it from lesser insignia. This standard was never removed except under the greatest duress, and was never entrusted to same general in chief. Its loss prefigured a loss in battle, so Hernán Cortés fought to the end to seize it, and this decided the battle.

In antiquity, the animate and inanimate objects that were used on insignia derived ultimately from deities and were revered for that reason. With the rise of Christianity in the Middle Ages, those objects were replaced with the Christian cross and the emblems of patron saints, so that