The SPEAR for war of the thirteenth century offers no change from that of the preceding age. The shaft of it is still uniform from end to end, not yet being hollowed out for the grip, as in the lance of a later date. The head is of three forms: the lozenge, the leaf, and the barbed. The lozenge spear-head is the most usual, and appears in the accompanying group from the Lives of the Two Offas, Cott. MS., Nero, D. i. fol. 7. See also our woodcuts, No. 62 and 75. The leaf-shaped head occurs on fol. 4 of Nero, D. i.; on fol. 27 of Harl. MS. 3,244; and on the Shurland monument (Stothard, Pl. XLI.) The barbed spear was probably not considered a knightly weapon, but carried by soldiers of an inferior grade. At all events, we occasionally find men-at-arms furnished with it, as in Roy. MS. 20, D. i., a book of about the close of this century. And earlier in the period, at the battle of Bovines in 1214, we have the curious account of Rigord, shewing the jeopardy in which the life of King Philip was placed through the attack of a soldier armed with a spear of this description. This soldier of the emperor's host struck at the neck of the king, the usual point of attack, and though the gorget of the monarch prevented the weapon from inflicting any wound, the barbs of the spear became so firmly fixed between the hauberk and the head-defence, that the sturdy German was enabled to pull Philippe Auguste from his horse and lay him prone at his feet. The king managed to raise himself again, but the soldier held firm. The emperor, who was near at hand, rushed forward to terminate the strife by the death of his rival, and all seemed over. Galon de Montigny meanwhile, the Bannerer of the king, proclaimed the danger of his master by incessantly _raising and lowering_ the Standard over the spot where this contest was taking place. The French were animated to new exertions: a band of seigneurs and gentlemen cut their way to the spot where the king was struggling in unequal conflict with his foes: the spearman, struck down or slain, let go his hold: the fight continued, furiously as ever, but in numbers less disproportionate than before: Etienne de Longchamp, one of the bravest of the French nobles, is slain by the side of the king: Pierre Tristan, another distinguished knight, leaps from his steed, and gives it to his monarch: Guillaume des Barres at this moment comes up with reinforcements, charges the German host with impetuous bravery, and turns their triumph into a rout. The Lance is occasionally furnished with a streamer, as at a former period. It is seen in our last engraving (No. 80), from the Lives of the Offas; and again in woodcuts, Nos. 55 and 62. Compare also Harl. MS. 3,244, fol. 27, and other groups from the Lives of the Offas. In some of these examples, the lance-flag is ensigned with a cross only; in others it is quite blank: in others, again, as the brass of D'Aubernoun, it bears a device clearly heraldic.