Cantabrian lábaro

Cantabrian lábaro, also known as lábaru cántabru or simply lábaro or lábaru, is the name given to the modern and contemporary interpretation of an ancient military standard known by the Romans as cantabrum. Currently, it is usually represented as a magenta cloth banner on which a circle is embroidered surrounded by a geometric decoration with four half moons facing two by two that combines the military standard with the symbology of the Cantabrian stelae.

In recent decades, its use has become popular within the autonomous community of Cantabria, currently being highly visible, especially at sporting events and regional festivals. In 2016, the Parliament of Cantabria recognized it as an "identity symbol of the Cantabrian people", although without replacing the official flag of Cantabria.

History

Genesis of the Cantabrian Book

The origin of the name and design can be found in the theory defended by various authors of a possible relationship between the genesis of the labarum and the military banner called cantabrum, with the consequent identification of both as the same thing; and the supposed relationship that the Codex Theodosianus establishes between the labarum and the cantabrarii, a college of Roman soldiers in charge of carrying the cantabrum.

Its etymological meaning, the one who speaks, refers to its use as a banner used to send orders or signals to the troops during battle.

The accounts of Tertullian and Minucius Felix do not establish any relationship between the cantabrum and the labarum, leaving only clear the veneration that the Roman troops made of their crosses, covered for the fabrics of the cantabra and vexilia:

So also, in the cantabra and in the vexilia, which defends the militia with no less devotion, those veils are the sacred garments of the crosses.

Tertulianus, Ad Nationes, I, 12.

The religion of the Romans venerates all the military sign, swears by them, puts them before all the gods. All images placed on the sign are the necklaces of the crosses; the fabrics of the vexilla and the cantabra are the vestments (stolae) of the crosses. Alabo [your] zeal: you did not want to worship unharmed and naked crosses.

Tertulianus, Apologetycum, Pars IV, Capitulum XVI, 8.

We neither pray nor worship the crosses. You, indeed, who divinize wooden gods, may worship wooden crosses as part of your gods. For both the same sign, as the cantabra, as the vexilla of the camps, what else are they but enriched and adorned crosses?

M. Minutius Felix, Octavius, XXIX].

Name

Barros (Cantabria), about the second century BC.

Christian barns with the chrysm, inspiration of the cloak barn, and the alpha and omega

Current shield of the Mechanized Infantry Battalion "Cantabria" I/6. The shield of his predecessor, the Cantabrian Infantry Regiment No. 39, The Heroic, is the first representation of the cloak barn known in the modern age, year 1703. It is described as: In the silver field a letter X of saber. The all-wrapped Mural Crown. The letter X, is the symbol of the victory of the people of Cantabris (Asturian whim [sic])

Cantabria Flag since 1984. At the lower barracks of the shield, Barros stella whose central symbol is part of the barn

According to these theories, the cantabrum is the banner that Constantine I the Great transformed into the labarum after his conversion to Christianity by including the crismon, an anagram that represents Christ, consisting of the Greek capital spellings of the first two letters of his name, an "X" on which a "P" is superimposed.

The relationship in the Celtic etymology of the term lábaro from (p) lab- to speak, from which the adjective labaros, speaker, widely represented in the Celtic languages. Welsh: llafar, speech, language, voice, orator; Old Cornish and Breton: wash word; Old Irish: labar chatterbox, labrad speech, language; Irish: labhar talkative, loud and labhairt word, speak < celt. (p) labro-. Latin Labarum.

Likewise, the anthroponym Labaro already existed among the ancient Cantabrians, having been recorded on tombstones.

Design

The current design, also following the theory that the labarum is the same as the cantabrum, establishes the purple-red color of the labarum for the Cantabrian labarum. No However, this hypothesis is questioned by some authors, who consider it an error carried over from the XVII century by which the banner used by the Romans, called labarum, and the banner used by the ancient Cantabrians, called cantabrum, would be the same, having its insignia or main motif in the shape of an X.

