The surprising history of England’s three lions

English lions went extinct 12,000 to 14,000 years ago. So why will eleven Danish men – each dutifully sporting the ‘DBU’ roundel of the Danish Football Association – be facing tonight 33 embroidered images of panthera leo on the shirts of the England team?

The answer has nothing to do with football, or any other sport in which the men and women of England’s national teams bear the three lions. It is, in fact, a throwback to the medieval battlefield, and the system of identification that allowed heralds to walk among the dead once the frenzy was over and catalogue the fallen.

Military insignia are ancient. As early as the Bronze Age, armies distinguished themselves with recognisable devices. Famously, Roman legions marched under vexilla standards decorated with an identifying image such as a bull, bear, centaur, eagle, elephant, thunderbolt, wolf, or specific god or goddess.