what is the history of the symbols on the pirates' flag?

Question

I need this for a homework.anything u know about pirates flag and their symbols will help me.

Answer 1

The flag is the Jolly Roger. Here is what wikipedia has to say:
The origins of the term "Jolly Roger" are unclear. One theory is that it comes from the French term "joli rouge," ("red beauty") which the English corrupted into "Jolly Roger". This may be likely as there were a series of "red flags" that were feared as much, or more, than "black flags". The origin of the red flag is likely that English privateers flew the red jack by order of the Admiralty in 1694. When the War of Spanish Succession ended in 1714, many privateers turned to piracy and some retained the red flag, as red symbolized blood. No matter how much seamen dreaded the black pirate standard, all prayed they never encountered the joli rouge. This red flag boldly declared the pirates' intentions: that no life would be spared. In combat practice many merchants were surprised when a fast ship changed a fellow national flag for the more portentous Jolly Roger, which was the desired effect[citation needed].

Another theory proposes that the leader of a group of Asian pirates was called Ali Raja; English pirates appropriated and corrupted the term[citation needed].

A further theory is that the name derives from the English word "roger", whence "rogue", meaning a wandering vagabond. "Old Roger" was a term for the devil[citation needed].

In his book Pirates & The Lost Templar Fleet, David Hatcher Childress claims that the flag was named after the first man to fly it, King Roger II of Sicily (c.1095-1154). Roger was a famed Templar and the Knights Of The Temple were in conflict with the Pope over his conquests of Apulia and Salerno in 1127.[1] Childress claims that, many years later, after the Templars were disbanded by the church, at least one Templar fleet split into four independent flotillas dedicating themselves to pirating ships of any country sympathetic to Rome. The flag was thus an inheritance, and its crossed bones a reference to the original Templar logo of a red cross with blunted ends. But this seems unlikely, as the Knights Templar used a Greek cross (✚) and not the Andrew's cross (Χ) used on pirates' flags.

It is possible that the skull and cross bones were intended as an insult to the Vatican and as a warning to sympathisers by mocking the Cardinal's Hat and Cross Keys symbol of the Vatican. The cross keys was certainly in use by vessels of the Vatican by the 17th Century. Many voyages to and from the 'New World' were sponsored by the Pope and European monarchs with the express purpose of acquiring gold. It must be remembered that some countries of Europe were in great religious turmoil by this time and it is likely that pirates were keen to display their neutrality to countries opposed to Rome whilst mocking the Vatican itself.

The real origin may simply lie in the fact that from early Roman times on and all through the Middle Ages, skulls and long bones were on display in catacombs, monasteries, churches, church crypts and graveyards. They are the bones that resist decay the longest, and remain long after the corpse has gone. They were then carefully laid out respecting the dead. Later, skull and long bones crossed were depicted or sculpted in said places, especially above the entrances to churches and graveyards. They served as a Memento Mori, meaning "Remind yourself of your own death." It was a general warning against the sin of vanity, reminding bypassers of their mortality. Thus, it became at once a common symbol of death and decay and a warning against the vagaries of Fortune, as well as a first hint of an emerging sense of democracy: in death, we are all equal. This complex of meanings may have played a role in later Renaissance privateers' and pirates' adopting the symbol for their own.