_The Knights of Malta._--On the stone corbels which support the roof of one
of the aisles of a church in my neighbourhood, there are carved the
armorial badges of persons who are supposed to have contributed to the
building of the church, which was erected in the thirteenth century. On one
of the corbels (the nearest to the altar, and therefore in the most
honourable place) there is a lamb bearing a flag. The lamb has a nimbus
{279} round its head, and the staff of the flag terminates in a cross like
the head of a processional cross. The device, I have reason to think, was
the badge of the knights of the order of Saint John of Jerusalem, who had a
preceptory in this neighbourhood during the thirteenth century. In the
history of these knights, first of Jerusalem, then of Rhodes, and
afterwards of Malta, I find it stated, that in the year 1130 Pope Innocent
II. commanded that the standard of the knights (at that time settled at
Jerusalem) should be "gules, a full cross argent."
Will any of your correspondents be so kind as to inform me if the device on
the corbel was the badge of the knights of the order of St. John of
Jerusalem? and if so, at what time they first assumed it?