Swiss Flag: Templar?

[Sicard de la Roque]

In a couple of posts on this forum, the Swiss flag was suggested as a piece of evidence in favor of some Templars having escaped to Switzerland. I looked into it and realized that the Swiss flag came from the coat of arms of the Counts of Savoie. The first Count to have used the white (argent) cross on a red (gueules) background was Thomas I. Conclusion?

The Templars were not at the origin of the Swiss flag because Thomas I was Count of Savoie between 1189 and 1233.

[Dashinvaine]

It may be a coincidence, but as mentioned before, the flag of Fribourg, a large canton in the West of Switzerland, is the same as the Templars flag - white below and black above. The national flag, red with a white cross, bears a greater resemblance to that of the Hospitallers (Is there any connection between the Order of St John and the House of Savoy?) The Templars were associated more often with the reverse configuration. The House of Savoy also possessed the Turin Shroud for a long while, incidentally.

[Sicard de la Roque]

the flag of Fribourg, a large canton in the West of Switzerland, is the same as the Templars flag - white below and black above

The flag of Fribourg started wearing the black and white coat of arms only in 1714. So its origin was not due to the Templars. Before 1714, the coat of arms of Fribourg was three white towers on a blue field. The latter had been used since the 13th century.

The national flag, red with a white cross, bears a greater resemblance to that of the Hospitallers (Is there any connection between the Order of St John and the House of Savoy?)

The Swiss national flag, as you said, looks like an inverted version of the Templar cross and colors, somehow different from the coat of arms of the Hospitallers who wore a white cross on a black field. Both the Templars and the Hospitallers had possessions in Chambery, but it was after the town became the seat of the Counts of Savoie in 1232, only one year before Thomas I de Savoie died.

The Count did not seem to have been a direct benefactor to the Templars. Perhaps Thomas I de Savoie decided to use a crusader-looking logo because he came from a family of crusaders. His grandfather, Amedeus III, took the cross in 1147.

So if the Swiss flag could be the result of Thomas de Savoie's link with the crusades, it cannot be interpreted as a result of the Templars fleeing to Switzerland in 1307.

[Dashinvaine]

The hospitallers may have worn black with a white cross, but their flag was red with a white cross. There is an illustration of it in Matthew Paris's chronicle, for example, and this remains the flag of the Order of Malta.

[Sicard de la Roque]

The hospitallers may have worn black with a white cross, but their flag was red with a white cross

That's right... the famous cross of St. John!
It turns out that Thomas de Savoie doesn't seem to have been a benefactor of the Hospitallers either, even if he wore the white cross on a red field. He may not have been the first wearing it though. Another source, a Dictionary of the Religious Orders by Migne, says that his grandfather, Amadeus III, brought the symbol of the cross back home after crusading in 1147. You may be right then... The earlier Counts of Savoie may have been inspired by the Hospitallers' flag and used a smaller white cross at the center of the red field, which later became the Swiss flag.