bit of flag business is the sex of the Moor. If you look at a "modern" Corsican flag, it looks rather like a man. In the 17th and 18th centuries, however, the Moor's Head is often depicted with jewelry - specifically, an earring, a necklace of pearls, or both. Seutter's image has an earring, the republished Vogt map with Theodore's arms has a necklace and what appears to be an earring, and you can very clearly see both on the only extant flag of Paoli's Republic:
What do you think - man or woman?
How the Moor came to be female, or indeed whether it actually is female (as opposed to a man with jewelry) is unclear; I've heard some theorizing that it is related to Genoa's brisk trade in Moorish slaves in the Renaissance/Early Modern period, which certainly included women, but I haven't found any hard evidence either way. In the modern era, the Moor was "masculinized," and today is usually shown without any jewelry (although I have occasionally seen a modern Corsican flag which gives the Moor an earring).
The other 18th century change is the white background. From the Gelre Armorial through the 17th century, the Moor is more often displayed on a gold/yellow background than a white one, but from the 18th century on it's pretty much always on white. I'm not sure how exactly that change occurred.
The canon of TTL is that Theodore's flag is white, and bears a Moor with a headband/tortil, not a blindfold, whose sex is perhaps a bit ambiguous but definitely has the earring and pearl necklace. When I made the CoA on the first post of this thread, I was a little lazy and used the "modern" Moor's head and added a necklace; in fact I ought to add the earring too, something I forgot to do at the time, and if I find a decent alternative image I might make the head into something a little less masculine.
- Carp
- Word Count: 1k