This section is from "The Encyclopaedia Britannica". Also available from Amazon: Great Books of the Western World (60 Volumes).
Banderole (Fr. for a "little banner"), a small flag or streamer carried on the lance of a knight, or flying from the mast-head of a ship in battle, etc.; in heraldry, a streamer hanging from beneath the crook of a bishop's crosier and folding over the staff; in architecture, a band used in decorative sculpture of the Renaissance period for bearing an inscription, etc. Bannerol, in its main uses the same as banderole, is the term especially applied to the square banners carried at the funerals of great men and placed over the tomb.
 
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