Cross and Firesteels Symbol

     images by Eugene Ipavec (left) and Santiago Dotor

image by Tomislav Todorovic

image by Željko Heimer

image by Ivan Sarajčić

As stated in the pages listed above, the firesteels are supposed to be derived from four letters beta, which are said to have been the initial letters of the motto "Βασιλευς Βασιλεων Βασιλευων Βασιλευσιν" (King of Kings, ruling over Kings). This explanation is incorrect, though, which has been known for a long time, still having been repeatedly presented as correct, the increasingly numerous online appearances of the presentation only worsening the matter. The correct story about the origin of the symbol follows:

The explanation of four betas as the abbreviation for "Βασιλευς Βασιλεων Βασιλευων Βασιλευσιν" (King of Kings, ruling over Kings) was first presented by Marc de Vulson de La Colombi¸re, a 17th-century French historian and heraldist, who claimed that the motto, originally used in the Byzantine Empire, was preserved by the Paleologue marquesses of Monferrato, a cadet branch of the last Byzantine imperial dynasty. However, in the Byzantine Empire, the Emperor was never styled "King of Kings" – that was reserved for Christ only, so such a motto, or its abbreviation, would have never appeared on mundane objects such as the flags. On the other hand, there are numerous examples of coins bearing a cross between four or fewer letters, the combination with four betas, favoured by the Paleologues, being just one of many. All of those combinations are interpreted by including the cross into the abbreviation, to be read as "Σταυρε", the vocative case of the Greek word for cross, "Σταυρος". For example, coins of Justinian I bore the cross between four letters chi, standing for "Σταυρε Χριστου χαριν χριστιανους χαριζε", i.e. "Cross of Christ, bestow grace on the Christians", while on those of Romanus IV, the letters were ΣΒΡΔ, standing for "Σταυρε σου βοηθει Ρωμανον δεσποτην" i.e. "Thy [i.e. Christ's] Cross, aid Lord Romanus". Based on such examples, Greek historian Ioannis N. Svoronos proposed several possible readings for the cross between four betas; according to Russian historian Alexander Soloviev, the most likely one of those was "Σταυρε βασιλεως βασιλεων βασιλει βοηθει", i.e. "Cross of the King of Kings, aid the King". This is consistent with the examples of coins bearing the cross between two betas, which would stand for "Σταυρε βασιλει βοηθει", i.e. "Cross, aid the King", as well as the cross accompanied with a single beta, which would simply mean "Σταυρε βοηθει", i.e. "Cross, aid" (Note that the word "βασιλευς" meant "king" in Ancient Greek, but "emperor" in Medieval Greek, while it means "king" in Modern Greek again). The supposed tradition referred to by Vulson was thus a distortion, based on vague memories of Italian Paleologues, who were quickly Westernized after their accession to Monferrato in 1306. [1, 2, 3]

How and when did the cross between four betas evolve into the cross between four firesteels, is still not precisely determined. However, the Paleologue coins already display an early stage of this evolution, as the betas were frequently arranged into two mirrored pairs, typically both addorsed, sometimes both respectant, or even one pair addorsed and the other respectant; they were also sometimes arranged diagonally, all of them either facing the center of the cross or away from it [1–5]. Their forms were also varying, frequently resembling the firesteels with closed or partly open handles [1–5]. The stone slabs placed on the walls and towers of Galata (aka Pera), the foreigners' quarter of Constantinople, also displayed the Byzantine/Paleologue shields of arms with two mirrored pairs of charges whose shapes look like the betas, but also resembled the closed-handled firesteels [6]. The first sources which explicitly describe the symbols as the firesteels are "De Officiis" by Pseudo-Kodinos and the Book of All Kingdoms [f0f05], both written in mid-14th century [1–5, 7]. Both of those texts, created independently from one another, describe the flags bearing the cross between the firesteels, the latter one also specifying the colors (gold charges on a red field) and depicting the firesteels with more or less open handles, the shape closer to a sigma, especially to its lunate form, typical for Medieval Greek.

