_4th Period_, about 1500 A.D. to about 1526 A.D.--Armour had now reached a great pitch of perfection. How perfect it was may be judged from the fact that in many of the battles very few knights were slain. Their greatest danger lay in being unhorsed and ridden over, and of being slain while lying helpless on the ground. After a battle, the camp followers and servants of the victors flocked about the men-at-arms who had been overthrown, and slew most of them by breaking open the “vizards” of their head-pieces and then cleaving their heads. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the pointed sollerets gave place to the broad-toed sabbatons (Fig. 1), cut off square or rounded at the toes, following as in former times the fashion of the shoes in civil costume. The breastplate was globular in form and narrow at the waist. A regular skirt of chain mail was added now to the knightly costume, reaching half-way down the thigh below the lowest part of the tuilles. They were probably found more convenient to horsemen than solid plates of overlapping steel (Fig. 1). Armour generally became more massive, and the enrichment and ornamentation were very elaborate. During the reign of Henry VIII. the helmets took the form of the head, and had flexible, overlapping plates of steel covering and protecting the neck. They were called _Armets_, and were worn with and without face-pieces. As in earlier times, we find in pictures of the period a great variety of fashion and great divergence both of arms, and armour brought together in the same troop of warriors. The _halberd_, first mentioned in the reign of Edward IV., was now a weapon in common use with the infantry (Fig. 5). The hand gun or cannon was also first generally known in England during the reign of Edward IV. It was now improved by the addition of a lock, and was called an arc-a-bousa, corrupted into arquebus, and was familiarised to the English by Henry VII. _5th Period_, about 1525 A.D. to about 1600 A.D.--During this period “all the rich and fanciful fertility of invention which distinguished the artists of the sixteenth century was lavished on the enrichment and ornamentation of armour,” while as actual protective covering its value began to decline. It must be remembered that “armour used on the battlefield was much lighter and less complete than that used in the tournament, where protection to the wearer was more considered than his ability to hurt his opponent.” In the Tower of London there is, among others, a suit of armour given to Henry VIII. by the Emperor Maximilian as a wedding present on the occasion of his marriage to Katherine of Arragon, which is considered to be one of the finest in existence. The badges (roses, pomegranates, portcullis, etc.) of Henry and of Katherine, with their initials united by a true-lovers’ knot, are engraved on it, and it is also elaborately ornamented and covered with engravings from the Lives of the Saints.