Ancient Armour and Weapons in Europe: From the Iron Period of the Northern Nations to the End of the Thirteenth CenturyHewitt, John
History
Ancient Armour and Weapons in Europe: From the Iron Period of the Northern Nations to the End of the Thirteenth Century
Hewitt, John
Armor; Weapons
The knight is armed in hauberk, chausses and hood of chain-mail;
with a chausson, of which the knee-pieces seem to be of iron
plate. Ailettes are at the shoulders, and for pillow the
warrior has his helm; from the lower edge of which a chain
passes to the belt of the surcoat, in order to prevent its
being lost in battle. The triangular, bowed shield is sustained
by the usual guige; and here, as well as on the ailettes and
the escutcheons of the sword-sheath, are seen the _Trumpets_
forming, in allusion to his name, the heraldic bearings of our
knight. 285
74. Incised slab to the memory of the knight, Johan le Botiler, in
the church of St. Bride's, Glamorganshire. Date, about 1300.
As in the preceding example, the heraldic figures (borne in
this instance on the shield and cervellière) are allusive to
the name of the bearer, Butler. The sword, with its trefoil
pommel and narrow, curved cross-piece, has quite the character
of the Anglo-Saxon weapon of the eleventh century. In the rowel
spur, however, we recognise the spirit of progress; and the
cervellière of plate, worn, as here, in conjunction with the
coif of chain-mail, is an early example of that arrangement in
a monumental effigy. 287
75. Figure of Goliath, from Add. MS. 11,639, fol. 520: a Hebrew
copy of the Pentateuch and Forms of Prayer, written in Germany
about the close of the thirteenth century. The giant has
hauberk and chausses of chain-mail, with knee-pieces of plate,
and the broad-rimmed chapel-de-fer. The shield retains the boss
and strengthening bands which we have seen in examples from the
Anglo-Saxon and Frankish graves. The round mark at the temple
is the stone hurled from the sling of David. 290
76. Part of a figure from the wall-pictures of the Painted Chamber
at Westminster: to shew the form of the pointed, nasal helmet.
Date, the second half of the thirteenth century. 291
77. Glass-painting in the window of the north transept of Oxford
Cathedral. The tracery formerly belonging to it no longer
appears, and it is now mixed up with glass of a later period.
It is scarcely necessary to say that the martyr's head is a
"restoration." The knights are armed in suits of banded-mail,
with knee-pieces of plate. The uplifted sword is of the
falchion kind. Fitz-Urse has on his shield three Bears' heads
on a diapered field, in lieu of the usual figure of a single
Bear. Compare woodcut, No. 53. The date of this glass appears
to be about the close of the thirteenth century. 296
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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