The golden tetrasquel represents the four lunar crescents that are represented on several giant discoid Cantabrian stelae. Being a symbol that has been verified that the Cantabrians used frequently, as can be seen in caetras represented in coins minted after the Cantabrian wars.

In addition, this type of banner and its variants were quite widespread among the Celtic peoples, as evidenced by the reliefs on the triumphal arch of Orange (France). Its design is related to ancient Celtic symbols such as the trisquel and its symbolism, of a religious nature, is related to the cult of the Sun and the Moon.

Status

The Plenary Session of the Parliament of Cantabria, in its session on March 14, 2016, approved a resolution as a consequence of the processing of the non-legal proposal, No. 9L/4300-0056, regarding the recognition of the labarum as a representative and identity symbol of the Cantabrian people and the values it represents.

The Parliament of Cantabria:

1. It recognizes the barbare as a representative and identity symbol of the people of Cantabri and the values it represents.
2. It urges the institutions and civil society of Cantabria to actively promote and participate in their knowledge and dissemination as an iconographic expression of the identity of the people of Cantabria. The official character of the flag of the Cantabrian Community and the rest of the institutional symbols of Cantabria remains.

Official Cantabria Bulletin of 15 March 2016

Controversy

The modern interpretation of the Cantabrian lábaro and its possible use as an official or co-official symbol of current Cantabria has emerged as a debate within this Autonomous Community, unleashing a set of deep-rooted dialectical disputes disseminated in many cases through the media Communication.

In this media dialogue, the positions that hold the most voice come from the Association for the Defense of the Interests of Cantabria (ADIC), on the one hand, and from researchers who intervened in the creation of the symbols of the current Autonomous Community framed within the Center for Mountain Studies, on the other.

For

Certain social and political Cantabrian collectives have been vindicating the official use of the aureomagenta banner as the flag of Cantabria in representation of the legitimate cantabrum, either replacing the current one, or at least granting it the same official status. The banner had already been used during the celebration of traditional folklore festivals, sporting events and the reaffirmation of the Cantabrian identity. Some city councils legitimized its use before March 14, 2016, the date of approval by the Parliament of Cantabria of the non-legal proposal on the symbolic nature of the labarum. From this date on, there were numerous local corporations that raised this flag in the town halls, promoting its use and dissemination as an iconographic expression of the Cantabrian people.

Against

There is a series of experts such as Joaquín González Echegaray, José Luis Casado Soto or Ramón Teja Casuso who defend the historical legitimacy of the current flag of Cantabria against the labarum, arguing that the red-and-white banner was the one carried by Cantabrian ships from at least the 18th century. According to these academics, although in ancient texts there is some reference to a banner called cantabrum, in no case do the classical sources give an exact description of its shape, colors or symbols, and it is risky to reconstruct it without further ado. elements of justice.

Faced with misrepresentations published in certain media critical of the lábaro, González Echegaray in his study About the so-called "Lábaro Cántabro" limits himself to stating about the modern lábaro: « It is a new creation, which can only be said to be vaguely suggested by some of the historical elements that we have discussed here", although his opinion regarding adopting the labarum as a flag is negative.

For Casado Soto, who is more critical, the lábaro would be nothing more than an invention of Cantabrian regionalism, whose antiquity does not go beyond the pre-autonomous period, and the current debate around regional symbols would be an attempt to destroy the consensus that reached in the Statute of Autonomy.

Other historical flags

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  Royal flag of Ramiro I (842-850), direct descendant of Pedro de Cantabria

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  Modern interpretation of the cloakroom (c. 1703)

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  Password of the maritime province of Santander (XVIII-current; official since 1845)

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  Flag of a battalion of the Cántabra Division, 1809. In their corners, the cantabrian barbeque

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  Flag of Cantabria with the shield of the Provincial Council of Santander, employed informally at times until the approval of the autonomous shield

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  Alternative version of the barbeque, with two cenephs and a circumference surrounding the four growing moles of Barros

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  Flag of ADIC, proposed in the transition as the official flag of Cantabria next to the barn and the current flag