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
Different from all these is the interpretation offered by M. de
Vigne in his _Recueil de Costumes du Moyen-Age_. On Plate LVI. of
that work, the author has given a series of sketches, shewing the
supposed construction of various ancient armours. The banded mail
is represented as formed of rows of overlapping rings, sewn down
on leather or other similar material, "avec les coutures couvertes
de petites bandes de cuir." Von Leber, in his sketch of medieval
armour, has the same notion: "Vom 13. his nach Anfang des 14.
Jahrh. der lederstreifige Ringharnisch als unschöne und unbequeme
Ritterhülle[348]." This interpretation, however, is at variance with
those ancient monuments where the _inside_ of the defence exhibits
the ring-work as well as the exterior. See our print of the De
Sulney effigy. A more improbable garment, to say the least of it,
than a hauberk of leather, _faced_ with mail and _lined_ with mail,
can scarcely be conceived. Other examples of the hauberk, shewing
the banding on the inside, are furnished by the brass of De Creke
(Waller, Pt. viii.; Boutell, p. 39), a brass at Minster, Isle of
Sheppey (Stothard, Pl. LIV.; Boutell, p. 42), in the effigy of Sir
John D'Aubernoun (Stothard, Pl. LX.), and the brass at Ghent, figured
in the Archæological Journal, vol. vii. p. 287.
Sometimes the knight's horse is barded with banded-mail, as in the
figure from a manuscript in the Library of Cambrai, given by De Vigne
in his _Recueil de Costumes_, vol. ii., plate VIII. In Roy. MS. 20,
D. i. fol. 330, a work of about the close of the thirteenth century,
are elephants with similar caparisons: on their backs are castles,
full of fighting men.
We have already noticed that four sculptured effigies with
banded-mail have been observed in England. The Tewkesbury figure is
given by Stothard; an example further curious from the hauberk being
sculptured as ordinary chain-mail, while the camail alone is of the
banded work. In the "Memoirs," p. 125, Stothard, writing of this
camail to Mr. Kerrich, says: "Amongst other curious things I have
met with, is a figure which has some remarkable points about it;
but, for the discovery of these, I devoted a whole day in clearing
away a thick coating of whitewash which concealed them. The mail
attached to the helmet was of that kind so frequently represented in
drawings, and which you have had doubts whether it was not another
way of representing that sort we are already acquainted with. I am
sorry that I know no more of its construction now than before I met
with it." The effigy at Dodford, near Weedon, is engraved in Baker's
Northamptonshire, vol. i. p. 360. The knight has hauberk, chausses
and coif of banded-mail, with poleyns, coutes and cervellière of
plate. The figure at Tollard Royal, Wilts, has not been engraved; but
from some memorandums kindly furnished by a friend, it appears that
this knight is habited in hauberk, chausses and coif of banded-mail,
with a skull-cap of plate.
[Illustration: No. 68]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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