The arms of the Paleologues of Monferrato [4, 8–11] seem to have underwent a parallel evolution from betas to firesteels, the latter being preferred, although not exclusively used, by the Gonzaga dukes of Mantua, who inherited Monferrato in 1536 [10–13], while the former appear now in the arms of Casale Monferrato municipality. The tinctures of these arms were certainly brought directly from Constantinople, not borrowed from the "Book of All Kingdoms", which was written after the Paleologue accession to Monferrato. The version with firesteels has also appeared in the greater arms of the Bourbon-Parma dynasty [4, 14], although there were recent efforts to revert it to the version with betas, with Vulson's explanation [15]. The arms were not included there to represent the descent from the Paleologues, but the claim to sovereignty over the Constantinian Order of St George [Wikipedia], supposedly originating in the Byzantine Empire, to be later inherited by the Dukes of Parma and Piacenza [15].

The evolution of the emblem is also visible in the Portolan charts [7], which display Byzantine flags with the form of symbols in the cantons varying from beta-shaped to those resembling a lunate sigma, the former of those likely more frequent then the latter. The flag colors are those from the "Book of All Kingdoms", which was the main source for the contemporary mapmakers, although they also must have had some first-hand information from the seafarers for whom their creations were intended. It is also worth noting that the symbols are invariably positioned horizontally there, thus looking like the firesteels even more; this also makes them easier to draw in such a small area as the one occupied by a flag image on a Portolan chart, but it is impossible to tell if it was the only reason to depict them so, or they were really appearing on the flags as such, at least on some of them.

Sources:
[1] Solovjev, Aleksandar: Istorija srpskog grba. [slv00]
[2] Solovjev, Aleksandar: O postanku srpskog grba. [slv00]
[3] Solovjev, Aleksandar: Vizantijski heraldički amblemi i Sloveni. [slv00]
[4] Acović, Dragomir: Heraldika i Srbi Zavod za udžbenike; Belgrade, 2008, ISBN 978-86-17-15093-6
[5] Palavestra, Aleksandar: O ocilima. Ilirski grbovnici i drugi heraldički radovi Zavod za udžbenike: Dosije studio; Belgrade, 2010, ISBN 978-86-17-17266-2
[6] The Byzantine Legacy website – Mural Slabs from Genoese Galata: https://www.thebyzantinelegacy.com/galata-slabs
[7] Palavestra, Aleksandar: Portolani i grbovnici kao izvor za srpsku heraldiku. (Ibid.)
[8] Montenegro auction house website – Silver coin of Bonifacio II (IV) of Monferrato: https://montenegro.bidinside.com/it/lot/3731/casale-monferrato-bonifacio-ii-paleologo-/
[9] Wikimedia Commons – Gold coin of Guglielmo II (IX) of Monferrato: https://commons.wikimedia.org...
[10] Wikimedia Commons – Marital arms of Federico II Gonzaga and Margherita Paleologa, relief on the wall of the Paleologue Castle, Casale Monferrato: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Casale_monferrato,_castello_dei_paleologi_02_stemma.jpg
[11] Wikimedia Commons – Marital arms of Federico II Gonzaga and Margherita Paleologa on a ceramic plate, collection of International Museum of Ceramics, Faenza: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Urbino_Nicola-da-Urbino_7030.JPG
[12] Wikimedia Commons – Marital arms of Ferdinand of Austria and Anna Caterina Gonzaga on a ceramic bottle, collection of Castello di San Giorgio, Mantua: https://commons.wikimedia.org...
[13] I Gonzaga a Mantova website at the Internet Archive (saved on 2014-10-07): https://web.archive.org/web/20141007004041/http://www.igonzaga.it/index.php/i-gonzaga-a-mantova
(image: https://web.archive.org/web/20141009151442im_/http://www.igonzaga.it/images/Scan0011.jpg)
[14] Wikimedia Commons – The 5 lire coin of Duke Robert I of Parma: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Roberto_I_di_Borbone_-_5_Lire_1858.jpg
[15] Rocculi, Gianfranco: Araldica della Real Casa Borbone Parma – lo stemma del Ducato di Parma, Piacenza e Stati annessi; Parma, 2008 (in PDF format): http://www.rocculi.it/files/pdf/09_rocculi_araldica_borboni_parma.pdf

Tomislav Todorovic, 15 June 2025