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[Kyriakos]

I need some help regarding the history of certain Byzantine emblems.

There are a couple of them actually. The first one is my avatar.



I know that it has the four B's for Basileus Basileon Basileuon Basileuonton (King of Kings, King to those who are Kings) and that it is a palaiologian symbol, but not much apart from that.

The second is the 'Christogram', seen here:



Of it i only know that it consists of the letters X and P (greek R) meaning XPISTOS (Christ)



I am interested in any bit of information about them, such as when they first came to be, if they were used only for certain periods etc

 

[Dachs]

The four B's emblem is called the pyrekvolos; the first Palaiologos, Michail VIII, added it to the ensign of the empire after he recaptured Constantinople in 1261. They kept it through the entire remainder of the dynasty, that is until the fall of Constantinople and the Morea in the mid-15th century. The crosses are, of course, for St. George.

The Palaiologoi also used the double-headed eagle (yeah, the same one the Prussians used) on their flags; that particular device had been around since the first Komnenos (Isaakios I, back in the 11th century in the aftermath of Zoe), which symbolized a couple of different things...the empire's dual focus on East and West, the rule over both spiritual and temporal areas of life, and of course they were outdoing the Roman Empire's single headed eagle. When the Palaiologoi used the double-headed eagle, they typically had their dynastic monogram, the sympilema, emblazoned on the chest of the bird.

Plotinus probably knows more about that particular christogram (there are lots more than just the chi-rho), but I'm pretty sure the most famous use of it was when Constantinus I had his men wear it at the Battle of the Pons Milvius in 312 after seeing the burning version in the sky with the heraldry 'in hoc signo vinces' - that old chestnut. Chi-rho had to have been around earlier, probably as much as a century or so, but I couldn't tell you how long off the top of my head.

 

[Maimonides]

Just one thing to add regarding that second symbol:

It includes Alpha, which symbolizes "the beginning," & Omega, which symbolizes "the end." I read the Christ symbol between Alpha & Omega to mean something like "Christ in all things" or "everlasting Christ" or simply "Christ from beginning to end."

Dachs is right about Plotinus' usefulness in this thread. He knows Christian history well & knows Greek.

 

[Plotinus]

I wouldn't claim to know Greek in the presence of Varwnos!

I don't know when the Chi-Rho symbol was first used. I think it is known from personal effects of Christians from the third century or so; it was quite common for Christians to have rings or other small personal items with Christian symbols on such as the Chi-Rho symbol or a ship. It's not really clear quite what happened at Milvian Bridge and what symbol, if any, Constantine had his troops inscribe on their shields; our two sources for the incident, Eusebius and Lactantius, disagree, although one would be more inclined to trust Lactantius, I think. It's Eusebius who speaks of the vision of a cross in the sky, although this is probably really a transposition of a vision that Constantine had had a couple of years earlier at a shrine of Apollo. How many celestial divine symbols can one person see?

 

[Kyriakos]

Thanks to all of you for the information. More is welcome of course