pencel

plural pencels · alternative pencell · alternative pinsel · alternative pensill

1. historicalA small pennon; a little banner, flag, or streamer.First known use 13th c.

   Lances were ornamented with a banderole near the point, which gave them a handsome appearance, these were also called pencells.

   1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, page 47

   4 more examples

   […] forty trumpet banners of sarsenet; seven hundred and forty pensills; three hundred and fifty pensills of tarter; four standards of sarsenet with boars; […]

   1483, Richard III, “(letter to Piers Courteis)”, in Letters of the Kings of England, published 1846, page 153

   The preceding extracts shew that, in some instances, each of the Judas torches was ornamented with three pencels, or little banners, fixed upon as many small spears; […] .

   1833, "T. S.", Letter to the Editor, Hugh James Rose, Samuel Roffey Maitland (editors), The British Magazine and Monthly Register of Religious and Ecclesiastical Information, Volume 4, page 20

   A "pencel" is a small banner usually assigned to squires,[…]But Launfal's characteristically ingenious use of the pencel makes it an object that participates in two distinct systems of registration: the fine, small object that is the sign of amorous devotion in a chivalric context and the somewhat ambiguous index of armigerous status.

   2003, D. Vance Smith, Arts of Possession: The Middle English Household Imaginary, page 181

   Inside Worcester Cathedral, the coffin was transferred to its hearse, a vast, storeyed, wooden structure, painted black and adorned with heraldic escutcheons, badged pennants or ‘pencels’, silk standards of St George, banners of the royal arms of England and Spain, and of Arthur's various titles, from Wales to Ponthieu in Normandy.

   2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin, published 2012, page 86

2. obsoleteA lady's favour or token as worn by a knight.First known use 15th–16th c.
3. obsoleterareA knight carrying a pennon.