K PODOBĚ ZNAKŮ S MORAVSKOU A SE SVATOVÁCLAVSKOU ORLICÍ
TO A SIMILARITY OF COATS OF ARMS WITH MORAVIAN AND SAINT WENCESLAS EAGLE

Summary/Abstract: Unprecedented discoveries or patient work with archival sources often bring ground-breaking information that help to precise or explain some of vaguely defined hypotheses. One of such discoveries is a finding of a marvellous coat of arms gallery in Gozzoburg in Krems in 1990s, depicting, among others, also the oldest co-loured Moravian eagle from 1260s. Thanks to this, older opinions on appearance of the eagle, used by the Bohemian ruler or his acknowledged successor since Přemysl Otakar I, can be corrected. That the eagle was black on a silver filed, there has been no doubt, however, it was not certain whether the eagle was flaming since the very beginning. The seals, the only preserved official source from the period of Přemyslid rulers, bear this charge since 1192, yet they do not depict the flaming element, similarly, on the seals till the time of John of Luxemburg, there is no chequy on the Moravian eagle, although its existence is proven by the aforementioned fresco gallery. The reason was the small size and also the fact that the flaming was considered a tincture and, therefore, not depicted on the seals even if the technical means permitted it. A thorough exploitation of the archival sources by František Pícha helped to ex-plain inconsistencies in an appearance of Moravian Legion flag of Archduke Charles from 1800. A comparison with the similar flag for the Bohemian Legions shows the illogicality of the Moravian since it had gold-red chequy Moravian eagle on the white filed on avers and the Imperial coat of arms on reverse, while the Bohemian one had properly the Imperial coat of arms on avers and the Bohemian lion on reverse. The document found by F. Pícha proves that by order of Presidium of Land Committee, the original silver-red chequy on Moravian Legion flags was purposefully painted to gold-red chequy in 1848 so that the flag could be used for the National Guard, and during the sewing together after the painting, the averse and reverse were swapped.

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