THE ARMORIAL ENSIGNS OF JERUSALEM. 
informed, of the conquest of the Holy Land.” Favine quaintly conjectures, that the real 
reason for thus placing the charges of gold on a field of white or silver, is to be found in 
Psalm lxviii. 13 ,—“ Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a 
dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow goldsince, he argues, the arms of 
Jerusalem are the arms of the Catholic Church, and, in Scripture, the emblem of the 
Church is the dove. 
The words “ Deus Vult!”—God wills it!—on the scroll above the shield, formed the 
unanimous response of the multitude to the address of Urban II. in favour of the Crusade, 
at the Council of Clermont, as related by William, Archbishop of Tyre. “ Be those words, 
then,” said the pontiff, “ your shout of battle, for they are prompted by the Deity.” 
The shield is surrounded by the insignia of those religious and military orders, which 
were instituted for the support and honour of the Crusades in Palestine, and for the defence 
of the sacred country. Immediately behind the escutcheon is the eight-pointed cross of the 
Knights Templars, established about the year 1119, by Baldwin II., King of Jerusalem. 
This cross was adopted about sixty years after their foundation, and was intended to 
indicate the eight Beatitudes. Their original device, a red patriarchal or double cross, is 
also shown beneath the centre of the shield, having over it the medal of the Order of the 
Sword of Cyprus, instituted in 1195, by the King Guy de Lusignan. On the left of the 
escutcheon is suspended the badge of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, established in 
1103, by Baldwin I., consisting of the golden crosses from the arms of Jerusalem; and 
on the right side appears the cross of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John the Baptist, 
instituted by the same sovereign in the year following. 
Above the shield is placed the diadem of the kingdom of Jerusalem; and around the 
whole is a wreath of thorns in the midst of a glory. The allusion here is to the noble 
conduct and the words of Godfrey of Bouillon, when he placed on a crucifix the coronet 
offered to him as the elected sovereign, declaring, that “ he would never wear a crown 
of gold in that city wherein the Saviour of the world had worn a crown of thorns.” 
